Gilbertology or Victimology?

September 30, 2009 by Alex · Leave a Comment

There will be quite of bit of Washington Wizards commentary on this blog over the next few months, especially with the 100-loss Nats and pathetic Redskins leaving Washington area sports fans to despair. The Zards bring hope however, having assembled their most talented squad in as long as I can remember. They now have multi-skilled interchangeable personnel in Butler, Jamsion and Arenas, along with recent aquistions Mike Miller and Randy Foye, which should present potential match-up problems for opposing teams all over the court. The Zards also have a new coach in Flip Saunders, who while receiving criticism for not getting Detroit over the hump a few years back, brings more pedigree (4 conference championship appearances) to the job than any former Wizard hire.

What I wanted to mention here though, is Gilbert Arenas new pledge not to talk to the media. Everyone knows Agent Zero propensity for exploiting perceived slights, leveraging them for motivation, in order to realize this or that goal. It’s well documented that Gil feels persecuted for not having been highly recruited out of high school; a second round NBA draft pick; dropped from Team USA basketball; and the biggest human right abuse of all, snubbed as a selection to the 2006 all-star games, and thus born the East Coast Assassin. Martyrdom, however, did produce the intended outcome, with Gil catapulting himself into the NBA elite. It would have been nice if Gil had been using some of these incidents to fuel a drive for team or collective success, rather than individual accolades, but he was young and ambitious, wanting to establish a rep, so who cares.

Up until now. This summer and fall, Arenas narrative of victimization has begun to grate a bit. In that last few weeks he’s blamed the Washington Wizards coaches and trainers for not holding him back from playing after his first surgery, resulting in him re-injuring knee. Yet, at the time of Gil’s first comeback in the summer/fall of 2007, Arenas blew off the Wizards rehabilitation schedule, instead trained on his own, and then declared himself ready to play, damn anyone who should stand in the way. This gripe from Arenas follows his insinuation, made a few weeks earlier, that former coach Eddie Jordan was at fault for his misfortune, when EJ so much as held Gil out of the starting lineup the night of the injury, a penalty for being late to the locker room before the game.

This week Arenas declared a vowel silence with the media, ostensibly to span throughout the upcoming season. Gil accuses the media of distorting his image, having take his zany, irreverent blogging personality at face value in the past, rather than probing more deeply into who Arenas really might be. Com’on. Get over yourself man, and stop with throwing formerly supportive coaches, staff, media, etc., under the bus. Gil’s media boycott feels almost as narrcistic a ploy as wanting to be heard and adored around the clock, which Gil always made sure of when life was good and he was getting 60 on the Lakers.

I am a huge fan of Gil Arenas game, and generally find him completely entertaining. Everyone loves Agent Zero, Hibachi, Gilbertology and all the other shtick that went with Gil being Gil. Jut hope he loses the chip on his shoulder, before he ends up sounding like this…