Arenas and McGrady have more in common than you’d think. Of course, they’re both Adidas endorsers, so they’ve shared commercials before:

They also once engaged in an impromptu long distance shooting contest:

Tracy won that battle, but Gilbert won the war.

What’s linked the two together most recently is that both Gilbert and Tracy McGrady have gone down with injuries and in their absence, both teams have managed to continue playing good basketball without them. As a result, some have called into question whether or not both teams are actually better off without them. Not so fast, says Michael Lee of Wizards Insider who offers this counter:

[..} Arenas is one of the toughest players in the league to defend. He's a game-changer. You need those kind of players, especially in the playoffs. I just think it would be better to see a healthy Gilbert playing alongside the vastly improved Butler and the steady Jamison. I know the Wizards went 3-5 with that trio this season, but it was obvious that Arenas wasn't himself, the knee was still wobbly.

People tend to forget that when those guys were in the starting lineup together - and healthy - the Wizards went 30-21 in 2005-06, and 33-21 last season. Maybe I'm wrong, but 63-42 looks like a pretty decent record to me. A .600 winning percentage plays out to a 49-win team over 82 games.

There is a difference between being good enough to beat bad teams and good enough to beat good to great teams consistently. For the Wizards and Rockets, that difference is Arenas and McGrady, respectively. Reason being, the perception of those teams changes with their best players on the floor. With a healthy Arenas or a healthy McGrady on the floor, the Wizards and Rockets are scarier. Those guys have the potential to go off at any minute and demoralize the opposing team.

As Ivan pointed out in his story on Thursday, the Wizards don't have a win against a team with a winning record since a Dec. 1 victory over Toronto (and on that night, the Raptors didn't have Chris Bosh or Andrea Bargnani). It's not like the Wizards would've struggled against the LeBron-less Cavaliers, Sacramento, Minnesota, Miami, Charlotte, Milwaukee and Seattle with Arenas. You also have to assume that a healthy Arenas would’ve helped a little in losses against Atlanta, Philadelphia, Chicago and Indiana.