History Shows that Gilbert Arenas Needs to Forget About Playing at All This Season

Speaking of whether or not microfracture surgery is career-ending, did Gilbert Arenas ever take a full season off to rehab? In case you missed it, the procedure is no longer a death sentence. Players take a season off and come back perfectly fit, and then one year later regain all their former athleticism.
↵
↵Amare Stoudemire is the patron saint, but don’t sleep on K-Mart, who has had it done twice and now looks like an absolute terror for the Nuggets on offense and defense. Say what you will about Greg Oden; there’s more going on there than just the recovery, and Oden’s making strides even if he hasn’t changed the West.↵
↵
↵So why, pray tell, won’t Gilbert Arenas sit his ass down for an entire season, and/or have the Wizards demand he do so? There’s been some grumbling that Arenas would skip 2008-09 altogether because the team is so lousy. How about he skip it because that’s pretty much the only way to get healthy with his recent medical history?
↵
↵

Granted, he’s a guard not overly reliant on athleticism; in theory, this means he could contribute sooner through shooting alone, and ultimately, get his first step back sooner than, say, Amare’s upward propulsion. That was the logic behind him coming back last April, and limping through a few playoff games. Yet all along, Gil’s goal seems to have been to get back ASAP. And it’s carried over to the fans and media, who have lost sight of what kind of rehab he’s dealing with here.↵
↵
↵The whole idea of an eternally aggressive comeback plan, without any resignation to missing time -- because that’s how you get well from this injury -- may be what Arenas wants. But it’s up to someone to check with reality and, all context aside, tell him he needs to exercise some patience. Lest he get Monta-ed out of the city he so loves.↵