On Sunday morning, the San Francisco Chronicle had a feature on trainer Frank Martisciano who has trained with Leon Powe (who had a really good game last night) and Gilbert Arenas.  We all know that Gilbert is a workout buff, but what Gilbert did when he was with Frank makes his everyday routine look pretty easy.  Just check out this description from the article:

Players train five days a week, often in the late afternoon, for four to eight weeks.

It’s a retreat for many. Locations, which he often creates fictitious names for, aren’t divulged because he doesn’t want people bothering them.

Scaling the 55-degree, 116-step wooden staircase at Moraga Hill, Goods chases Washington State’s Kyle Weaver, who has a 15-step head start.

Matrisciano barks: “Who wants to get paid? Who wants first-round money?”

At one site he wants known as Post to Post, Matrisciano has players sprint from one marker to another. They hold heavy objects like orange pails filled with sand. At sites he calls just Beach No. 1 and No. 2, Matrisciano puts harnesses on players and tugs on them as they do sprints up sand hills. Other times, Matrisciano sits on the beach, latches on cords and has players pull him across the flat sand for 50 yards. There’s a vertical hill called Backwards Hill where players backpedal up and down.

“If we can do a full (workout) of this,” said Derrick Low, a former guard at Washington State, “imagine what it’s going to be like when we’re on a flat surface.”

The players’ only break during these sessions is when they’re stretching with Yasmen Mehta and Dominic Daprile, massage specialists, and Dagmar Wittner, a chiropractor.

During the day, players have training with Phil Handy, a basketball skills coach, and former NBA coach Bob Hill. Their improvement in conditioning is a given.

“They’re stronger, quicker, more explosive,” Handy says. “We hit them hard on the courts. They get a dose of both worlds.”

Whatever you want to say about Gilbert, you can’t say he isn’t dedicated.

All you free agency buffs out there know that the big upcoming date is July 1st.  That’s when the free agency period starts and teams can start bidding for players’ services, including Gilbert’s.  Of course, that’s still contingent on Gilbert actually opting out before July 1st.  Otherwise, he’ll stay locked into his current contract next season.  So when is Gilbert planning on making the opt-out official?

June 30th.

If you’re envisioning some bizarre scenario where Gilbert submits the paperwork on time, but it doesn’t get processed until after the deadline a la Terrell Owens, you’re not the only one.

Regardless, it does look like his knee is doing better.  Here’s what Gilbert had to say about his recovery:

I’ll be full speed by October.  I’m not going to do anything stupid this summer. I’m going to take my time and prepare for next season. I’m going to be smart about it this year. I’m going to have five or six months to get this thing strong again and ready to go again.

Over at BallHype, Tom Ziller takes a look into the whole combo guard vs. pure point debate (which is always a hot button issue whenever someone discusses Gilbert Arenas) and analyzes how players fall into these different categorizations.  Even though Gilbert didn’t get enough playing time this year to be included in the analysis, I think you can draw some conclusions based on TZ’s research.

It’s a must-read for any Gilbert fan, since unfair or not, this is a question that will dog his supporters.  I’d especially recommend checking out this part:

Based on the groupings we see on our Scale, there are a lot of incredible “combo guards” in our league. Baron Davis. Reigning Finals MVP Tony Parker (who has roughly three shooting possessions for every assist he makes). Chauncey Billups. Of course, some of these can be attributed to the offense system these players use. Famously, San Antonio basketball results in few assists (though I’ll note that Avery Johnson averaged 7+ assists in 31 minutes in SA’s first title season, playing in the exact same offense, versus 6 assts in 33 minutes for Parker this year; Parker is less pure than AJ, certainly).

All four teams still competing boast impure PGs, combo guards who shoot at least twice as often as they earn an assist. Two (Billups, Parker) are considered among the best in the league; the others (Rondo, Fisher) are considered solid at worst. Yet we curse every prospect without the vision of Kidd (his team lost in five in the first round) or Nash (ditto), relegating these lepers to the bargain bin.

Chris Paul stormed the universe this year. Deron Williams was also brilliant. These matters seemingly have the greater Chicago area set on Derrick Rose, lauding THE RISE OF THE PURE POINT GUARD. And while these fellows are more pure than most, they aren’t holy angels of unselfishness and good intentions. Paul was a 20 ppg scorer, for goodness sake. And even more, Rose’s freshman totals would place him with Marbury on our scale!

Our perspective on what makes a point guard great is seriously warped, and I blame it all on the false heralding of the assist as a game-changer and of purity as the singular path to point guard greatness. Because we believe assists to be of utmost import, and because pure point guards are more valued than scorers, we consider PGs who get lots of assists to be pure and thus, the best. They supposedly raise the game of their teammates. They make everything offense easier. They lead, muzzled or not, because they pass. It’s malarkey (and I offer Jason Kidd as proof).

If there’s only one blog post that you read today regarding Gilbert’s impact on the Washington offense, make it this one from Truth About It.

Of course, we all want to see Gilbert back in a Wizards uniform next season, but as we head into what should be a very interesting off-season, it’s important to know the different ideas that are thrown out there, absurd or not.  The first one comes from Mavs writer Eddie Sefko:

Q: Do you think the Wizards would be interested in a sign-and-trade of Gilbert Arenas for Josh Howard?

Aaron in Wisconsin

Sefko: Are you the only Mavericks fan north of the Red River? Certainly you are the only one in Packerville.

But that’s OK, because you asked a terrific question.

The Wizards, like most of the league, can use another swingman. The question is whether they feel they could lose Arenas for nothing if they don’t make a move. And any team interested has to be absolutely positive Arenas is going to be physically fit next season.

Due diligence, they call it. But this sort of deal actually makes some sense. Arenas is damaged goods right now, though clearly a better player than Howard if the playing field is level.

Howard, also, is on the low end of his market value right now. Saying you are a pot-smoker and having a late-night party for yourself during the playoffs can have an impact on your trade value.

For those reasons, it’s not a bad piece of speculation, though it would require extra pieces by the Wizards — probably a bad, long-term contract — included.

Now, I doubt this would happen for a few reasons, first among them being that the Mavericks would have to move Arenas to shooting guard unless they could find a way to trade Jason Kidd somewhere else.  Then you have to consider that the deal would have to be part of a sign-and-trade deal, which would make it even harder for Dallas to match Arenas’ contract.

The trade is probably more speculating for the sake of speculation than anything else, but you can bet it won’t be the last the trade idea that gets bounced out there.