Anyone out there wondering what happened to Gilbert Arenas? Yeah, me neither. I honestly thought he retired or something along those lines. Turns out, he was willing to play but no team wants him. Well, no team wanted him… until now.
Arenas is all set to join the Memphis Grizzlies for the rest of the season after being one of the first amnesty clause casualties coming out of the NBA lockout. The Grizzlies need someone to back up Mike Conley at point guard and apparently Josh Selby and Jeremy Pargo aren’t getting the job done.
Conley and Arenas as the 1-2 punch in Memphis, sounds deadly, doesn’t it? Not really and San Antonio Spurs fans shouldn’t worry about Memphis adding him to the roster should the two teams meet once again in the playoffs. This is definitely not the All-Star Gilbert Arenas from a few years ago. This is a 30-year-old Arenas who got suspended for bringing a gun into a locker room and has left a path of destruction everywhere he’s gone since then. The gun incident got him traded to Orlando where he was more of a distraction than an asset for the Magic. So this year, the Magic used the amnesty clause on Arenas so they could get out of the $62 million remaining on his contract.
Arenas will be making the veteran league minimum at $300,000. Talk about your big drop-offs.
While I admire the Grizzlies for trying to get some veteran leadership on the team, they’re barking up the wrong tree here. This is much, much worse than the Baron Davis situation in New York. Arenas is a huge distraction who now causes more harm than good.
He worked out for the Lakers earlier this season and they
didn’t want him, and they’ve needed help at point guard all year. Even if he does still have some of that talent left, it’s not worth it.
Luckily for the Grizzlies, they got Arenas for cheap, so when they quickly realize things aren’t working, it won’t cost too much to dump him.
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