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Dad knows he'll be proud, a little choked up. He plans to smile, swallow hard. The view will be new. And utterly familiar. "When I look at him," Arenas Sr. says, "I look at myself." c c c Father looked at son, eyes moist. The two sat in a cramped Mazda coupe, clothes laid flat across the backseat. For now, this parking lot in Burbank, Calif. was home. Dad, it's going to be OK, right? Yeah. Sure it is. Arenas Sr. wasn't so sure. He had come to chase a dream, packed up his things and driven clear across the country. A former Florida Memorial College baseball player who briefly walked on to the University of Miami football team " playing with Jim Kelly and Ottis Anderson " Arenas Sr. took sole custody of his son just before the boy's third birthday. Mom was hanging with the wrong crowd, ingesting the wrong substances. Something had to give. "It really wrecked my heart," Arenas Sr. says. "I haven't seen her personally since picking up Gil. That's almost 20 years." Arenas Sr. managed an auto parts store in Tampa; on the side, he modeled for Sears and JC Penney. A talent agent told him about a new show filming in Miami. He landed a bit part in the first two episodes, quickly forgot about it. He later picked up a TV Guide. "Miami Vice." Maybe, he thought, I can do this. He took acting classes, spent time in New York. When Arenas was 5, dad set off for Hollywood. The two arrived in Los Angeles with $75 and a half-empty gas tank. Arenas Sr. tried to rent an apartment. The building manager asked for $1,200. Do you have a job? I'm an actor. Sweetie, everyone out here is an actor. They slept in the car, crashed at a YMCA, grilled hot dogs on a laundry iron. Arenas Sr. scanned the classifieds, interviewed for a job at an office furniture company. His son came along. The office manager watched the boy dribble a basketball between his legs. Hey, he asked, do you play? "He was a basketball fanatic," Arenas Sr. says. "I ask him, 'Do I have the job?' He said, 'Man, you were hired an hour ago. You can start tomorrow.' " Dad got an apartment, then an agent. At a local park, he wowed the "Days of Our Lives" softball team with moonshot home runs " and later played a fireman on the long-running soap opera. Junior took after Senior: at age 10, Arenas could toss a basketball the length of the court. The boy played football, too, but shied from hard hits. Basketball became his love. Arenas Sr. grew up without a father. He vowed to be there for his son. On weekends, he woke the boy early, took him to a nearby court. They ran through drills, played one-on-one. Once, while telling Junior not to reach in, Senior slapped the boy's hand away. "He broke my pinky," Arenas recalls, laughing. "I don't know if I [weighed] a buck-ten yet." Dad coached Junior's youth team. The other boys were older, and Arenas never got off the bench. He switched squads, then torched his father's outfit. Arenas Sr. could only smile. His son was stubborn. And surprisingly good. "That's what [Gilbert] needs," Arenas Sr. says. "He needs people to tell him he can't do something." At Grant High in Van Nuys, Calif., Arenas obliterated the school record book, arguably surpassing Gail Goodrich as the best player in San Fernando Valley history. "On the court, Gilbert had the best instincts I'd ever seen," says Grant coach Howard Levine. "He knew more about the game than I did." As Arenas wowed college recruiters while facing an endless string of double and triple teams, one fan screamed for more, a lone dissenter in the bleachers. Guess who. Gil, what are you doing? Get back on defense! Dad, I'm trying! You're not trying hard enough! And pass the ball! "I was like, 'Hey, you're supposed to be on my side!' " Arenas says. "To him, I never had a good game." Still hasn't. Last summer Arenas Sr. sat his son down. Watch yourself. Stay in control. During his first two pro seasons with the Golden State Warriors, Arenas fumed at the club's losing, lackadaisical ways. He smashed clipboards, picked up technical fouls. Teammate Jason Richardson lovingly dubbed him "Baby Ron Artest." In his first month with the Wizards, Arenas challenged Philadelphia center Samuel Dalembert to a postgame fight in a MCI Center hallway. He backed off just as Washington owner Abe Pollin strolled past. "If everybody is not on the same competitive level as Gil, he gets upset," Arenas Sr. says. "I told him, 'You're an emotional guy. But you have to tone it down.' " So far, so good. Outside of his ejection from a road game against Toronto " on a dubious second technical foul " Arenas has kept cool, averaging 24.8 points and 5.3 assists. But Dad remains his toughest critic, calling to talk after most games. The subject seldom changes. "I could have a quadruple-double," Arenas says, "but if I have four turnovers, he's like, 'What's up with them?' " "Four turnovers is too high for a guard," counters Arenas Sr., laughing. "C'mon now." c c c Ernie Grunfeld paused. Thump! The Wizards' president of basketball operations was heading home, walking down a hallway in the bowels of MCI Center. Thump-thump! The Wizards had an off day " no meetings, no practice. Outside, it was dark. Grunfeld opened the door to a practice court. What was that noise? "We just had something like three games in four nights," Grunfeld recalls. "And Gilbert's in there shooting, by himself." Coach Eddie Jordan calls Arenas' training habits "weird." He's only half-joking. When Arenas gets bored " which is often " he goes to the gym, often in the wee hours. With the Warriors, he had a key to the team's practice facility; at Arizona, coach Lute Olson briefly tried to ban Arenas from the student recreation center. Too much shooting. Not enough studying. "I don't know too many players who come in at 2, 3 in the morning, or put up 500 jump shots every day to try and improve their game," says Grunfeld. "Gilbert is just a basketball junkie." Arenas Sr. worked the graveyard shift, 13 years for UPS. He rose at 2:30 a.m., lifted boxes until dawn. Junior would get up just after Senior left, sneak off to a nearby court. He never said a word. But Dad knew. A fellow gym rat would. "High school gyms, local gyms, I know everything around here," Arenas Sr. says. "I had friends of mine in the [apartment] complex watching out for him." Arenas Sr. slept in the morning, auditioned in the afternoon. Rejection was common: 45 script readings might yield a single job. He worked on a Pepcid AC commercial and a Jean-Claude Van Damme film. All-day shoots were brutal. Sleepy and bleary-eyed, Arenas Sr. sometimes forgot his lines. But he never complained, never got discouraged. His son took notice. "Most kids would be like, 'My dad's never around,' " Arenas says. "But I saw it as a positive. He was out there working to provide for me. Whatever I do, I have to put in the same amount of time that he does." At Arizona, Arenas was expected to back up incumbent sophomore Ruben Douglas, maybe even redshirt. He defiantly chose the number 0 " the amount of minutes some fans said he would play " and went to work. Arenas played possum in the team's informal summer scrimmages, shooting jumpers and seldom driving. When official practice got under way, he pump-faked Douglas into the next area code. Douglas transferred to New Mexico (and later led the nation in scoring). Arenas earned a starting spot and MVP honors in the preseason NIT. As a sophomore, he was the leading scorer on a Wildcats squad that advanced to the national title game. Arenas surprised everyone " again " by turning pro. "He probably could have gone back to Arizona and been a huge star the next year," says NBA analyst and former Wildcats guard Steve Kerr. "I think he was more confident in his pro chances than anybody else." Indeed. Before the 2001 draft, Arenas dropped first-round money on a first-round ride: a tricked-out SUV with four television screens. Dad held a draft night party. Arenas slipped to the Warriors at No. 31. Scouts labeled him a 'tweener " too short to play shooting guard, too selfish to play point. Arenas went back to his apartment, turned off the lights. He wanted to give the car back. "That's probably the first day I cried since I was 5," Arenas says. "I was heartbroken." Buried on the Warriors' bench, Arenas sulked. Then he got mad. He treated every practice like a game, devoured scouting tapes, worked with former All-Star Chris Mullin to improve his outside shot. When Arenas announced he would be starting by the All-Star break, most observers chuckled. After the rookie averaged 14.1 points and 5.1 assists while starting the last 30 games, no one laughed. A year later, Arenas earned the league's Most Improved Player Award, beating out San Antonio's Tony Parker and Detroit's Chauncey Billups. He signed a six-year, $65 million deal with Washington, then promised playoffs. Last season's losing record still smarts. "I've watched Gilbert for a long time," Grunfeld says. "He always overcame the odds. He has that kind of nature. He wants to prove something to people." c c c Abe Pollin let them eat cake. On the morning Arenas and forward Antawn Jamison were named All-Stars, the octogenarian Wizards owner gathered team employees on the MCI Center floor, offering cake and congratulations. Arenas spies Larry Hughes. He moves to smear frosting on his injured teammate's mug. Coach Eddie Jordan shakes his head. No, Gilbert. Later the half-eaten cake sits on a table, down the hall from Washington's locker room. Arenas picks at a chicken salad belonging to Sashia Jones, the club's director of community relations. Jones rounds the corner. Uh-oh. My chicken is gone! You ate all the chicken! You shouldn't have done that, Gilbert. Arenas smirks though stuffed cheeks. In a few hours, he is scheduled to make a public appearance. "And I don't have to say nothing?" Arenas asks. "Smile and look cute?" "Smile and look cute," Jones says. Arenas guffaws, a natural goof. He once started a snowball fight on Golden State's team bus, ripped up entire card decks after losing games. At Arizona, he would burst into teammates' hotel rooms, jump up and down on their beds. All before breakfast. Arenas Sr. can relate: while auditioning for a Tostitos commercial, he purposely fell flat on his face. Anything for a giggle.
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