Truth About It» Gilbert Arenas On Playing Weight& Regaining Basketball Shape

Whether you’re in the NBA or not, what you eat and how your body reacts is kind of a big deal… but especially if you are in the NBA, or any other type of athlete. Just this season, we’ve seen Al Thornton playing with more hustle and explosiveness, partially due to his summertime consumption change of cutting beef, chicken and pork out of his diet. On the other hand, we’ve seen Andray Blatche struggle to get in playing shape, seemingly more than he should be after suffering a broken foot in June, due to his dabbling in late-night snacks.

Gilbert Arenas is a third case on the team, at least in terms of playing weight and getting into full game shape. Most of Arenas’ setbacks can be attributed the groin and ankle tweaks he experienced in preseason, which also caused him to miss the first three games of the regular season. When asked about how his knee felt after Wednesday’s home game versus Houston, Gilbert scoffed,“I haven’t had a knee problem for a year and a half now, so I don’t know why people keep asking about it.”

But otherwise, as John Townsend noticed in his‘Player Lock’ on Arenas, he doesn’t exactly look physically comfortable on the court just yet, and that’s to be expected… asArenas himself has admittedthat he’s probably about 10 pounds overweight.

“Gil’s still a long ways away,” said Flip Saunders after Wednesday’s game.“He needs to lose some weight and he needs to just get practice time on the court to get his legs under him. Because when you don’t shoot well, he’s not shooting well, you don’t have your legs under you as much. Give him credit, he worked hard on the defensive end --tried to work— so it’s going to be a work in process. But what we can’t do is we can’t put him in situations where we start playing him too many minutes because we don’t want him to have any kind of an injury.”

Before talking to him aboutpooping in shoes, which, believe it or not, is a result of what you eat, I briefly spoke with Arenas about losing weight. I started by asking him if he’s changed his diet to facilitate weight loss, Gil went in his own direction, indicating that he’s not completely willing to buy that he needs to lose weight, or that he’s overweight. And on regaining basketball shape, Arenas says he still doesn’t completely trust his ankle and is weary of it becoming a lingering injury.

Oh, and also, in the summer, when it’s hotter, you don’t eat as much, says Gil. Kind of makes sense since people like to pack on pounds when it’s cold (also via eating around the holidays). Also, kind of doesn’t make sense. Whatever, just watch.

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