You may have heard that yesterday Sports Illustrated started The Vault, which allows users to read the entire archive of Sports Illustrated articles and photos.  Of course, the first thing I did was see what stuff they had on Gilbert.  Most of the stuff that I found was stuff that any Gilbertologist should know already, but I did find one very Gilbert-esque thing that might have slipped our (or maybe just my) grasp until now:

The rooks can clearly use the culinary guidance. After enjoying a barbecue at Smith ’s house recently, Arenas tried his hand at grilling. “I was wondering why it didn’t taste as good as it did at his house,” says the guard, who called Smith . Arenas learned that he shouldn’t bathe the charcoal in lighter fluid or let the meat become engulfed by flames. “I’m learning and getting better,” Arenas says. “When I get really good, I’m going to invite Otis and his family over. It’s one way to say thanks for everything he’s done.”

Good ol’ Gilbert, always doing something different.  For a visual, I’m guessing in the end his barbecue looked something like this:

I know it seems to change every time Gilbert talks, so it’s important to get the latest information on how Gil is doing and when he thinks he’ll be back.  First, here’s what Ivan Carter had to say about Gilbert’s workout:

I’ll say this: the guy has not lost a bit of range and I didn’t see him favoring the left leg in any way. At one point, he drained 10 of 13 shots from four of five feet behind the three-point line.

That’s great, but when are we going to get to see him do that in a game?  Straight from Gil himself:

I’ll be back way before the playoffs, hopefully, within this week, I’ll be playing or maybe on the West Coast trip.

So it looks like he’ll be playing soon (crosses fingers) but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have his reservations, as he told Mike Jones:

“What would y’all do? Let’s be honest. Sit there! I guarantee, you’d be scared to walk outside. I know when my contract was up [in 2004] and I signed here, and I had to drive to meet Ernie [Grunfeld]. I stopped at greens, reds, yellows. Wanted to make sure nothing happen ’til I got my contract signed. I went the speed limit that day. Didn’t hit no freeways, no nothin’.”

His knee might not be 100% yet, but his confidence hasn’t wavered in his team:

We’re not scared of any team.  There’s no team that actually frightens us out there. When you have three guys that can score 20, we’re more frightening because no one has actually seen us as a whole group yet. Everyone has seen spurts of our team but they don’t have a scouting report. If they have a scouting report, it’s from last year so, we’re kind of the favorite going in if you look at it from that aspect.

Rather than try and explain what happened with Gilbert’s MRI, I’ll try and break it down into good news, bad news, and everything else:

Good News: Gilbert’s MRI showed that his knee is “healing” which is good.  It’s not as good as hearing that it’s healed, so there’s still some work to do, but it looks like he’s getting closer.

Bad News: Gilbert wasn’t cleared for game action, so he won’t be playing Wednesday at Orlando.

Good News: Although he wasn’t cleared for game action, he was cleared, in Gilbert’s words, to go “full, full speed”during practice.  Generally since Eddie Jordan has been coach he wants an injured player to go through a full practice before he’ll let him back on the court, so this would seem to be that last step in the process.

Maybe it’s good news, or maybe it’s bad news: Getting clearance to go “full, full speed” means that there has to be some sort of a schedule for Gilbert’s return right?  Not according to Eddie:

There is no timetable for Gilbert. He’s showing improvement, we’re going to pick up his workouts a little bit more. A little bit more intense and then we’re going to take a reading of his reaction after each workout and see how that goes but, we like the fact that he’s improving remarkably well.

Good News for optimists, Bad News for pessimists: O.K. so there’s no timetable for Gilbert’s return, but he’s still coming back this season.  Right Gil???

Everything is 50/50 to be honest.

The optimist in me is saying that Gilbert is just overreacting since he didn’t get the green light from his MRI today which is making him think that maybe it’s worse than what and leading him to say that there’s only a 50/50 shot of coming back.  The pessimist in me has no comment since he is currently bound and gagged.

The Best News: Even if the MRI results aren’t everything we could’ve hoped for, at least we know that Gilbert’s still intent on coming back.  Here’s what he had to say about the comeback:

At the end of the day, (not playing) is the smartest thing to do. Let’s be honest. But at the end of the day [Ed. Note: Again? As awesome as you are, you can't have the end of the day twice, Gil.] , I still love the game of the basketball and that will overtake everything. A hyped game will actually get me out there. If the doctors were not here against Cleveland, I’d be playing right now.

Here’s what Eddie had to say:

Gil loves to play basketball. It’s killing him not to play the game of basketball and once he is assured and the doctors are assured that he is ready to go in an NBA game, then he’ll go in an NBA game.

You might remember in Gilbert’s latest blog that he talked a lot about his hairstyles.  The following video has a lot of footage from his Warrior days, that shows the different hairstyles that he had throughout his time in Golden State:

Mike Jones has the latest on Gilbert’s return:

Agent Zero said in the locker room before tonight’s game that he is waiting on team clearance before he can return to game action, and that the Wizards’ medical staff wants him to undergo an MRI before giving him the OK.

“It’s up to them. Ask the Docs,” said Arenas, who has missed all but eight games this season with a second knee surgery since he tore a meniscus in April 2007. “They want me to get one more MRI to make sure everything’s OK in there. After I get my MRI, if everything’s OK, we’ll see if they clear me.”

Arenas said he will likely have the MRI done on Tuesday, the day before Washington heads to Orlando for Wednesday’s game against the Magic.

So, if he’s cleared, does that mean he will play Wednesday?

“Maybe,” a smiling Arenas said. “Maybe.”

Given the latest news, I’d say Wednesday is obviously the soonest that he could be back and at longest he’ll probably be back for the game on March 25th at Portland.