Gilbert Arenas talks. Those three words are usually enough to get people to listen. And because the former Wizards guard has stayed quiet since September (shutting down his Twitter feed), Arenas had a lot to tell Sports Illustrated’s Sam Amick in a 90-minute interview that is online.
Arenas is still rehabbing, though he worked out recently for the Lakers. He underwent platelet-rich plasma therapy in January. And he plays often at a YMCA in Orlando, Fla.
Here’s a few things Arenas, amnestied by Orlando before the season, had to say:
» “You can do a hundred things for people, but you do one bad mistake and everyone crucifies you, and that’s all they want to remember. They don’t want to remember I gave my own money to the D.C. school district and built up the D.C. school district. They don’t want to remember none of that. They just want to remember, ‘Oh, I single-handedly destroyed the Washington Wizards franchise.’ It sucks, but that’s the way it is.”
» “I didn’t have it anymore [last season]. I didn’t have the spirit. I guess somewhere that summer or somewhere the season before that I lost the spirit to play, and that’s what showed last year. I was depressed. … I wanted to hide. I didn’t want to be seen anymore.”
» “I think I’m seeing life how I saw it before I got famous, and that’s hard to do sometimes. I go fishing with my family. We take the kids to skate parks and skating rinks and golf course places. It’s like, ‘Man, I haven’t had this kind of fun in a long time.’?”
— John Keim
