Gilbert Arenas told the Washington Post that what he could do for this family by 127 million USD he could do with 111 million USD also. This is the reason that he is satisfied with less money from the [Washington Wizards]. Such an attitude of Arenas is very different from that of his working-class fans.
Arenas who is an unpredictable three-time All-Star point guard made it known to the Washington Times and the Post on Thursday that he had acceded to sign again for 111 million USD for a period of six years. This amount is far less than the maximum deal that the Wizards had put forth at the commencement of the free agency period on Tuesday. This deal was handled by Arenas from China where he is traveling in connection with a promotional tour for a shoe company in the absence of any agent.
Arenas made it clear to the Washington times that basically he is returning 16 million USD and his decision is in conformance with what he has been stating for a long time. Arenas said that usually players take maximum deals and due to this the team is financially bound. He does not desire to be such a player as it may happen that after three years the team would be strapped and there would be no solution to this problem.
At the end of the last season Arenas opted out of the last year of his six-year 65 million USD contract and then became a free agent. His initial statement was that in order to procure a maximum contract he was opting out. However further he altered his statement and declared that he would be flexible regarding the negotiations.
Arenas has also made it clear that he would re-sign only if the team retained Antawn Jamison the two-time All-Star forward. The [Washington Wizards] accepted this bargain and offered Jamison a 50 million USD deal for a period of 4 years.
It has been proved that Arenas is one of the most dynamic players in the National Basketball Association (NBA) when he is healthy. However in the previous season he had a major knee and an overzealous rehabilitation due to which he was sidelined for a large part of the previous season. In April 2007 he had his first surgery on the knee after which he tried to be in the game too soon and then had to schedule a second operation in November 2007. Finally when he returned late in the season he had missed a total of 66 games. Further he had to shut himself down while the first-round playoff series were being held against Cleveland.
Arenas is determined to be very cautious regarding his rehabilitation for this season. While he was having talks with the Wizards it didn’t appear that his knee was depreciating his value.
During his seven-season NBA career the average of Arenas performance has been 4.2 rebounds, 5.5 assists and 22.8 points. In 2003 when he moved from Golden State to Washington he was known not only for his on-court play but also for his tantrums.