Injury update 2: Gilbert Arenas [and more]

Gilbert hasn’t played since the 8th game of the season and, as I expected, couldn’t meet that March 3 target date he set for himself. So, how is he doing? Well, he went through a full practice on Thursday.

Coach Eddie Jordan talked a little bit about it after practice. “He looked OK. I thought he looked better two practices ago but we did some things that were new to him, some defensive schemes that I wanted him to touch on and get a feel for so that sort of screws you up, when you think and try to do your work (Eddie said this while cracking on Chick Hernandez of Comcast)….We want him to get into a muscle memory habit with our defensive schemes, our pick-and-roll (reads) and those kinds of things so, he was out there thinking and moving and wasn’t as instinctive as he was in his first practice.”

Of course, looming behind Gil’s injury situation is his unrestricted free agency status in the offseason. Part of what is making Gil so cautious with the injury is that he came back too early in October, but the other part is his free agency. Gil knows he has a decent chance to wrangle max dollars out of some team in the summer, but his chances of doing so drop considerably if he suffers a 3rd knee injury in one calendar year. He wants and needs to stay healthy before he signs another contract.
For Washington, the good news is that no other team can offer Gil as much money as the Bullets can and Gil definitely wants to get every last dollar he can. From a Washington Post chat earlier this week:

Columbia, MD: Any insight on other teams that could offer Gilbert a FA contract? Have any teams hinted they might take a shot, any teams that need a Gilbert type player and will have the $$ to make an offer?
Ivan Carter: That’s an issue because the way the market is shaping up, very few teams are going to have money and those that will (Memphis and Philadelphia) aren’t very good. I can promise you that Gilbert isn’t going to a bottom feeder.

Tom Knott has more on that:

The Wizards know what Arenas wants, and they know they are in no position to play financial games with their franchise player because of the message it would send to their fan base.
If the Wizards offer Arenas a maximum contract and he bolts to another team, Ernie Grunfeld could say, and rightly, that he did all he could to re-sign the three-time All-Star, and no one would be able to fault him or the organization.
…
This is his city now, and although it is a Redskins city, Arenas is the preeminent athlete of the city, a title that can be debated only by Alex Ovechkin.
Arenas has put down roots here and recently had a swimming pool installed at his upscale home in Great Falls.
That is not the act of a player looking to skip town.
And it is his team. And he is fortunate to be the teammate of two other All-Stars, Caron Butler and Antawn Jamison, whose egos do not need to be constantly massaged. Both Butler and Jamison are confident enough in their abilities and contributions that they have no problem being overlooked at times because of Arenas.
…
It is merely up to Arenas to get healthy, sign his maximum contract in the summer and lead the Wizards to a championship in the seasons ahead.
Twenty or so years from now, a graying Arenas will be in attendance to watch his No. 0 being raised to the rafters.

I confess, I’d be a lot more worried about Gil being around in the long term if there were lots of other teams out there with money to spend. As it turns out, there are only a few teams that will have enough space under the cap to throw big bucks at Gil and they are not the sort of teams Gil would likely be interested in playing for. Arenas lost a lot in Golden State and he lost a lot in his first season here. The arrival of Antawn Jamison brought wins to the Bullets [and Gil] for the first time in years and the arrival of Caron Butler a year later brought the tantalizing possibility of an NBA title in DC. I think Gil would take a max contract from another team if the situation was attractive. The way things stand now, I’d say Gil looks like he’ll be wearing our uniform for a long, long time.
Let’s just hope he spends most of his remaining years in the NBA actually wearing that uniform during games. I’m tired of seeing him in suits.