boutons_
10-07-2007, 09:19 AM
October 7, 2007
Arenas Works Extra Hard in Rehabilitation to Back Up His Words
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Something is always eating at Gilbert Arenas.
Real or perceived, tangible or not, slights lurk around every corner for Arenas, the Washington Wizards (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/sports/probasketball/nationalbasketballassociation/washingtonwizards/index.html?inline=nyt-org)’ All-Star guard. No matter his accolades, Arenas seems to seek, gather and, yes, cherish affronts the way he collects autographed N.B.A. jerseys — and he owns hundreds of those, from all sorts of players and eras.
Stop him for a few questions after a practice, and out slides a mention of how that very morning he was reading one person’s preseason ranking of top N.B.A. players and was shocked to find himself down at No. 20.
“Duncan’s No. 1, Kobe’s No. 2; then they’ve got all them bums in front of me,” Arenas said last week. “I’m 20; I feel I’m in the top five. There’s motivation right there.”
Typical Arenas, Wizards Coach Eddie Jordan or teammates may say, and they may even laugh or roll their eyes.
What they and fans are not as accustomed to is Arenas’s questioning himself.
That is what Arenas did in the weeks after last season ended prematurely when he tore up his left knee during a game in April.
“I was doubting myself early,” Arenas acknowledged during a chat with a small group of reporters last week in Washington. “When you’re sitting there, hurting, you can’t move, and you just start looking down at your knee, and you’re walking and trying to run, and you’re limping, you’re like, This is how it’s going to be?
“Then I was like, ‘I’m going to wait until December before I can kick it into gear?’ So I just started pushing myself — harder and harder and harder and harder.”
He exercised seven days a week, five to eight hours a day and sometimes more, throughout the dog days of summer. Even though the Wizards’ strength and conditioning coach, Drew Cleary, already considered him a workaholic, Arenas kept pushing himself.
Why?
To add to his three All-Star selections?
To average 28.4 points the way he did in 2006-7, or 29.3 as in 2005-6?
To be able to call 50-point games and deliver?
To increase his array of aliases, which include Hibachi and Agent Zero?
To land more sneaker commercials or more video game covers?
To assure himself of getting the maximum money from the Wizards when he opts out of his contract at the end of the coming season?
No. Not necessarily.
Why then?
To win more games when it truly counts, to finally get beyond the second round of the playoffs — because, as he put it last week, anything less for Arenas and the Wizards this season will be “a failure.”
“The chip for Gilbert is: Is he one of those players? Is he a LeBron James (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/j/lebron_james/index.html?inline=nyt-per)? Can he take his team to the finals?” the team captain Antawn Jamison said. “Can he win a championship like D-Wade and, you know, Tim Duncan (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/d/tim_duncan/index.html?inline=nyt-per)?”
Which is why Arenas would strap a 15-pound weight to his left ankle and dangle the leg off the edge of his bed, forcing his knee to extend.
“That was pain,” he said.
Why he would run the 1,392 steps along one of the seating levels above the team’s home court, up and down, up and down, up and down, hoping with each stair to grind some of the stiffness from his knee and some of the worry from his mind.
“I’ve got to prove myself coming back from this injury,” Arenas said last week.
“I’ve got to prove myself that I’m an M.V.P. candidate in this league and I’m one of the best point guards in this league. So I’m going to come back with that same passion, that same fire. If I have to go out there and score 70 or 80, it’s going to happen, but I don’t shoot for those goals. Goals of mine are always about winning the game.”
Which is why he would ride his bicycle through Washington for an hour or so at a time, three days a week, forcing his knee to keep churning. Lest anyone forget this is Gilbert Arenas, he was sure to explain that he never wore a helmet because he did not want to “look goofy” and stayed on the sidewalks, not streets because, “There’s cars on the street; I’d rather hit a person than a car, any day.”
Why he would go to a public high school and first spend time on the track — four 100-meter sprints, four 200’s, three 300’s, and two 400’s — then chug away on the litter-specked football field with a pair of red-and-blue parachutes strapped to his waist for resistance.
“When I first started running, I was favoring it,” Arenas said, recalling that a teammate who joined him for track work noticed a limp. “We just kept running and running and running, just trying to run it out.”
Why he would do drills on the court that involved dribbling a basketball past Cleary, who tried to knock Arenas off stride by pounding on him with a foam pad that looked like something N.F.L. linemen would use in practice.
And, of course, why Arenas would shoot, sometimes for two and a half hours straight. At one point, Arenas said, his goal was to reach 100,000 made baskets by a certain date, and he was way ahead of pace — but then his shoulders started feeling stiff, and suddenly, it did not seem like such a good idea.
Last week, with reporters gathered a few feet away but no one guarding him, Arenas hoisted 143 3-point attempts from a corner, one after another, and made 100; that works out to 69.9 percent. “That rim is broken,” Arenas said afterward with his customary wink and smile. “Usually, I make all of them.”
Apparently, that self-slighting has started to dissipate. And, apparently, all that work is paying off.
“His body’s in better shape than I’ve ever seen him,” Jordan said. “He’s always in shape, but he is chiseled, he’s cut. He’s got the glare in his eye. He wants to come back stronger than ever.”
This whole ordeal was all a bit new to the 25-year-old Arenas, whose only previous significant injury in the pros was an abdominal problem that limited him to 55 games in 2003-4.
He decided early on during this rehabilitation that he did not want to wear a knee brace so as not to have a constant reminder of what happened. The mental recuperation was just as important as the physical.
Still, Jordan cautioned after Day 2 of practice: “He’s not the real Gil that we all know. Not yet. And it’s normal. But he’s working hard.
“He’s still our best player; he’s still the best player out here. He’s not the real deal yet. When? It’s going to come.”
But Arenas does not want to wait. Ask him how his knee held up at the start of training camp, and you hear what you expect to hear.
“I’m 100 percent now; been 100 percent for the last month,” Arenas said, then nodded in the direction of a group of teammates walking out of Virginia Commonwealth University (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/v/virginia_commonwealth_university/index.html?inline=nyt-org)’s arena. “Ask them. They’re getting killed out there.”
No doubt.
Arenas Works Extra Hard in Rehabilitation to Back Up His Words
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Something is always eating at Gilbert Arenas.
Real or perceived, tangible or not, slights lurk around every corner for Arenas, the Washington Wizards (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/sports/probasketball/nationalbasketballassociation/washingtonwizards/index.html?inline=nyt-org)’ All-Star guard. No matter his accolades, Arenas seems to seek, gather and, yes, cherish affronts the way he collects autographed N.B.A. jerseys — and he owns hundreds of those, from all sorts of players and eras.
Stop him for a few questions after a practice, and out slides a mention of how that very morning he was reading one person’s preseason ranking of top N.B.A. players and was shocked to find himself down at No. 20.
“Duncan’s No. 1, Kobe’s No. 2; then they’ve got all them bums in front of me,” Arenas said last week. “I’m 20; I feel I’m in the top five. There’s motivation right there.”
Typical Arenas, Wizards Coach Eddie Jordan or teammates may say, and they may even laugh or roll their eyes.
What they and fans are not as accustomed to is Arenas’s questioning himself.
That is what Arenas did in the weeks after last season ended prematurely when he tore up his left knee during a game in April.
“I was doubting myself early,” Arenas acknowledged during a chat with a small group of reporters last week in Washington. “When you’re sitting there, hurting, you can’t move, and you just start looking down at your knee, and you’re walking and trying to run, and you’re limping, you’re like, This is how it’s going to be?
“Then I was like, ‘I’m going to wait until December before I can kick it into gear?’ So I just started pushing myself — harder and harder and harder and harder.”
He exercised seven days a week, five to eight hours a day and sometimes more, throughout the dog days of summer. Even though the Wizards’ strength and conditioning coach, Drew Cleary, already considered him a workaholic, Arenas kept pushing himself.
Why?
To add to his three All-Star selections?
To average 28.4 points the way he did in 2006-7, or 29.3 as in 2005-6?
To be able to call 50-point games and deliver?
To increase his array of aliases, which include Hibachi and Agent Zero?
To land more sneaker commercials or more video game covers?
To assure himself of getting the maximum money from the Wizards when he opts out of his contract at the end of the coming season?
No. Not necessarily.
Why then?
To win more games when it truly counts, to finally get beyond the second round of the playoffs — because, as he put it last week, anything less for Arenas and the Wizards this season will be “a failure.”
“The chip for Gilbert is: Is he one of those players? Is he a LeBron James (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/j/lebron_james/index.html?inline=nyt-per)? Can he take his team to the finals?” the team captain Antawn Jamison said. “Can he win a championship like D-Wade and, you know, Tim Duncan (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/d/tim_duncan/index.html?inline=nyt-per)?”
Which is why Arenas would strap a 15-pound weight to his left ankle and dangle the leg off the edge of his bed, forcing his knee to extend.
“That was pain,” he said.
Why he would run the 1,392 steps along one of the seating levels above the team’s home court, up and down, up and down, up and down, hoping with each stair to grind some of the stiffness from his knee and some of the worry from his mind.
“I’ve got to prove myself coming back from this injury,” Arenas said last week.
“I’ve got to prove myself that I’m an M.V.P. candidate in this league and I’m one of the best point guards in this league. So I’m going to come back with that same passion, that same fire. If I have to go out there and score 70 or 80, it’s going to happen, but I don’t shoot for those goals. Goals of mine are always about winning the game.”
Which is why he would ride his bicycle through Washington for an hour or so at a time, three days a week, forcing his knee to keep churning. Lest anyone forget this is Gilbert Arenas, he was sure to explain that he never wore a helmet because he did not want to “look goofy” and stayed on the sidewalks, not streets because, “There’s cars on the street; I’d rather hit a person than a car, any day.”
Why he would go to a public high school and first spend time on the track — four 100-meter sprints, four 200’s, three 300’s, and two 400’s — then chug away on the litter-specked football field with a pair of red-and-blue parachutes strapped to his waist for resistance.
“When I first started running, I was favoring it,” Arenas said, recalling that a teammate who joined him for track work noticed a limp. “We just kept running and running and running, just trying to run it out.”
Why he would do drills on the court that involved dribbling a basketball past Cleary, who tried to knock Arenas off stride by pounding on him with a foam pad that looked like something N.F.L. linemen would use in practice.
And, of course, why Arenas would shoot, sometimes for two and a half hours straight. At one point, Arenas said, his goal was to reach 100,000 made baskets by a certain date, and he was way ahead of pace — but then his shoulders started feeling stiff, and suddenly, it did not seem like such a good idea.
Last week, with reporters gathered a few feet away but no one guarding him, Arenas hoisted 143 3-point attempts from a corner, one after another, and made 100; that works out to 69.9 percent. “That rim is broken,” Arenas said afterward with his customary wink and smile. “Usually, I make all of them.”
Apparently, that self-slighting has started to dissipate. And, apparently, all that work is paying off.
“His body’s in better shape than I’ve ever seen him,” Jordan said. “He’s always in shape, but he is chiseled, he’s cut. He’s got the glare in his eye. He wants to come back stronger than ever.”
This whole ordeal was all a bit new to the 25-year-old Arenas, whose only previous significant injury in the pros was an abdominal problem that limited him to 55 games in 2003-4.
He decided early on during this rehabilitation that he did not want to wear a knee brace so as not to have a constant reminder of what happened. The mental recuperation was just as important as the physical.
Still, Jordan cautioned after Day 2 of practice: “He’s not the real Gil that we all know. Not yet. And it’s normal. But he’s working hard.
“He’s still our best player; he’s still the best player out here. He’s not the real deal yet. When? It’s going to come.”
But Arenas does not want to wait. Ask him how his knee held up at the start of training camp, and you hear what you expect to hear.
“I’m 100 percent now; been 100 percent for the last month,” Arenas said, then nodded in the direction of a group of teammates walking out of Virginia Commonwealth University (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/v/virginia_commonwealth_university/index.html?inline=nyt-org)’s arena. “Ask them. They’re getting killed out there.”
No doubt.