Gilbertology

Gilbert Arenas seems to be getting close to returning to the Wizards lineup. Sara maintains that you can tell by his off-kilter play during those few games at the start of the season that Gilbert was psychologically shattered by the initial injury and is never going to be the same player again. I've never heard her use the term "swag" in regard to this theory, but to students of Gilbertology I think the relevance should be clear.

I'm not, however, really sure I buy it. What's more, Gilbert wouldn't need to be all that good for reallocating minutes away from the likes of DeShawn Stevenson and Roger Mason, Jr. to constitute a net improvement for the team. The real issue is that the Wizards have survived Gilbert's loss by becoming a much better team defensively. I'm not sure exactly what caused that (defense is, as ever, under-analyzed and under-discussed so I have no real idea what could cause it to improve) but the trick will be to not let it go away when he comes back.