At this point, it’s pretty hard to find a more enjoyable NBA personality than Gilbert Arenas, and after this Tom Chiarella piece in the latest issue of Esquire (via the great DC Sports Bog), it’s perfectly clear that Agent Zero is in a league of his own.
Here are some of the awesome things we discover in the profile:
- Arenas has been dreaming of playing hoops–a real full court game–on a desert island, with the fans circling the court “out in the waves”. The fans could either be swimming, riding jet skis, or simply lying on floats.
- According to Gil, if you have a dream where your teeth are falling out, it’s because someone is stabbing you in the back. Just so you know.
- He claims that in the five seasons he’s played in the NBA (which would mean well over 100 regular season road games), he has only left his hotel room six times. His reasoning? : “I think it came from my first year. I was so depressed that I wasn’t playing that I didn’t want to go out. I’m gonna stay and do sit-ups or jumping jacks. And I’m not gonna come out. Not till morning. There’s nothing out there for me. I don’t know those cities. I don’t know where to go. I don’t have any people. Other guys will be out, the steak house, the clubs, just rollin’. Me, I’m fine. Time is falling off. Sun’s coming up. I’m doing more sit-ups than the night before. I’ll watch three or four movies. I’ll watch infomercials. The last thing I bought was this colon cleanser. I just got talked into it. I’m like, Man, he makes it sound so good.” (Why do I not have this man’s jersey?!?!)
- Gilbert likes movies. A lot. In fact, he would like to collect all of the movies that have ever been made. No exceptions. On this particular day with the Esquire writer, he purchases a stack that goes all the way up to his chin. Titles include The Libertine, The Matador, and Basic Instinct 2.
- Some of the interview is conducted in Arenas’ bedroom while he plays two-man Halo.
- For the last three years, Gilbert Arenas has been sleeping on a couch in his bedroom because (take a deep breath here) he doesn’t like sharing his bed with women. Or as he put it, “I don’t like women all up on me.”
- Gil still has no clue how he missed those free throws in the Cavs series last season after Lebron whispered some trash to him, “But I don’t miss free throws. That’s the thing: I never miss free throws at the end.”
- I don’t know why, but of all the loony things Arenas says in the interview, this shocked me the most. Apparently, Gil is a pretty violent dude. He wrestles, tries to inflict pain, and bites! Oh, and he likes to play punching games with his teammates, “I’ll say, Look, you punch me in the stomach once, I’ll punch you in the stomach once. We’ll see who falls on the floor first.”
- Gil eats
welljunk: He eats a burger at least once a day when on the road. And he has an affinity for Canadian burgers, “I ate twelve of them in one night.”
- Whenever Agent Zero gets a new cell phone, he uses his home phone to fill it up with messages—“It’s me.” “It’s me.” “This is Gilbert.” “It’s me.” “It’s Gilbert”—so that no one else may leave a message. Perfectly sane thing to do, if you ask me.
- Gil’s former teammate Bobby Sura apparently likes to get his money nice and early. When discussing paychecks, Sura offered this glorious quote: “Mine says $5 million. I get mine up front.” Why, of course you do, Bob.
- Arenas hopes to build a basketball court made entirely of glass (walls and ceiling too!). The court will serve as an exhibit for his immense jersey collection, which is approaching a thousand.
- Our hero has an absolutely earth shattering idea for a shoe ad. You know how Adidas has those “Impossible is nothing” commercials, well, Gil would like to make a contribution: Instead of throwing his jersey into the crowd like he always does after home games, he would instead throw his shoes, and then the fans would scramble like mad literally throwing each other out of the way to get to the precious kicks. A little girl somehow manages to get a hold of the shoes, and she takes off running. A kid in a wheelchair then clotheslines her, grabs the shoes, and then delivers the ad’s punch line—“They said I couldn’t get it. Heh. Impossible is nothing.” I love Gilbert Arenas!
