Any attempt by the Wizards to terminate the Arenas contract would run smack into those prescribed punishment guidelines, provisions that seem to have been negotiated in anticipation of the Arenas incident. It would be highly unlikely that the NBA’s arbitrator, Calvin Sharpe, would ignore a firearms clause that is the product of specific bargaining between the players union and NBA owners. So Arenas might be feeling secure about the status of his contract.

So it appears Arenas income will be safe, although he still has the court system to worry about.  In the end, Arenas will probably get out of that as well.  Even so, the amount of damage down is still irreversible.  Damage to his character and reputation.  He’s no doubt lost money, sponsors, as well as fans because of this incident.  You would think the Plaxico Burress incident would have woke professional athletes up, but if not, hopefully this does.

Last game: Jan 20, Dallas Mavericks 94 – Washington Wizards 93
Next game: vs. Miami Heat, Jan 22 7:00pm ET

The Wizards are playing well dispute injuries to Antawn Jamison and Caron Butler. Andray Blatche has filled in Jamison and is playing the best basketball of his career 21ppg 6.3rpg. Gilbert Arenas is back to his all star form and new additions Randy Foye and Mike Miller are playing well. The Wizards could be a dangerous team if they ever get healthy… and thats a big if.

I know the Wizards havent played a game at full strength yet but i expected much more them, its a long season and they can turn it around but it’s not looking good.

The Wizards have more injury concerns entering this season then any other team. Gilbert Arenas has only played in 15 games the past 2 seasons, Caron Butler has missed 58 games the past 3 seasons, Brendan Haywood only played in six games last season. Flip Saunders has taken teams to the postseason 11 times in his career and should open up the offense for all of the Wizards weapons. Mike Miller and Randy Foye will be major upgrades to the offense, and should help the Wizards improve upon the 29th ranked three point field goal percentage from a season ago. Nick Young, JaVale McGee and Andray Blatche must show more consistency.

Key Additions: Mike Miller, Randy Foye, Fabricio Oberto

Key Subtractions: Etan Thomas, Darius Songaila, Oleksiy Pecherov

Projected Starting Lineup: Gilbert Arenas/ Mike Miller/ Caron Butler/ Antwan Jamison/ Brendan Haywood

Key Reserves: Randy Foye, DeShawn Stevenson, Nick Young, JaVale McGee, Andray Blatche

-Bennice

Heading into the draft lottery, Caron Butler of the Wizards said that the only player in the draft that they want on their roster is Blake Griffin and rightfully so. Who wouldn’t want a chance at drafting Griffin? However, when the lottery came about, Washington ended up landing the 5th pick in the draft and to their disappointment, Blake Griffin was not about to slip to the fifth pick. The only other option from that point on was trade the pick and that is what happened as the Minnesota Timberwolves gave up Randy Foye and Mike Miller just to acquire the fifth overall pick, which ultimately turned out to be Ricky Rubio. Not a bad deal for a rebulding team like the T’wolves. As for the Wizards who want to win know, they add more depth to their roster and with a healthy Brendan Haywood and Gilbert Arenas, Washington looks as if they are playoff bound. That’s only of course if the team can gel all in one off-season. Foye and Miller aren’t exactly Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett type of acquistions that the Celtics made when they landed the fifth pick in the draft, but seeing as that they are joining a team with three legit all-stars, they don’t have to be that good. All that is needed from them is to play their roles and help the Wizards win more games than the season before.

The Wizards came out of the Tuesday’s draft lottery with the fifth overall pick and one would assume that they have to be targeting a big man. Jordan Hill of Arizona could definitely be a nice addition to the Wizards, but it would not be overly shocking if they decided to trade down or trade the pick entirely. After all, they have said they’d listen to offers for the pick and if a team can offer them a good enough package, the Wizards could jump all over it. This is not your ordinary lottery team. Washington has more than enough talent to be one of the better teams in the Eastern Conference when fully healthy.

This season was one to forget for the Wizards. Arenas missed pretty much the entire regular season and when your best player is out, it’s tough on a team to be successful. Many figured because the Wizards had minor success in the 2007-08 season without Arenas that they could go a full season without him, but as they learned, a 10-15 game stretch and an entire season without your best player are two entirely different situations.

By: Dustin Chapman

• Selected JaVale McGee 18th overall.

• Selected Bill Walker 47th overall and traded his rights to Boston for cash considerations.

Feelings are mixed amongst Wizards fans regarding Washington’s draft. Some feel that McGee was a nice long-term pick who could turn into a real player, while the rest shrug at the thought of bringing in a big time project like him. In addition to that, nobody is happy with the Wizards throwing Bill Walker away the way they did.

McGee’s got some upside, so this draft wasn’t horrible for the Wizards. It wasn’t anything special, either.

Grade: C

The Sports Network reports:

Washington Wizards guard Gilbert Arenas reportedly has decided to opt out of the final year of his contract Monday, according to a story in the Washington Post.

The move makes Arenas an unrestricted free agent. He was scheduled to earn $12.8 million next season.

Teams are eligible to negotiate with free agents beginning on July 1.

Arenas has also previously stated that he would be willing to take a slight pay cut to accommodate Wizards free agent forward Antawn Jamison. It’ll be interesting to see whether or not he backs up those statements, rather than taking the “I’m gonna get mine” route.

Stay tuned, Wizards fans. You’re in for an eventful summer.

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Posted By: Dustin Chapman

According to the Washington Post, Washington’s 2006 second round pick (48th overall) Vladimir Veremeenko may come over from Russia to join the Wizards’ 2008 summer league roster.

Yesterday, I spoke with Marc Cornstein, the agent who represents Vladimir Veremeenko, and it appears that there is a decent chance that Veremeenko could play in summer league. Taken in the second round by the Wiz two years ago, Veremeenko is playing for Khimki in Russia (also have seen it spelled “Khimky”) but could negotiate his way out of the contract all together or simply be cleared to play in summer league.

Ernie Grunfeld has indicated that he would like to see Veremeenko in summer league as well so maybe something can get done. Cornstein declined to detail Veremeenko’s contract situation but it appears that it is nowhere near as restrictive as the one Juan Carlos Navarro had in Barcelona before negotiating his way to the NBA last summer. At the very least, it would be good to get Veremeenko over to Las Vegas for summer league so other teams can see him. You never know, maybe some team falls in love decides to make a move for him.

In 15 minutes per game, Veremeenko held averages of 5.9 points and 3.2 rebounds per game in the ULEB this past season.

DraftExpress Player Profile

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Posted By: Dustin Chapman

I’m sure most of you know by now, the beef between LeBron James and DeShawn Stevenson that formed before the playoffs.

In case you didn’t know, or just don’t remember, let me refresh your memory:

“He’s overrated,” he told reporter Mike Lee. “And you can say I said that.”
Of course the big bad “KING” James had to retaliate.

“With DeShawn Stevenson, it’s kind of funny,” James told the Cleveland Plains Dealer.” It’s almost like Jay-Z [responding to a negative comment] made by Soulja Boy. It doesn’t make sense.”

OMG LEBRON YOU JUST DISSED HIM OMG DISS!!!!111!!!!

Then Stevenson responded with something like ‘of course he would say that,  he’s always on Jay-Z’s nuts’

The series is over, and LeBron somehow beat the Wizards for the 3rd time, but I just want to give respects to DeShawn Stevenson, my new favorite player. Many people say it was stupid for him to make that comment, but I think he totally read my mind, and I respect that he had the guts to say it without being scared of what other people might say or think. Too bad the Wizards got eliminated, I thought it would be a great series and was hoping the Wizards would finally win with Gilbert back.

Let’s just remember the valuable lesson we learned from this – LeBron “KING” James is a big crybaby

DONT HATE APPRECIATE

PEACE

As many Wizards fans know, Gilbert Arenas goes down to Berry Farms once a summer to compete in the Goodman’s League. Arenas is often praised for going to a supposedly dangerous part of DC and playing for the fans. It’s always nice to see him interact with average people which he has done time and time again. This year he returns to Berry Farms with, teammate, DeShawn Stevenson to compete.

Arenas at Berry Farms
Arenas at Berry Farms, Raw Footage

For many of us, this is the first look we’ve gotten of Agent Zero playing since the notorious knee injury. According to spectators, he is still not at 100% but is well on his way to getting back to full strength. The second video also clearly showed him struggling getting back into the physicality of the game. This is not horrible news however, he should be ready to play by the time the season begins but I expect him to be less aggresive and taking alot of perimiter jumpers in the early parts of the season.

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In an update to his blog, Gilbert Arenas reveals alot about what he’s been up to the last couple of weeks. He discusses a new contest on his website with a stunning reward, some very interesting and un-expected news about his new shoe, a friendly feud between him and Richard Jefferson which started back when they were both attending Arizona, the Wizards addition of Dave Hopla, and his shock and sorrow towards the death of Eddie Griffin. He also, sadly, informs his readers that the quest for 100,000 shots will never be reached because of tendonitis. All in all, Arenas is still his same old joking self.