In a small, quiet corner of the nearly empty visitors' locker room at TD Banknorth Garden, Gilbert Arenas reached into his duffel bag late Wednesday night and pulled out about a half-dozen 8-by-11 blue cards on which he had scribbled his summer workout schedule. He had spent the past two weeks ironing out each detail of the most anticipated offseason of his career, after spending the past two years worried about his surgically repaired left knee.
"See," Arenas said, shuffling the cards. "I'm going to be ready."
Later that evening, on the team flight back to Washington, Arenas said he talked to some teammates about the importance of sticking together next season and the need for everyone to get serious about putting one of the most forgettable, regrettable 82-game campaigns in franchise history behind them.
Arenas mentioned the Wizards' reputation for being playful during four consecutive playoff seasons. But it's hard to laugh when everyone is laughing at you, he told them. "We've just been a goofball team for a while. It's fun when you're winning. But when you're not winning, it's depressing a little bit," Arenas said. "To be honest, I'm a goofball. But when I step inside those lines, it's serious. Some of them don't know how to turn that on and off. I told them, it comes with time. You've got to put your work in in the summer because we're coming at you."
With the Wizards expected to hire Flip Saunders as the 22nd coach in franchise history sometime next week, the team is about to undergo serious change, but it's change that Arenas and co-captains Antawn Jamison and Caron Butler hope can take them from a woeful 19-win season back to the playoffs. It caught some off-guard to hear the serious tone on the plane coming from Arenas, the ringleader of much of the silliness.
"He said next year's going to be totally different, no playing around," reserve Andray Blatche said. "Gil surprised me with it."
Butler didn't hear the conversation -- he was too occupied watching "The Notebook" on his portable DVD player. "If he did [say that], I'm happy to see him step up in that light," Butler said, smiling. "He's the face of the franchise. He's the guy. It's about time for that talk to be coming out of his mouth. I'm happy to see that."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...041604347.html
Arenas Says Wizards Need to Get Serious
We are ready to Rule:sparta:
. As a Wizards fan (Arenas fan too) its time (Arenas) to STFU an just play (I don't think Arenas will ever be 100% like he was in 06-07 again, just my opinion)he hasn't prove "yet" that hes still a superstar resulting in the superstar or learder comments he made, the act is old and stale tired of hearing the talk its time to walk. When he brings the Wizards to the Finals or even the EC finals he can talk all he wants not just hitting a couple of regular season 30' game winning buzzer beaters, other than that he is just spewing abunch of ga ga to people that does not care about the Wizards wants to hear, media BS. I think I am tired of it and im pretty sure some others here are tired also.
Gina Carano Fan
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