It’s only the preseason, so this whole Gilbert Arenas fake-injury thing shouldn’t be a big deal, right? Yeah, right, given the history of events that preceded it and the context in which it happened. Among other things, here are a few lingering questions:
1. How much did this event actually hurt the Washington Wizards?
If there was any reason why both the NBA and the Wizards hoped and prayed and urged Arenas to say little to nothing about last year’s events at media day and haven’t exactly had a problem with him speaking little to none to the press ever since, this was why. It is impossible to predict what is going to come out of his mouth.
Now, Arenas certainly had no malicious intent – he thought it was the exact opposite, in fact – by skipping a preseason game in favor of Nick Young, but it was an act that, like those before it, wasn’t clearly thought through in the least.
And even Arenas’s contrition quickly turned into defensiveness, just as his beard and sullen attitude at media day created a sense of Arenas vs. the world rather than an apologetic stance after bludgeoning the franchise with his antics last winter.
Didn’t he realize that faking an injury was actually a subversive and bad idea?
“In hindsight, yes, but I wasn’t really thinking that this was going to be another media outburst,” said Arenas. “It’s like everything I do now, someone tit for tat, try to blow it out of proportion. At the end of the day, Nick is happy. He got to play, got to show that he can play, and I’m out here taking all the heat again. I made my teammate happy.”
Asked if he thought there might have been a better way to get Young on the floor, Arenas said: “If I wouldn’t have made any comments, you guys wouldn’t have known, right? Let’s just say I blew it again. It’s like you guys want somebody honest but you don’t want somebody honest. I messed up again. I’ll never do it again. I practice. I play hard. I just thought it would be great to see Nick out there enjoying the game.”
And similar to last year’s gun incident debacle, the Wizards are hoping to sweep it under the rug and into the annals of forgotten events quickly. But first they had to confront it and deal with it, and Wizards head coach Flip Saunders tried as hard as he could to focus on the practical implications.
“In my conversation with both [Arenas] and in front of the team was, ‘When you guys indicate to me that you’re in a situation that you can’t play, I can’t judge when someone is hurt or not hurt. Only you can tell us that. When you indicate and say that to me, that’s what I go by. I prepare from a team standpoint, as far as preparing for a game and moving on that way.’”
Plus, what if it had backfired and Young hadn’t played?
“I told him and I told the team, ‘I dictate who plays,’” said Saunders. “No player is going to dictate who plays. Just because Gilbert doesn’t play, that doesn’t mean Nick is going to play because prior to that game, we would’ve started Al Thornton. So if Al had been healthy, no matter what, one of those three guards was sitting and Al was going to play. So, you know, we move on, we deal with it and we let him know where we stand.”
2. How much did this whole thing hurt Flip’s relationship with Arenas?
Of course this kind of stunt would happen on the same night that Saunders tried to dispel the notion once and for all that Arenas is a difficult or disruptive element in practices or games.
“Gil, in the two years I’ve been here, has been the easiest guy I’ve had to coach, okay,” said Saunders after Tuesday’s game – when Arenas obviously didn’t play. “He is receptive, and he will do whatever I ask him to do from a coaching standpoint. I’ve said that from day one. Whatever role I give, it’s more the opposite where he’ll defer more than he will try to do too much, especially with the group we have.”
Again, Saunders has done his best to focus on what he is supposed to control as a coach – what Arenas does on the court. But his patience can only be tested for so long.
“I told him, ‘I most disappointed, personally, because I believe in you,’” said Saunders on Wednesday. “There has been a trust factor. I told him, ‘You have to be honest with me.’ It’s just like dealing with your kids, when your kids make mistakes, what you do is you deal with them. It doesn’t mean you love them any less.”
But Arenas also isn’t the alpha progeny anymore either. Flip has a bigger job now: molding John Wall into an NBA All-Star. The team is going to move on with or without Arenas on board, but it’s things like this that will always make it difficult for them to do so, both by distracting from the great talent and skills that Arenas still can offer on the court and impeding the team’s ability to try and trade him.
3. What will the reception be like for Arenas at Verizon Center tonight?
Before the phantom injury happened, before Arenas removed himself from contention for Tuesday’s preseason game, the question was, what kind of reception would Arenas get in his first game back at Verizon Center since last season’s suspension? When it was learned that he wasn’t going to play, it became, is Arenas ready for the reception, good or bad, that he’s going to get at Verizon Center?
There are indications that Arenas has legitimate concerns about being booed even though he said this Tuesday night when I asked him about his level of anticipation for his first game in the arena since last year: “Basketball is basketball, but this is the city where I’ve been playing for the last eight years, and I know they love me here.”
How will the phantom injury act influence that love? It remains to be seen, but if Arenas was worried about a mixed or negative reception before, he might be even more justified to feel that way.
