We sent out warning many weeks ago that should Gilbert Arenas fail to score his 50 points against the Trailblazers as stated, the result could be a massive loss of credibility in the blogosphere.
We didn’t want it to happen, but we’re also realistic, and have a fairly nice ability to read the future in this way. We also held out hope that should Gil only get 20 or 30, yet the Wizards still won, the man would be able to laugh the whole thing off as trying to create a stir just for kicks.
Instead, a trainwreck of massive proportions has occured.
Gilbert scored NINE points on like horrible% shooting, AND Washington got blown out, AND after the game Gilbert went off on all kinds of tangents criticizing his coach, AND then Coach Eddie shot back by calling Arenas ludicrous and a bad leader.
“It’s easy to lose focus when you’re just drilling us that if we make a mistake we’re going to be coming out. Truthfully, that’s how you lose concentration. You lose focus because you’re scared to actually play basketball. His standpoint is that since we lost Antawn [Jamison], we have to pick it up somewhere else and that’s defense.”
“First period of the game we had what, 11 players go in?” Arenas said. “I’ve never seen that before. We get taken out for any mistake we make on defense.”
Asked whether he would continue to predict high-scoring games, Arenas turned sarcastic: “I guess I have to start predicting that I’ll get 10 steals.”
Well, Gil – there’s nothing wrong with a little defense. It’s true. You certainly have the ability. This is kinda like the Cavalier situation reversed – just because you’re a great offensive team, doesn’t mean you can’t be at least good on defense.
Whatever – as he desires, Gilbert is the story here, not Washington. There are two things happening, which as stated above, we predicted.
One, he’s gone mainstream. Profiles all over the place, ESPN’s in love with him, etc, etc. The internet is a fickle place, and also quite selfish. Gil was ours, now he’s yours. Fine – we can move on to Paul Millsap.
Bigger than that, however, is the dent in the superhero armor. This is like if a huge asteroid was coming to Earth, and Superman was like, “I got it!”, yet he misses it altogether and Brazil turns into a huge crater.
Nobody’s particularly bemoaning the loss of Brazil, but everyone’s kinda like, “Yo…uh, good call there, Supes.”
Now, Gil is nothing if not extremely self-aware – in fact, he’s probably reading this and every other site mentioning him at this very moment. It’ll be interesting to see how he follows up on this.
(Further damaging the whole deal is that we’re now convinced that the Gilbertology blog is a product of Agent Zero’s pr team. Mainly because they always seems to have Gil news first, but also because in this new Wall Street Journal profile, the term “Gilbertology” is cited as something the blogosphere dubs the study of Gilbert Arenas.
As far as we know, the term was never used (and isn’t used) outside of that site. The term is a pr creation – a good one – it’s solid – but a pr creation nonetheless.)
((OUCH. More damage. The WSJ article mentions that Gil’s NBA DOT COM blog is a transcribed phone call with an NBA DOT COM staffer. For shame, for shame, for shame. The human touch…gone.))
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Shh! You’re ruining all the warm and fuzzy feelings Gilly gave me! The magic, it is gone! Actually, I think this is the best thing that could have happened to Gilbert. The man runs on hatorade, and his tanks were getting a little low. I see him still having a 3-4 month run of popularity until after the play-offs, where things will level out a little.
I played ball this weekend against a guy wearing a Raja Bell t-shirt (no shit). Everytime I scored a bucket I said to him, “Choo-choo”. He was not amused. Thank you YAYsports for giving me a witty line of trash with which to talk with.
What does a Raja Bell t-shirt look like exactly?
It was pretty funny and when I saw it..I knew he was the guy to guard. It looked like one of those old tshirts from the 80’s that had Barkley with a huge fat head and a skinny body, except it was Raja. At the bottom it said…Phoenix Suns – Teamwork. Best part was that the guy kind of looked like Raja and pulled out the full court press on me as I brought up the ball. The most important thing??? My team won. Choo-Choo bitch, choo-choo panda
The fact that the owner of gilbertology.net used whoisguard makes me think it is indeed run by Gilbert’s people. And I’ll be more than happy to lead the Gil backlash – I think he’s an arrogant jerk. At least now we can stop talking about him as MVP – he’s not even the most valuable player on his own team.
“Gilbertology” was actually coined by Eddie Jordan’s a while back (can’t find the citing now but I swear by John Amaechi it’s true!)
gilbertology.net might still be a PR thing, but that phrase isn’t new..
So it’s definitely not a blog creation then – more lies pumped out there by the pr people to create the mystique!
It’s like when the curtain got pulled on the Wizard of Oz. “Never mind the man behind the curtain. Keep liking Gilbert. And oh yeah, Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy don’t exist either.”
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