In Gil’s latest blog (don’t forget to vote!) he gives his account of being kept out of the lineup against Detroit:
We get to the office down the hall and he starts talking and I should have seen it coming. I see it in movies all the time where they give the pep-up talk and then BAM. He was like, “Everything is looking good. We’re heading in the right direction. I’m very confident in the knee. All my worries are over. Right now, mentally, you should be thinking about the Eastern Conference Finals. Get your mind ready for the Eastern Conference Finals because there’s no team out there that this team in scared of and nobody wants to see a seven game series with you playing.”
So I’m lathered up thinking, “Yeah, boy! Let’s go out there and get it started!” I’m jumping out the seat, ready to go.
And here comes the curve …
“Yeah, well, you know, let’s give this thing another week or so and you know, we’ll check you back then?”
I was like, “Huh? Another week?! I was planning on playing today. My mind, my mental, is ready for right now!”
He was like, “I don’t think we should rush into this.”
I was like, “Trust me, I’m mentally ready right now.”
Him: “I don’t think you’re ready. We need to test it one more week.”
Me: “What’s one more week going to do? I don’t grow facial hair in a week! Nothing happens in a week. My knee isn’t going to get that much stronger in a week. A week!”
Him: “There’s going to be six games in nine days, I don’t want that pounding to hurt you.”
Me: “Come on, this is not what I want to hear right now.”
As he was heading back to his house to pick up a blazer, he had a lot going through his mind:
It was just me and my car … speeding — something that I shouldn’t be doing.
Then I got that thought that I know everybody gets once in a while, I was like, “You know, what if I just ran my car into this pole right here?”
I don’t know why I thought that, but I kept going with it.
“Then I can jump off the road into this lake and just swim … or drown. Whichever one comes first.”
It was really devastating. I was thinking, “Mannn, again?!”
But I listened to Young Jeezy’s verse in “They Know” to get me past those bad thoughts … plus, I’m sane. I’m a sane person, I wouldn’t do that to myself.
After re-assuring everyone that he’s sane (Off-topic note: it’s often the people that think they’re the most sane that end up being the insane ones. Just sayin’.) he talked about coming off the bench when he returns:
People don’t understand that it takes time to get a rhythm. To be honest, I don’t know if I can get a rhythm fast enough to be the player I know I can be by the end of the season with so few games left. Especially going back to my history of how I start seasons, I don’t start the seasons as powerful as I’d like to.
They want me to practice more, but I’d like to get back to game speed faster by “practicing” in games. It’s not like we’re going up against any powerful scoring point guards the rest of the way. I can just use the games to get a rhythm and get my wind back. Plus, our team practices aren’t as intense this late in the season, so the games are really the only way for me to get my rhythm to where I’m a superstar level.
It’s going to take me at least 15-20 games, and there’s not 15-20 games left. That’s what I’m fighting against.
As he continues to get into a rhythm, a likely first round match up could pit his Wizards against the Cavaliers who have developed quite the rivalry as of late:
The LeBron-DeShawn incident was funny. I can tell you, I enjoyed the game. Sometimes when you want to hype yourself, you got to attack the big dog. That’s what DeShawn did and he took the challenge.
I don’t know what happened in the past, but it was sure visible that game. They were just going at it back and forth. It was funny because LeBron, DeShawn, Caron, Damon Jones, Brendan … they were all just going at it. It was like another playoff game from years of build up.
I can’t wait to match up. Hopefully we match up with them again.
Finally Gil talked about the party he threw for his son:
That was the bomb. I spent a total of $30.
I went to Safeway and bought him a nice little cake, and then I went to 31 Flavors and bought me a cake. I needed a little ice cream cake of my own.
Then I had Doritos in the house, and the milk and orange juice in the house. So snacks and beverages were covered.
Then I bought two lollipops, because if my son has a lollipop my daughter would want one too.
Then I bought a balloon without the string, because I couldn’t find somebody to put the string in.
And I bought one candle.
While we were singing “Happy Birthday,” my daughter was singing, “Happy Birthday to me,” even though it was her brother’s birthday.
“Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me.”
I have a big deejay booth downstairs in my house and we had a lot of fun. I played music and they danced and they spilled and they ate everything.
I’m still waiting on confirmation as to whether or not the life-sized elephant was involved in party festivities.
