Gil Interview with Quotable Quotes

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

On hoopshype.com yesterday, they posted qoutes and a link to Gil's latest interview with Dime Magazine.

http://dimemag.com/2008/10/gilbert-aren ... zero-blog/

I think what we don’t realize as players is we’re like leaves, and the NBA is a tree. And when the wind blows, some of us are out of there. At the end of the day, all of the leaves on the tree are gonna be gone, and there’s gonna be new leaves. I’m just a leaf on a tree right now.

As you can tell from my sig, I'm not a big fan of Gil's right now.

After reading that article it occurs to me that Gil fully understands hype, personality, and marketing. He IS funny. He IS a great scorer when he's healthy. I credit him for understanding exactly how to make bank on the Wizards the way he did.

He states his jersey sale went up with him hurt, fully understanding the bottom line of the average NBA consumer. He's popular. Like Shaq, Gil's quite the character.

My problem is the BOTTOM LINE is dude's not a winner in the playoffs so far and he's been hurt like forever, yet he's proclaiming he's done the noble thing only taking $111 Million while he's on the mend.

I'm old school. Give me somebody that wins and I don't care if he's funny or marketable.

(For what it's worth I think OPEC's just as funny as Gil. He looks like Stewie Griffin and he says one funny thing after another.)

[Bickerstaff]

Do you think he intentionally injured himself? Do you think he's doing this on purpose? Do you think he's happy being hurt? If you think he's a ball hog, fine. If you think he's a lazy defender, fine. If you think he's a jerk, fine. But how can you be mad at him for being hurt?

[yungal07]

Cool...let's kick Gilbert while he's down...it's fun!

[newslowsad]

Arenas is an example of someone who buys the hype surrounding them and lets it go their head. He may be a perfectly great guy in person, but to an outsider, it's not looking too good. He is who he is and the more I read on him as each season passes, the less I find it likely that he's going to change. I am fully convinced that the Wiz are stuck in neutral. I want to be wrong, but I'm almost fully convinced that Gil won't deliver, fans will become even more bitter and his tenure in Washington will end ugly. Sorry for the gloom and doom, but I just can't buy into any spin that we're headed for anything but sour times.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Do you think he intentionally injured himself? Do you think he's doing this on purpose? Do you think he's happy being hurt? If you think he's a ball hog, fine. If you think he's a lazy defender, fine. If you think he's a jerk, fine. But how can you be mad at him for being hurt?

I'm mad that he opted out while hurt and succeeded in getting what I fear is way too much money.

Baron Davis got 65 Million. I don't think Gil's 46 Million better than Davis. Davis got his team past the first round over Dallas. IMO his careeer accomplishments are pretty similar.

What I'm mad at Gilbert about is I think he lacks humility and that at the end of the day he's more about the show than the win.

I don't fault Gil at all for getting market value for himself, but I'm pissed to keep hearing from him while he's doing nothing to help the team win.

I feel like the playoffs two seasons ago, where AD and Jamison went off but still got swept, were better than last season's when Gil came back but was unable to go.

As you can tell from my rant, I'm emotional about this. I feel really bad that a guy can have a crappy, injured year, deliberately opt out and get long-term money when there's no guarantee that he'll even be 85-90% of what he was.

Deep down inside, I probably am just hating on the dude because of where I am in life. Seeing a rich dude like him try to come off as giving the Wizards a break just taking 111Mill makes me pretty hot.

DISCLAIMER: Gil's a tremendously exciting player who I think is one of the best ever at hitting game winners. I know he works harder than hard and that that's probably the real reason he's injured. He rushed to get back and play.

My thing is just how he's the show but hasn't even played very much lately. It bothers me.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Arenas is an example of someone who buys the hype surrounding them and lets it go their head. He may be a perfectly great guy in person, but to an outsider, it's not looking too good. He is who he is and the more I read on him as each season passes, the less I find it likely that he's going to change. I am fully convinced that the Wiz are stuck in neutral. I want to be wrong, but I'm almost fully convinced that Gil won't deliver, fans will become even more bitter and his tenure in Washington will end ugly. Sorry for the gloom and doom, but I just can't buy into any spin that we're headed for anything but sour times.

I concur, newslowsad.

[closg00]

I agree with CCJ. Look at what Baron Davis, Deron Williams, and CP3 are making and ask yourself, is Gilbert worth the HUGE difference in salary after 3 knee operations? Wouldn't you gladly swap Gilbert for any of those other 3 PGs?

I wish Gilbert a speedy recovery, but we overpaid for both him and Antawn, and we won't have the money to re-sign up and coming players when their contracts are up.

[nate33]

I agree with CCJ. Look at what Baron Davis, Deron Williams, and CP3 are making and ask yourself, is Gilbert worth the HUGE difference in salary after 3 knee operations? Wouldn't you gladly swap Gilbert for any of those other 3 PGs?

I wish Gilbert a speedy recovery, but we overpaid for both him and Antawn, and we won't have the money to re-sign up and coming players when their contracts are up.

Deron Williams and CP3 are making the maximum money for a player with 4 years experience. It's not fair to compare Arenas to those guys.

[20MexicanosIn1Van]

I remember back in the day when Gilbert was an underrated, little-talked about, genuinely nice and down to person guy, who also left it all on the court.

I miss those days.

[dandridge 10]

Do you think he intentionally injured himself? Do you think he's doing this on purpose? Do you think he's happy being hurt? If you think he's a ball hog, fine. If you think he's a lazy defender, fine. If you think he's a jerk, fine. But how can you be mad at him for being hurt?

I'm mad that he opted out while hurt and succeeded in getting what I fear is way too much money.

Baron Davis got 65 Million. I don't think Gil's 46 Million better than Davis. Davis got his team past the first round over Dallas. IMO his careeer accomplishments are pretty similar.

What I'm mad at Gilbert about is I think he lacks humility and that at the end of the day he's more about the show than the win.

I don't fault Gil at all for getting market value for himself, but I'm pissed to keep hearing from him while he's doing nothing to help the team win.

I feel like the playoffs two seasons ago, where AD and Jamison went off but still got swept, were better than last season's when Gil came back but was unable to go.

As you can tell from my rant, I'm emotional about this. I feel really bad that a guy can have a crappy, injured year, deliberately opt out and get long-term money when there's no guarantee that he'll even be 85-90% of what he was.

Deep down inside, I probably am just hating on the dude because of where I am in life. Seeing a rich dude like him try to come off as giving the Wizards a break just taking 111Mill makes me pretty hot.

DISCLAIMER: Gil's a tremendously exciting player who I think is one of the best ever at hitting game winners. I know he works harder than hard and that that's probably the real reason he's injured. He rushed to get back and play.

My thing is just how he's the show but hasn't even played very much lately. It bothers me.

CCJ,

I don't blame Gilbert at all for opting out or his contract. It was the right move for him financially...if you want to blame anyone, I would blame Wizards management.

I do agree with you that Gilbert seems to be more about the show than winning. Gil has made it perfectly clear that he views his job as entertainment. While I sometimes find his quirky attitude refreshing and fun, as a fan I'd rather have a player that views his job as nothing more than to win a championship. Stars that have won championships seem to be made in the mold of "serious, win at no cost" type players, e.g., Jordan, Bird, Kareem, Isiah, Duncan, etc., not the "I'm just having fun and giving people a good show" type players.

[daSwami]

On hoopshype.com yesterday, they posted qoutes and a link to Gil's latest interview with Dime Magazine.

http://dimemag.com/2008/10/gilbert-aren ... zero-blog/

I think what we don’t realize as players is we’re like leaves, and the NBA is a tree. And when the wind blows, some of us are out of there. At the end of the day, all of the leaves on the tree are gonna be gone, and there’s gonna be new leaves. I’m just a leaf on a tree right now.

it occurs to me that Gil fully understands hype, personality, and marketing. Give me somebody that wins and I don't care if he's funny or marketable.

I'm a devout a Gil apologist, and am willing to cut him some slack on the self-promo stuff because in my personal experience, he's a guy who takes a great deal of pride and makes the effort to connect with fans and have positive encounters with them. Speaking personally, I've only had a couple "encounters" with him and I will say this: they were always spirit-lifting. As most on this board know, last summer I found myself dealing with a serious (and unexpected) health crisis. In an effort to lift my spirits, my wife and a friend (our very own mod extraordinaire, Pine), put a call in to the Wizards PR dept to see if there were any Wizards willing to do hospital visits. Answer: sorry, but no. however, Gil did go out of his way to put together a care package of autographed Wizards stuff for me. Word got back to me that a package would be coming to me from Gil and I woke up every morning in the hospital excited that that might be the day the package arrived. It gave me something to look forward to every day, which made my 6-week stint in the hospital a bit more bearable. Gil didn't know me from Adam, but he knew he had the power to make a positive impact on someone's life, so he did, and I'm grateful to him for it.

For an athlete of his caliber, he's exceedingly approachable, and is more than willing to chat hoops with the cashier at the Northpoint Reston Giant (which i happen to know he does). Those conversations are probably not much different than the ones he has with the media. If a weird metaphor about leaves pops into his head he'll just say it. He's just a kooky right-brained dude (an authentic eccentric, ala John Riggens) who happens to be a worldclass athlete. I think in many ways Gil is still the kid shooting hoops in the driveway daydreaming that he's hitting buzzer beaters over Patrick Ewing. His brain is a running commentary of self-heroics. To me, this is why his "flakiness" is endearing, because I believe it's an authentic bi-product of waking up every day and realizing you're living your dream. (gil strikes me as a different animal than a guys like T.O. or DEnnis Rodman, who come off as raging narcissists who calculate their every move to get the attention they seek). Does gil enjoy being the center of attention? hell yes he does. but it hasn't seemed to have corrupted his character (imho).

It seems that Dc's love affair with Gil ended when the hype surrounding Gil's admittedly self-indulgent 25th birthday extravaganza, which sealed Gil's rep forever as the pimp daddy of attention whores.

Remember, part of the reason the party got so much attention was because it was directly preceded by what was the greatest month-stretch of basketball by a single player I remember. Gil put up back-to-back 50+ pt games against Phoenix and Lakers (he even dropped 61 in Kobe's grill, if memory serves). I seem to remember there being a couple (maybe3?) buzzer eaters in that stretch, too. Thanks to Gil and his westcoast heroics the Wiz were the hottest team in the league (best record in the east through mid-January). Gil was a hot commodity because of his play on the court, not just the self-promo off of it. So ... my point is: It will take a lot more than a few flakey media comments or blog posts to make me stop cheering for Gilbert Arenas.

[nate33]

Remember, part of the reason the party got so much attention was because it was directly preceded by what was the greatest month-stretch of basketball by a single player I remember. Gil put up back-to-back 50+ pt games against Phoenix and Lakers (he even dropped 61 in Kobe's grill, if memory serves). I seem to remember there being a couple (maybe3?) buzzer eaters in that stretch, too.

Ahh, what a great month it was. For the entire month of December, excluding the first and last games of the month (a 13-game stretch overall), Arenas averaged:

Code: Select all

Criteria     PTS   RB   AS   ST   BK   TO   PF eFG%  TS%
Last 13 Avg 37.2  4.7  6.2  2.0  0.0  3.5  3.4 .571 .628

37 points per game with a 63% TS% from a 6-4 guard? Are you freakin' kidding me?

[spaceman_E]

I can't wait til he gets back on the court and he shuts you all up.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

I can't wait til he's playing again either because he won't shut up while not playing.

I never said he wasn't great nor am I surprised he took the time to be nice to Swami. I bet he is a likeable guy for real, attention seeking or not.

I am just of the opinion that injured guys shouldn't be so outspoken.

Swami, since he was gracious to you I'll edit the title to be more Gil-friendly. I got the metaphor and thought he made a good point to essentially say players better get what they can while they can (before they're no longer part of the NBA's money tree).

I had absolutely no problem with Gil's metaphor at all.

[doclinkin]

Remember, part of the reason the party got so much attention was because it was directly preceded by what was the greatest month-stretch of basketball by a single player I remember. Gil put up back-to-back 50+ pt games against Phoenix and Lakers (he even dropped 61 in Kobe's grill, if memory serves). I seem to remember there being a couple (maybe3?) buzzer eaters in that stretch, too. Thanks to Gil and his westcoast heroics the Wiz were the hottest team in the league (best record in the east through mid-January). Gil was a hot commodity because of his play on the court, not just the self-promo off of it. So ... my point is: It will take a lot more than a few flakey media comments or blog posts to make me stop cheering for Gilbert Arenas.

I'm right here too. Tough to kick the kid for being injured, for trying to come back too soon, and easy to forget what makes him a compelling figure worth watching as well as listening to. But the fact is one of the things that defined him, a key building block of his personality, is that he is pathologically compelled to defy expectations. Of failure specifically.

If you say he can't do something, that's what he will do. Technical fouls, turnovers, etc. -- the early knocks on his game were melted like an ice sculpture under an acetylene torch. Even defense, reports suggested he played insane defense on the Olympic qualifier team (though his shot fell apart) and on that balky knee hinge he came out the gate with a renewed fervor on the defensive end.

Gil's one true love is playing basketball. Not solely because of the public acclaim, he was shy coming into the league for all that he was quirky. He would play if nobody was watching because it satisfies his soul to do so. He will cheat to win. He will try to chase down Samuel Dalembert to fight him in the hallway. He will drop 50+ on Kobe. He'll make key steals, late games or entire series (Chicago). He'll win with buzzer beaters. And yes he'll talk about it, because the shy kid has started talking. BUt you got to know as much as it pains the fans that he can only talk about the game, it's got to be killing him. If he had a choice: collect the salary from this year and last year but not play -- or instead play for free but at the same level as that remarkable pyrotechnic December, which do you think he'd choose...

I fully expect if Gil can ever return to even 95% athleticism and health he will make it a personal crusade to incinerate all the doubts his erstwhile fans laid on him

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Which do I think? Steve Miller put it best: "Go on, take the money and run."

But doc, the part about Gil wanting to chase down and fight somebody I like that.

To me, he should have said something nasty about Lebron's momma back when he was at the FT line in the playoffs a while back.

I'd love to see Gilbert get chippy out there with somebody. My perception from afar would totally change. I became a Stevenson fan this past season because I love the way he can piss people off out there. It's too bad Gil wasn't healthy because DeShawn really got under the Cavs' skin and IMO backed up his talk with the best DS could play. If Gil were healthy and that fiery and chippy I think the Cavs would lose to Washington.

For all the bad I've said recently about Gil I'd welcome a meaner nastier Gil, regardless of if he comes back 100%

[Pradamaster]

I never said he wasn't great nor am I surprised he took the time to be nice to Swami. I bet he is a likeable guy for real, attention seeking or not.

I am just of the opinion that injured guys shouldn't be so outspoken.

I'm probably snipping an unfairly small portion of your larger point, but I think this is a bit unfair to Gil. Remember, Gil was completely silent during the entire summer when he was injured. During the playoffs, he stopped talking to the media. He didn't even speak at Media Day, for God's sake!

I think what you're really trying to get at is that Gil is all about the extreme. He either talks too much when he's hurt or he is irresponsible and dodges his responsibilities as far as speaking to the media when he's supposed to do so. He has been quiet for long periods while out, so the issue isn't that he's outspoken, it's that he's outspoken at the wrong times.

I'm not sure I'm 100% on board with that either, but that's a far more salient point.