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The guys over at Bullets Forever are doing Gilbert Arenas Tribute Day, and this is one of their entries .

Actually, this is typical Gilbert : he talks about being a changed person, accepting his role with the team, and how people don't understand him. What sticks out to me is that he said he learned a lesson in ego-checking from watching Allen Iverson's last moments in the NBA.

As the story goes, he found out that his mom was, um, " dating " one of his teammates. When I first hear the "Shaq & Gilbert's fiance" rumors, I was like, " Man, does this type of stuff happen in the NBA or just to Wizard players? " Turns out that it might be the former.

Not bad, considering all the drama . Now comes the hard part: image and performance rehabilitation.

A basketball league for white people only . The All-American Basketball Alliance announced in a news release Sunday evening that it intends to start its inaugural season in June and hopes Augusta will be one of 12 cities with a team. "Only players that are natural born United States citizens with both parents of Caucasian race are eligible to play in the league," the statement said. Classy. And they took a shot at Gilbert Arenas. Let's get something straight here: this is discriminating against American minorities and foreigners (whether from France, Germany or South Africa). Now what would happen if a non-white American citizen who was adopted and raised by a white couple wanted to play?

When STEPHEN A. SMITH talks, people should listen. Here's part of what he had to say about GunGate : For every foolish act like Plaxico Burress, Ron Artest or Arenas, there’s a Grant Hill, Shane Battier or LeBron James — guys who will be employing Black athletes one day, either in an executive or ownership capacity. But their behavior is not what is influencing Black America’s youth, specifically its cultural ambience. It’s the culture of tattoos (jailhouse or otherwise) enjoying increased prevalence and notoriety. This hyper-masculinity syndrome. This alpha-male environment that stimulates the worst in an educated individual like Crittenton (Georgia Tech), preventing a sensible young man raised by both of his parents from walking away from a crazy incident that could cost him millions in potential earnings. Even worse, it’s jeopardized the career of Arenas and his six-year, $111 million contract, plus an additional $50 million deal with Adidas allegedly over a gambling debt th...

via Wizards' Insider . Ouch.

Wisdom : That's Jamison. He's the "old warhorse;" the cranky old man who been there/seen that. Power : That's Arenas. He's got the star power, the charisma, and the attention of the opposing team's defense. Courage : That's Butler. He's not called "Tuff Juice" for nothing. I think last night's game showed that all three are key to victory , particularly in regards to the postseason/upper echelon element. Last year with just Jamison and Butler we saw a squad that lacked the special treatment that a team's best player receives, both from the opposition and the referees. Early on this season we saw a sullen star and his tough-yet-inconsistent teammate trade quips via the media instead of keeping that talk in the locker room. And while we haven't seen much of a Arenas/Jamison duo here, I'm sure it would be just as incomplete a product. I guess the bottom line here is this: to call Arenas, Butler and Jamison the Big Three is no...

Strange, but true .

"This whole team revolves around Gilbert Arenas. Everybody knows it. Nobody wants to say it, but I'm going to say it," Stevenson said. "I've been on this team four years -- it depends on Gilbert Arenas. We can make as many trades as we want to. When he's healthy and he's playing, we're a dangerous team. When we don't have him, it makes it harder to move the ball; it's hard to get things easy. That's my point of view. If Gilbert is 70 percent, we're going win a lot of games. If Gilbert is 80 percent, we're going be No. 1 in the East. If he's 100 percent, we might win a championship." "If he's 70 percent, we're still going to be good. But we need him on the court. It's all on Gilbert. I don't want to put pressure on him, because that's my boy. I look at him as a best friend, brother. But it's not pressure to him, because I know what he can do. If he's healthy, it doesn't matter what tea...

Although I didn't get Arenas, I did talk for a while with Grover, who was at every game working exclusively for Finals MVP Bryant . Grover told me that he expects Arenas to come to his Attacks Athletics facility in Chicago in about two weeks. Arenas has committed to coming and Grover said while he hasn't seen Arenas's medical records, he estimated that it will take at least a two month commitment for Arenas to get the necessary training required. He added that several stars overcoming left knee injuries, including Tracy McGrady and Jermaine O'Neal, are expected to be in Chicago this summer. The Wizards support Arenas's decision to train elsewhere and will likely send someone up to Chicago to keep an eye on him, which is similar to what the Heat did with Wade last season. With Arenas already back to his playing weight from five years ago, maybe Grover can help him return to that all-star, all-NBA form again. And, given how Wade bounced back to the form that made him ...

Mike Prada has an excellent breakdown on the topic .

Because Arenas has not put out a crazy-ass book ...yet.

Yeah, the Wizards are winless . But maybe this is a rare occasion where the political world can help motivate the sports world : Arenas once dubbed himself, " Black President ," but said he had no problem conceding the title with a real black president now heading to Washington. He said he even plans on getting a Wizards jersey that reads "Obama 44" and will ask him to sign it if and when Obama decides to attend a game at Verizon Center. Arenas said there is even more reason to win a championship, "because if you win the championship, you go to the White House." In other words: anything can happen in 2012; there's no guarantee of a second term for Obama. So Arenas has four seasons (yes, counting this one) to meet #44 while he's still in the White House. If that's enough to motivate him, fine with me. Of course, just about every black athlete has been motivated by the election .

Gilbert Arenas won't be ready when the season starts .

Taking time away from his busy ESPN schedule, Wilbon decides to weigh in on the Arenas contract. His opinion? Arenas wasn't worth the money ! Wow...who could've thought that Wilbon would've said that ? Wilbon believes money like that should be paid to people who have already won championships like Kobe Bryant or Tim Duncan. But Michael, those guys don't want to come here! Seriously, can anyone name one NBA player who's won a championship and than said, "I gotta go to DC!" as the rings were being fitted? I only count Tyronn Lue. But I'll give Wilbon this nugget, since he did mention some positives about Arenas being in DC: the only way the Wizards are going to win a championship is with a core of hungry, nobody-cared-about-me-and-I'll-prove-them-all-wrong types, not stars who won rings with other franchises.

Before I get into my comments on Game 5 between the Cavs and Wizards: In the Wizards' darkest hour, it was Butler who opened the Matrix (I just have to use a Transformers: the Movie reference). Don't mistake toughness for thuggery , Cleveland fans. Coach Mike Brown on why the Cavs lost : " We put the ball in the best player's hands and we told him to go make the play, like he has for us many times before. That's up to the referees to make the call. We're a no-excuse team ." I'm sorry, but those last two sentences contradict each other. If you're a no-excuse team, then why put the lost on the refs making (or not making) the call? Butler on Lebron James, trash-talking, and his team : "" Don't judge this team from comments. LeBron made a statement: 'These guys are talkers.' But unless you hear something from the captains, which would be myself and Antawn, don't label that as the team. I'm the voice of this team and Antaw...

I think I understand Gilbert's recent blog post ; he must have read Charley Rosen (Straight Shooting Section).

Ivan Carter of the WashPost has the lowdown on Gilbert Arenas : Oh, and since there is a lot of speculation going around about Gilbert's future, let me save everyone time and energy: Gilbert Arenas will be a Wizard next season. It's simple really. As has been laid out over and over gain: He wants a max contract and the Wiz can give him one more year and more money that any other team. Also, the only teams that might have money to spend are going to be bad teams and as Gilbert told me once: " I ain't going to no bottom feeding team ." Good.

Must be a slow news day in the NBA world, with the Bostocalypse rolling along and all. I mean, you do have the intriguing stories of the Heat's utter collapse, the Laker's resurgence and the Piston's "killin' 'em softly" but those stories must be boring. Nah, it's all about the eternal question: is a team without it's best player any better? We go through it every year. This time it's Randy Hill over at Fox Sports : A much larger sample can be found in Washington, where the Wizards have been without Agent Zero (left knee) for their last 23 games. The Wizards (17-16 overall) have won 14 games without Arenas, but only five on the road. "Gil is pretty notorious for dribbling away the shot clock while looking to score," the Eastern Conference advance scout said. "It's not surprising that they've had some success without that because (Wiz coach) Eddie Jordan runs some of that Princeton stuff and it seems to work better when dr...