Only by letting go of the past can we move on – Gilbert Arenas
When Arenas uttered these words, the corners of his mouth barely squeezed out a smile. In this slightly bitter smile, it is not difficult to see that it is not easy to let go of the past.
In those pasts, the one he could recall the most was his father. In Arenas' memory, the first time he saw his father was one day in 1985.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > [childhood].</h1>
On that day, Arenas was not yet 4 years old. That day, his grandmother (actually his half-brother's grandmother) told him that your biological father would come and pick you up. About a few hours later, a strange and familiar man appeared in front of the door, and Arenas smiled and ran over to welcome him into the door.
He said to Arenas: Hey, do you know who I am?
Arenas replied: "My father."
That's right.
Then he asked: Are you ready, have you packed your clothes?
All right. Arenas replied.
He looked at Arenas's bag, which contained only three pieces of clothing and nothing else. That summer, Arenas got on his father's blue Mazda and left "Apartment 9" in Miami. They drove hundreds of kilometers to Tampa, a place where their grandparents had lived since.
At the time, Arenas' father was in the midst of a career transition —from a failed athlete to an actor. They spent about three years in Tampa. Then his father said, "Gil, let's go to California."
Years later, Arenas recalled the experience by saying, "My father said he would get more opportunities in California, but in fact he wanted me to get more opportunities in California."
When they first arrived in California, they had no place to live. His father made a face in a movie and was paid $25, the full amount they earned when they first arrived in California. That night, they parked the blue Mazda in the park, with Arenas sleeping in the back seat and his father in the driver's seat. In the middle of the night, a police officer knocked on the window of the car, and he told them they couldn't spend the night here. So they drove again to the parking lot behind a pharmacy. During the day they go to that park to find work, and at night they sleep in the car.
Three days later, Arenas' father found a new job, and they finally had a home, the YMCA almshouse. That park occupies a large part of Arenas' childhood memories, where he once imagined himself sitting on a spaceship and flying all over the world.
In those years, Arenas lived in his fantasy that he was the "king of the castle", in which Gilbert Arenas was invincible. On the nights his father went out to work, he played in the nearby park field, where he could forget everything, forget about "Apartment 9" in Miami, forget about his mother, forget if he and his father would be in the city tomorrow.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" ></h1>
Later, Gilbert Arenas entered Birmingham High School with his "King" pride. Here, Arenas gets nothing but a cold reality. He can only enter the second team of the basketball team. Even in the second team, he didn't get the attention of the coach, and his cynicism made the coach intolerable to him, and he said the words to him that he will remember for a lifetime - you have reached the upper limit of your ability.
The words shattered the "kingdom" of Arenas, who ran home and practiced on the pitch day and night. But in the end he didn't prove himself at Birmingham High School, and it wasn't long before he transferred to Grant High School. His coach, Howard LeWyn, said: "This kid never trusted anyone, he was a kid who had lost his mother from an early age and he always thought that others would abandon him.
At Grant High School, Arenas became the starter, and his average performance of 30+ per game was enough to prove his ability. Towards the end of high school, Arenas and his father always walked to the door of UCLA, the university of his and his father's dreams. But UCLA only had some interest in Arenas, and after all that, UCLA abandoned Arenas, and the school's coaching staff believed that Arenas could easily score points in high school because the opponent was too weak.
After several twists and turns, Arenas joined the University of Arizona. Regarding the University of Arizona, Arenas said: "In Arizona, you can't easily get playing time, they just won the championship two years ago, there used to be Mike Bibi, there was a lot of talent.
When Arenas first arrived, the story started the same way – no one was bullish on him. Some experts jumped out and said "Arenas will play 0 at university". So Arenas chose the No. 0 shirt for himself – he had to fight the world to the end. In Arizona, Arenas is both the biggest "trouble" and the most "potential" player. He always gambles with the people on the team. At one intramural game, Arenas scored just five points in the first half, and the team's assistant coach said "you can't get 20 points today." Then in the second half he scored 20 points.
Of course, Arenas' life wasn't always unfortunate. In Arizona, he met his lucky coach Rut. The coach who single-handedly brought the University of Arizona to the top gave Arenas the "affirmation" he had always longed for. In 2001, when Arenas suffered a setback in the NBA draft, the first thing that came to mind was Coach Rut.
The 2000-2001 season was a tough year for the University of Arizona. The team, which lost Mike Bibby and Jason Terry, returned to the top under Arenas and Richard Jefferson. Off the pitch, Coach Rut's wife died of cancer. In honor of Coach Rut's wife, the team is united to use the championship to comfort the "teacher" who has always supported them. The leader of this "solidarity movement" is Arenas. This year, the University of Arizona defeated Syracuse, Illinois, and Michigan State all the way, but unfortunately lost to Duke in the final.
After the game, Coach Rut said a sentence that the players will remember for a lifetime: with the trophy of the runner-up, of course, you are not the champion, but in your own heart, you must make yourself a champion.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > [go to the NBA to prove yourself].</h1>
In 2001, Arenas and Richard Jefferson took Coach Rut's instructions to the NBA Draft. In previous predictions, both would be selected in the first round. In Arenas' view, his worst pick was the 19th pick, and he felt that he was already a star. So before the draft, he bought himself a necklace with his initials printed on it and a set of audio worth $60,000.
Richard Jefferson was selected with the 13th pick in the first round. Arenas felt that his name would soon be called, but the ensuing string of names made Arenas more and more frustrated. He watched the strange names appear on the television screen and kept saying to himself: Where did these people come from, I had never heard of them, who was this, how he had been chosen in front of me.
The King of Sacramento once said to Arenas: If you have not been selected with the 25th pick, we will consider you.
But the king ultimately chose Gerald Wallace. When the Spurs, who were 28th overall picks, selected Tony Parker from France, the first round of the draft was over. Arenas cried and called Coach Rut, who comforted him: Don't be discouraged, you were selected by the Warriors in the second round.
Arenas threw away the necklace and ran all the way to the training gym. He said he wanted to make the team that didn't choose him regret it, and he said he would definitely start in his first season.
Larry Hughes' injury gave Arenas a chance, and he played 30 starts in his first season, averaging 10.9 points per game throughout the season and, most importantly, his 45.3 percent shooting percentage, all due to his shooting training like a madman in the training gym.
In the second season, he secured the team's starting position. The story of Gilbert Arenas began to be known. At the American Airlines Center in Miami, a middle-aged woman stood on the side of the court and shouted: Gilbert.
Arenas looked back, and the middle-aged woman kept staring at herself, and then she shouted again: "Gilbert, I am your mother."
It's like going back to Apartment 9 in Miami, where the strange and familiar person stands in the doorway and says, "Hey, do you know who I am?"
After that game, his mother hugged him and cried for a long, long time, as if the tears could wash away all the faults.
As he was leaving, his mother gave Arenas a note with her phone number, but Arenas didn't make that call for many years.
In the Warriors' second season, Arenas won the Fastest Progressive Player Award. So the Washington Wizards sent a $60 million contract. This "post-Michael Jordan era" team is looking for a true "savior".
In Washington, Arenas finally created his own "kingdom," and he played like a paranoid, and in those years Arenas was the representative of "arbitrariness." As for the criticism from the outside world, Arenas never cared, he always said, this is my game. He led the Wizards into the playoffs for three consecutive years, where he could score 60 points against Bryant and he could raise his hands before the ball fell into the basket.
So, he can say unabashedly, this is my game.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > [curtain off</h1>].
Of course, all splendor comes to an end. Speaking of the curtain call of Arenas, it is always necessary to talk about "gun doors". There are many theories about this incident, but in the end, it completely destroyed Arenas.
On December 21, 2009, Arenas walked into the locker room with four ill-loaded guns and said to Critanton, who had been arguing with him for the previous few days: Hey, pick one.
Then Critanton also took a gun from his closet and said, "Gilbert, I'm not like yours, it's full of bullets."
This incident plunged the entire team into a whirlpool of public opinion. But in Arenas' view, it was just a joke. In order to prove the authenticity of this "joke", he knelt down before the game with Philadelphia and drew a gun pose, and his teammates laughed around him, as if this would defuse the team's public opinion crisis.
The NBA eventually issued a ticket for an indefinite ban against Arenas. This incident caused the entire team to fall apart, and Arenas, who was carrying a contract of 100 million yuan, became the biggest "burden" of the team.
Gunsick doors, injuries, big contracts. Three seemingly unrelated words turned into a scythe of fate in Arenas, cutting off Arenas' future and destroying his castle.
After that, there are only a few "ifs" left about Arenas. For example, his former teammate Stevenson said: If Gil can develop normally, he will probably be one of the best ball-holding point guards in history.
But these "ifs" don't make much sense.
On November 23, 2011, Arenas announced his retirement in an interview with TMZ.
Before that, he had done several things: he had forgiven his mother, he had seen the spaceship in the park, and he was determined to be a true father, always with his children.
And about those pasts, he always said: You have to let go of the past to move on.