Open Letter to Gilbert Arenas

Dear Gilbert,

I want to start off by letting you know I’ve been a big fan over the past couple of years. Your personality, attitude, outspoken demeanor, the underdog status, and your exciting style of play has resulted in millions of people declaring you as their favorite player, hero, icon – and I use to be one of them. However, the article I read over at CNNSI has led me to seriously question what you’re really about.

Over the past 3 seasons (your best ones), you’ve averaged around 27 5 4. No one can deny these are great numbers even considering the sup-optimal field goal percentages. However, it seems like you are too caught up on the numbers game. In fact it is clear that you are – your jersey number being a nightmare stat that serves as the root of your hunger to succeed. Remember when you wanted to take revenge on the USA team coaches? Your main focus was to drop 50 on them, no mention of a victory anywhere. There have been small signs here and there of caring more about stats and fame than wins, but these were the Gilbert type actions that didn’t hurt anybody and everyone enjoyed the laughs.

Recently however, it seems like it has taken a whole new life form. You are back from injury, you perhaps haven’t gotten the hype or attention you were looking for and as a result your actions have paralleled that of an attention seeking whore – no offense. The all-confident claims of ruining Boston’s season opening party was clearly an attempt to steal some attention from the Boston hype that’s got the whole league zoned in. You even realized yourself prior to the game it might have been an overstatement and tried to backtrack in your blog– but the damage had be done and was inflicted upon yourself and your Wizards on gameday. This was still okay in my book, because you were still the hype creating, excitement generating, outspoken guy that everyone loved to follow, but I think in your recent interview with SI, you clearly crossed the line.

In the interview, what you essentially did is: put yourself ahead of today’s leading proven players with some conveniently chosen and flawed stats, and criticized not only one of this generations greatest players (Kobe) but also of the past generation (Isiah Thomas). You went ahead and threw the Wizards team bus under your personal steamroller.

“If I’m doing what I do and I lead this team to 50-something wins, that’s MVP. Hands Down.”

You must not hold your team in high regards if you think getting your team 50 wins is a spectacular achievement from your part. Getting Jamison and Butler alot of points per game seems to be a particularly proud achievement of yours. You go on saying how you make others score more and admit its because of having more possessions and playing a faster tempo game. Let me ask you; Do you think anyone cares if all three of you score 50 each but on the other hand because of the fast tempo your opponents score 200 points and they end up beating you. Do you understand that stats are not the final word on a players’ quality? Do you realize that you’re playing the game to win games and championships, and stats are just mere details on that journey? You are speaking way out of line, and let me give you some stats because that is all you seem to comprehend at the moment.  

Lets look at previous cases; Jerry Stackhouse averaged 30 5 4 in 2000-2001 followed by 24 5 4 the next season. Ricky Davis has been averaging around 20 5 4 for how many years now. Did they ask for any MVP considerations? You want to talk about point guards that can score, and get their teammates involved? Ok, lets forget for a second that you claimed yourself to be better than 2 time champion Isiah Thomas and consider these current day players: Tony Parker, Baron Davis, Chauncey Billups, Deron Williams. All these players have had playoff success, can score at will, AND get their players involved. (Parker plays with Ginobili and Duncan who average close to 20 each, Baron Davis can get the whole starting 5 in the 20 zone, Chauncey Billups won a title scoring and distributing at the same time, Deron Williams has shown signs that he can do the same.) Chris Paul, Jason Kidd, Marbury etc… As you can see the list is long and they almost all pass your all worthy benchmark of including others in the offense while scoring prolifically. You solely take the examples of Wade, LeBron, and Kobe which frankly put, is not a category you belong in… yet. Wade carried his team to a title, LeBron has taken his mediocre team to the Finals, and Kobe has three rings. What have you got besides a Halo Team and 20 sneakers?

I hate to write this but I just feel like you’ve been straying away from your usual self, and proper fans don’t let their heroes stray like that. You criticize Kobe for wanting to get out when you should be the exact person who understands his situation. You talk about not receiving enough praise concerning how important of a player you are, at a time when your team sits at 0-3 and clearly you need more work on that J.

Please, Gilbert, don’t forget what made you who you are today. That struggle to overcome the toughest of obstacles, that hunger to succeed at all costs, that relentless ethic of wanting to show how good you are rather than talk it. Ironically it is again that 0 on your jersey you should be fighting for, because at the end of your career if you don’t win a championship, that ‘0’ will have a whole new meaning.

Sincerely,

A Loyal Fan