New blog today!  The main focus on today’s entry is on the perception of a point guard:

I look at Steve Nash, Chris Paul, Deron Williams … you can score the ball so well and you can pass it so well, you’re not a point guard. You’re a player. You’re Isiah Thomas. You’re Magic Johnson … You’re a basketball player.

That’s how I look at it. I’m never like, “He’s a point guard … He’s a two because he scores …” If my one can score, if my two can pass, that’s more weapons I have on that floor.

It kind of confuses me when they say, “this is a classic point guard going up against a scoring guard.” Well, if I have 54 and he has 41 … that … isn’t really … he wasn’t just a pure … that doesn’t make sense.

“Well, he just had a good night.”

Umm, yeahhhh.

How do you know what a guy’s mentality is? This is how I judge these three players: Steve Nash, Deron Williams and Chris Paul. If you take those three players and switched their systems and put all three of them in each others’ systems, they’d all still be doing the same thing.

Now you take those three guards out of those systems and you put Steve Nash and those guys in the triangle. The triangle isn’t a pick-and-roll offense, you just pass it to the post, spot up … what would they be considered then? Would they be as dangerous as they are now?

That’s the question. That’s why I said, I don’t understand what’s a pure point anymore.

When I was growing up, even when I was younger, I considered myself a player. When I was in high school I was the point because I was the only one who knew how to dribble to bring up the ball. So I brought up the ball and I was also the scorer. When I was at Arizona, I scored so well and then we had Jason Gardner as our point guard, but he scored too. We put five players in double digits. He scored and he played point. His assists might not have showed it, but he was the point guard.

After talking about the problems with trying to compare players to one another, he gives an update on what it was like when he returned to practice:

You got to have a little drama with it. You can’t just say, “I can’t wait to be back at practice.” You have to bring a little drama with the story or it wouldn’t be a story.

Come on, scared? Me?

I think I’ve hit the most game winners since MJ. Oh wait, that’s probably Kobe. But anyway, why should I be scared?

I mean, it is nerve wracking but I think that’s more because there’s a contract on the line, I don’t think it’s because of the play. I’ve said this, if it wasn’t my contract year, would I be scared to go out there and play? No.

It’s just because there’s a lot on the line. Yeah. A lot.

When you have two knee surgeries, and while I’m fortunate that mine weren’t really serious, if you get hurt again no one is going to want you. This is the league where players are treated like meat. If you aren’t fresh, hey, somebody is stepping in right over you.

I realized that with injuries you have to really take care of them and you can’t force the recovery. I learned my lesson on that one.

Practice was same ol’, same ol’. I was back to my norm. This time around instead of just scoring, I’ve been throwing some dimers. My teammates were like, “I didn’t know you had that in you.”

Just a little over month after his last story involving hair came out, Gilbert has a new story.  Thankfully, this one is a lot less painful than the other one:

We go on a trip to Miami and we’re playing the Heat and I have my hair in braids. The first time I wore braids, I ended up getting kicked out of the game. I ended up sleeping with my braids in that night.

I woke up, and my hair was gone.

Hair was gone.

Gone.

Gone.

My hair was gone!

So I called up Shelby, “Uhh, I think we have a problem?”

“What?”

“My hair is gone.”

She’s like, “What do you mean, gone?”

“Like … gone. Like, GONE. I can’t find it. It ain’t on the pillow, it ain’t anywhere. My hair is gone.”

She was like, “You haven’t been putting conditioner in it?”

And this straight came out of my mouth: “What is conditioner?”

She’s like, “Conditioner. You put conditioner in your hair to keep it moist. Most likely it probably burnt and fell out.”

The latest entry ends with him talking about his GM being an enforcer and giving some props to Mitch Richmond.  Check it out while you’re loading up on conditioner.