Gilbert Arenas: Sidekick, Actually

Gilbert Arenas

We can all agree that Gilbert Arenas' new start is necessary; we wonder exactly what kind of production we can expect going forward from the 28 year old guard. I mean, in his heyday, Gil was giving you 28.4 a night; the percentages were never great (42% with 35% from 3. Yikes.), but MAN, when it counted he got buckets, right? This season his 17 ppg on 39.4% shooting, with an abysmal 32.4% from deep looks sobering for Dwight n' Co. BUT...let's look at the games he's played as Numero dos, with John Wall running the show. It's a small sample size, only 11 games, and if you throw out the 2 absolute stinkers, a 2-14 bomb vs Charlotte and a 1-10 clunker at Toronto, as "just bad nights", Agent 1 looks decidedly better when he's riding shotgun; the other 9 games playing Robin to Wall's Batman he was at 18 ppg, 42% overall, but 44% FROM 3.  Playing with a much better assortment of talent around him, Gil's minutes may drop, but his efficiency should, I say SHOULD, be at an all time high for him. Not worth friggin' 22 MIL a year, but given the situation, I guess Otis Smith is making the best of it. At least Gil has a pulse, he'll affect the game somehow; there are stretches where you're not even sure Rashard Lewis was in the bulding, and if a 6'11" dude can make himself invisible doing what he's grossly overpaid to do, then something's gotta give.

When The Smoke Clears...Magic Make Things Appear.

So there I was, it's 11 AM on a Saturday, I'm gettin' my head kicked in by a Statistics final, and my phone goes nuts. Texts. 3 missed calls. Twitter alerts. After I turned my test in, dried my tears of failure, it was time to see what the fuss was abo...DAMN! So Orlando is trying to do what the Cavs and the Raps couldn't do and and now the Nuggets and Hornets are trying so desperately to do: keep the Franchise content with his lot in the NBA landscape. Dwight Howard's locked in until 2012, and best believe, as jokey and "aw shucks" as he seems, he's got a shark's eye on the moves of the Heat, and the Bulls, and the moves that CP3 and 'Melo make. It's a business, the leagues Last Dominant Big wants to win. the Magic have been Mavs East (regular season juggernauts who look lost when they get ousted in the playoffs), so Orlando rolled the dice: Said "our bad",bringing back Turk, along with athletic streak scorer Jason Richardson and enigma Earl Clark, while shipping out the gutless VC, Martin Gortat, and Michael "Peaches" Pietrus. Almost simultaneously, they admitted that 'Shard Lewis fooled 'em into giving him that utterly ridiculous 119 million dollar (goddamn) contract and swapped him Gilbert Arenas, AKA 2010's fontrunner in the "Mike Vick Comeback Award". For some reason the rumbles seem to be that 1) Orlando panicked, that 2) replacing VC with Arenas/Richardson is a somehow a downgrade, and that 3) Turkoglu being brought back is pointless. Well, let's see...
1) Define "panic". Is it panic because, while the Magic looked unstoppable at times last season, especially in the 1st 2 rounds of the playoffs, the front office realized that the throttling they recieved by the Lakers 2 years ago and the thrashing the Celts laid on them in the '10 would continue if the Magic didn't make some significant moves? This team isn't the Blazers or the Thunder, being built painstakingly and lovingly via draft and shrewd midlevel free agents; the "let's be patient and let it marinate" tact won't fly, D. Howard's clock is ticking. Panic or not, this is what a GM is SUPPOSED to do; see your teams weaknesses and try to improve on them.

2) Richardson is a MUCH better defender than VC, and J-Rich in last year's playoffs was SPECTACULAR, providing timely scoring and clutch play. Arenas? For all the baggage; the bad knees, the bonehead gunplay, the silly "faked injuries", Arenas still has to be feared by the opposition for his scoring and his fearlessness in the clutch. Sure, the shooting percentages don't look good, but how quickly we forget the insanely clutch play Arenas showed just 3 years ago, when he was turning his back and celebrating while the ball was still in-flight on a last second shot he put up. Plus take into account that Gilbert was handed the keys to 2 of the most dysfunctional franchies out there, G-State and Washington. A team with strong leadership in Van Gundy  and an exceptionally bigger star like Orlando should bring out the best in Gil while keeping his insanity in check. Give me Arenas/J-Rich over Carter any day, hands down.

3) Championships aren't won by stars, they're won by stars driving the engine built on role players. Turk in Orlando was a unique thing. he was a role player who carried himself like a star, but THE STAR WAS COOL WITH THAT. Why they let him leave is baffling to me, and it's cool to see Otis Smith pretty much shrug and say,"my bad, lemme get that back and try again." He was good when he had 2 things; the ball in his hands and someone to pass to. He was bad when he was expected to do "little things" and be a catch-and-shooter. This is a win-win; he comes back to the situation that made him look so good, and Orlando get the ONE thing that really made them devastating; the 6-10 guard who can create a matchup nightmare for anyone. And Lewis? Lewis was like paying Lambo money and having it show up with a Camry engine: Camry's are ok, but Lambo money should NEVER be spent on one. At least he should bring some professionalism and shooting to the Wiz, alleviating the Arena/Wall overlap, and shoot ALOT of 3s.

Honestly, the thing that may hurt the Magic in the short-term is the absence of Gortat and "Peaches", leaving the bench pretty dang thin. Somehow Gortat got labeled as a "starter" talent which is foolish, but the guy was quality in his short stretches. Same with Peaches; he might never be the player HE thinks he is, but his shooting, D, and athleticism will be missed, at least by Chuck Wagon. I dug watching the Polish Hammer and Air France when they'd dominate lesser second units, or when they were plugged in with Howard and Nelson and were part of a ridiculous 23-4 scoring run.
Memo to the Heat and the Bulls; Orlando may have been stumbling, and they haven't been a "story" all year. They realized that they were juuuust a cut below the Celts and Lakers,  while the Bulls, Spurs, and Heat are all bristling with talent, so they made a huge gamble. At the very least the Magic now are a team to watch as they try to integrate new variables into the always elusive "team chemistry" while attempting to slug it out with the NBA big boys, and at most they've thrown their hats into the ring with the rest of the contenders. Can't wait to see Nelson running with Agent Zero on one wing and J-Rich on the other with Howard rumbling down the middle behind them. Your turn, N'awlins!

10 Day IR...

...but the training staff has cleared me to resume full-contact basketball witng activities. For the last 10 days, while suffering from lazybumitis, I've soaked up as much preseason a healthily possible, pored over about 658 other ball blogs, watched the NBAtv previews, and tried o sneak into the Staples center disguised as Artests' Zoloft carrier (I made that up), and marveled over Gilbert Arenas' Cosby look. As much as the world drools  while waiting to see how LWB get loose in MIA, there are uncountable other storylines percolating, from the Arenas saga while Wall hits the scene in DC to the D. Cousins psyche experiment during young Tyreke's "fork-in-the-road" 2nd season (we KNOW Evans is talented, but can he use the Force to expand his team game and raise the Kings collectively, or will he start toward the Dark Side, putting up huge numbers on a team that can't find ways to win?). Here are 2 major plotlines in "As The League Turns" that got me tuning in:

1. Rise of The Fallen
  Last year, the Nets were putrid, Washington was embarrassingly painful to watch, Minnesota looked like a Div II team that snuck it's way into the NBA, and watching the NO Hornets was like watching an injured fighter trying to limp through a 12 rounder with one arm. There's no way to sugarcoat it, there was some disgusting basketball played in those there cities. This is what I love about the NBA, though; we've seen these squads low, now we get to see what they're made of. Michael Beasley gets to try and jumpstart his career while simultaneously helping the Wolves return to threat status out west. Yeah, it's the preseason, but watching dem Minny Boys run the Lakers off the floor over in Spain was a promising sign; Beaz looks confident with his slick drives and wet leftie pull-ups, K Love looks dominant on the boards, and the rook Wes Johnson looks like the real deal. The Nets were a W.O.A.T. candidate last year; but now, with new owner, new coach, new athletic wings, and a new lotto pick forward, I'm excited to see these young cats grow together. Washington had one of the most atrocious seasons ever from a PR and bad luck standpoint; Agent Zero went from being a near-Top-10 "Hibachi" player to living in a halfway house upon his release from frickin' prison. The DC brass said screw it, blew the squad up (sending Jamison to be "The Guy Cleveland Got Instead of Amar'e. D'OH!" and Caron Butler to the "Ground Hog's Day" Mavericks).  but we see the young talent in Javale, Blatche, and Nick Young. Add the insane potential and speed of  # Uno John Wall and the tantalizing Yi Jialian, we got us something to watch in DC. Finally, we heard the rumblings from CP3 in the NO, and after watching the Hornets be continually outgunned and out-muscled last year even when Paul WAS on the court was just sad (just 18 months ago they were considered the "young team on the rise out West". OKC says "Gimme that!"). No Paul is chillin' in public, but the Hornets front office KNOWS the clock is ticking, and Trevor Ariza and Marco freakin' Belinelli ain't gonna cut it. What big move can N'awlins pull off to convince their savior to stay? Man, I'm amped...

2. Youth Movement
It seems like the league kinda stagnated for a few years in the early 2000s. There was some ugly, ugly basketball out of the East, I mean, the Nets made the Finals twice, and Philly went with Iverson, Mutombo, a plumber, and some dudes from the local Philly bars on the squad, for crap's sake. I was watching the replay of the Nets/LA Finals in 2002, and it was jaw-droppingly horrendous to see Keith Van Horn stinking it up in June. BEN WALLACE made 4 All-Star teams. Let that sink in. 4. Look at some of the number one draft picks: Kenyon Martin (2000), Kwame "Hands Of Stone" Brown (2001), Bogut (2005), and Bargnani (2006). ALL are decent player, Bogut looks like he may be a borderline All-Star, but as far as number one picks, they sucked. One positive about these lean years, though; it makes the hardcore NBA fans really appreciate the explosion of talent we're about to see throughout the league. There's gallons of talent every where you look; CP3, Deron, D. Rose, Aaron Brooks,  John Wall, and Rondo are trying to unseat Steve Nash as The PG of the NBA.  Yeah, LBJ and Kobe are the top 2 perimeter players, but Wade, Carmelo, Durant, Danny Granger, Rudy Gay, even relative unknowns like Wilson Chandler (don't trip, 15/5 isn't tuuurrible) and young comebacker Mike Beasley are pushing them for supremacy. Just like 2 years ago, Elton Brand was a 20/10 guy, but now the new crop of long, athletic, multiskilled bigs like Anthony Randolph, Javale McGee, Gallinari, Chris Bosh, Blake Griffin, and rooks DeMarcus Cousins and Derrick Favors are smashing the old "back to the basket" idea of post players. And with Tim Duncan in the twilight of his career, Boston's Big Three all showing signs of decline, and Kobe' showing a few chinks in the armor due to age, in-their-prime teams like D. Howard's Magic and The Miami Triumverate, along with super-young squads like OKC, Portland, New Jersey, The Wizards, and even Philly and the Clips, are licking their chops, waiting for their chance to shine. All in all, young talent spread out + the "Old Wolf/Young Challenger" dynamic will make for some fierce, compelling basketball this season.