Wizards Plan to Stick with Gilbert Arenas

The long-suffering Antawn Jamison found his way out; as did Caron Butler, lately a hot-and-cold player for the Wiz. These were the question marks; what's never been doubted is that, somehow, someway, Washington would find a way to dump Gilbert Arenas by the time next season rolls around.

After all, it's already more or less erased him from the Verizon Center's public record, and Gil has made no secret of feeling that the organization did him dirty. Oh, and no matter whose side you take, that Arenas is an oft-injured speed guard getting older, under contract for tons of money, makes ditching the former franchise guy a convenient business move.

Now, in what's either the shocker of the week or a classic case of useless smoke and mirrors, the Wizards are claiming they want to move forward with Arenas in the fold. You read that right. At least for now, GM Ernie Grunfeld claims the plan is that Gilbert Arenas remain the focal point of Washington's basketball efforts. From The Washington Post:

"Gilbert is still one of the top players in this league. He's under contract and he's going to be with us," Grunfeld said. "He's part of this organization. If he wants to play, this is the place where he's going to play.

"Gilbert's a basketball player. That's what he likes to do, that's his life and obviously this is a tough situation for him. It's a tough situation for everybody and I think we all feel for him because he loves to play the game so much and this is something that he really misses. Nobody wants to see anybody go through something like this, but during the summertime we're going to sit and I know he's going to work very hard to be the best player he can possibly be."

The end of that is less than convincing, and gets less so when you read Grunfeld's answer to a question about his current relationship with Arenas: "It's fine." As if it wasn't clear already, The Post emphasized that this answer was delivered "tersely."

What does this all mean? Likely, that the Wizards have given up on treating Arenas as hostile, and that they've given up dreams of voiding some, or all, of his contract. There had been rumors that, if Gil and the organization simply had to call it quits, there could be a buyout leading to Arenas surfacing in, for instance, Orlando. That sounds great for Arenas, but do the Wizards really want to get rid of him that badly? Arenas is under contract through 2014, with up to $76 million at stake if he were to take the player option in 2013. That's also far too much for any team to want to take on in a sign-and-trade.

Simply put, the Wizards don't have any other options, and they should have realized this before now. If they had, maybe their treatment of Arenas -- however wrong-headed or evil his behavior may have been -- would have been a little more measured and, well, professional. Arenas feels like the team sold him out, which makes them worse than David Stern and the league authorities, who are supposed to be the bad guys.

When a team crosses over to that dark side, well, they really poison their relationship with an employee -- who, due to a little thing called contract law, they have to deal with for some time to come.