Ivan Carter of the Washington Post drops a bit of a bombshell on his Wizards Insider Blog:
Wizards guard Gilbert Arenas underwent surgery today to repair a torn meniscus in his left knee. Arenas originally tore the meniscus in the knee last April 3 and had surgery a few days later. The re-injury happened during Friday night's game at Minnesota but Arenas does not remember if it took place on a specific play. "Everything just started hurting after the game," Arenas said. "The pain came out of nowhere."
The Associated Press has a similar report.
My main thought is wow. That's terrible. We need Gilbert Arenas. Just when the Wizards season seemed like it could not get any more fun, it turns out the Wizards season will be a lot less fun.
He is barely a few weeks into his comeback from his last injury to the same knee. This is also way less important, but today also happens to be the day his shoe company launched a major marketing push. Talk about demoralizing.
I'm sure that one thing running through Arenas' head right now is a conversation he had recenlty with two of the Nets, former Arizona alum Richard Jefferson, and Jason Kidd. Arenas blogged about it on November 9:
Actually, we were talking about my knee. He was telling me I need to get a second opinion because I shouldn't be getting it drained this early on in the season. It was the same thing that me and Jason Kidd talked about after the game on the court. He said that I should get a second opinion and I shouldn't be playing so many minutes early. He said that it's the same thing that some of these players come back from. He had microfracture surgery, so he knows. His injury was worse than mine so he knows you have to take your time coming back.
On November 16 he followed up:
I got the second opinion on my knee like Jason Kidd told me to and it came back clean. All that was in there was just swelling and a little fluid, everything else came back clear. Ever since then, my knee's actually been getting better. The swelling and the fluid is getting pushed out on its own. I was just trying to hurry up and get it out of there so I could play comfortable and that's why I had the fluid drained, but it's been draining itself for the last week and a half.
Mentally it was a big relief because now I know it's healthy and I don't have to think about it getting hurt or think about the negativity behind it.
In the past he has been frank about the fact that he hates rehabilitation even more than most. He once blogged about firing the trainer he was working with. And there's this, from his last injury:
I hate the training room so much that the team is making bets around the locker room about when I'm going to cut the trainer out completely. They know I hate it. Like if I sprain my ankle, I don't want to get treatment. They all know that. It's kind of funny because they're all like, 'I can't wait to be around this in the summer, there's going to be some funny stuff here with Gil getting frustrated.' I like doing stuff on my own. ...
There's this thing where they put baby powder on your knee, they put a little metal rod in your hand and they have these electric little gloves and they rub your knee and it's supposed to bring down the swelling. And I'm like, 'You're telling me baby powder on my knee and you rubbing on it is going to bring my swelling down?' ...
I just hate sitting because I talk about everybody who sits on that trainer's table and I'm like, 'They're soft. They don't make them like me anymore.' And now I'm on the table. So what I do, I don't show up when my teammates are in there. I wait it out and do weights and stuff and they'll be leaving and be like, 'Are you going to rehab?' And I'll be like, 'You know me, I don't need rehab.' And then when they leave I go in the trainer's room and I'm like, 'Yeahhh, throw a little baby powder on there.'
That moment where he collided with Gerald Wallace is haunting him even more now, I guess.
UPDATE: Arenas just updated his blog. Tough freaking Thanksgiving:
I'm going to stay positive this time, because feeling sorry for myself didn't work last time. It just kind of hurt that everything I did this summer really meant nothing, to the point where I'm rehabbing again. I guess I was doing too much. I wasn't giving myself enough time to let my muscles heal. Running bleachers, riding bikes and doing all that stuff was just a little too much.
You know what? When stuff goes bad it goes bad. I just broke up with my girlfriend and I don't get to see my kids for a while because of the breakup.
That happened right before those two games last week. I was so happy, went out and performed well with 30 and 11 and came back the next night with 28 and I was thinking, "Oh yeah, it was her that was bringing my spirits down..."
Now she's back in California. You ask for space, you know, because everything feels closed in ... the house is dirty, the kids are drawing on the walls and on the couches and you're thinking, "Oh man, I can't do this. I'm not playing well and I'm coming home to all this."
So you ask for space and now you got clean walls, clean furniture and you're lonely.
