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.

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.

Gilbert has a new blog entry out today, and as usual he gives an update on his injury status:

I practiced, I did 5-on-0 stuff, running up and down the court. I was like a little kid going back to school, basically. Then I took two days off because over the break I went strong with five days all day working on strength stuff. I’m just monitoring it and if I feel any swelling or stiffness, I just sit out. It’s a little vacation, I like that. Other than that, I’m just trying to keep the guys upbeat.

He talked about being left off of the Olympic roster:

I wasn’t surprised, I don’t think anybody was. It took off a big weight off my shoulders, a decision about whether or not I was going to try and play on my contract summer or not and is it a good idea or not. It took that all out of my head. I said in an interview, I respect their decision that they made and I’m going to root for those guys. It was a dream of mine when I was little to be an Olympian and when I sat back and thought about it, I got that chance.

He had this to say about Jose Calderon:

He’s playing great. Over the years you can see his development as a player, and he’s really playing well. T.J. might lose that spot to him, but I don’t know. Who knows? As a backup or as a starter right now, he’s playing great basketball.I watched Calderon last week and he had a really good game. You can take him out of being a backup. He’s a starter now, he’s a starter in this league. You know what? With Jason Kidd gone and if Calderon plays how he’s playing next year and they’re winning in Toronto and he’s still the starter? He might have a shot at being an All-Star, he might have a crack at it.

After breaking down all the trades that went down at the deadline, Gilbert shared his thoughts on All-Star Weekend:

Overall, All-Star weekend was very entertaining. That was the most entertaining dunk contest in many years. It wasn’t that players were coming up with new dunks, they’re just bringing more excitement to the old dunks. Like with Gerald Green blowing out the candle to Dwight Howard putting on the Superman cape, there’s no difference in the dunks. They’re just putting character to it. I think that was the most important part about it. As a player you have to look, “OK, there’s no more dunks to be created …” Unless you have a charismatic mind and you can create a dunk that can go. Like that year Jason Richardson was in it, I was playing on the trampoline and I came up with two dunks that won both years for him.

Gilbert’s got a new blog entry out today, first matter he discusses is the Shaq trade:

It makes sense to me because they never had a post play. They never had somebody they can throw the ball into in the post. As much as they run and gun, all those years they couldn’t get far. They’ve been having nice records during the regular season, but once playoffs hit they got hurt by post play.

He’s a big fan of the Shaq trade, but you can’t say the same for the trade for Pau Gasol:

The Lakers stole Pau Gasol. They hi-jacked him. That should be a crime. You don’t give away Pau Gasol for Kwame Brown and a rookie. I don’t care what’s out there, you can get more than that. You gave away a $100 bill and you got back two nickels and a dime.

Gilbert talks about teammates Caron Butler and Antawn Jamison making the All-Star Game and he gives out some props for Baron Davis who just missed out.

BD is my man, hundred-grand strong. He worked so hard on his body this year, coming in in shape and what he did for the city of Golden State last year, bringing a team that was down under and beating the No. 1 team in the Western Conference and he’s basically doing the same thing he did last year.

I’d give him some flack for the whole city of Golden State thing, but he makes up for it with this brilliant point about David West making the All-Star Game:

That’s going to be the coolest jersey ever though … that David West jersey for being a Western Conference All-Star … West on the front, West on the back. That’s going to be the bomb jersey.

You know that jersey is going to be added to Gil’s collection.  But is he going to be adding the role of 6th man to his résumé?

I’m the one who said I wanted to come back as a reserve because I didn’t want to mess up the chemistry of the team. Right now, we have a lot of chemistry from that starting group and we don’t really get a lot from the bench because they’re inconsistent. I just thought that when I come back, it would be easier for the team if I come back as a reserve. I know a lot of superstars out there would want to just be out there and be the man and would mess up the team just to get back in the lineup, but no, it’s about more than that. It’s going to be winning time. Eventually I’m going to ease back into being a starter – three games, four games, who knows – but I’m going to start off on the bench.

He also talks about the Super Bowl and his experience with a rusty razor, but don’t take my word for it, check it out for yourself.

In his latest blog entry, Gilbert discusses the progress on his rehab:

I walk with 50 percent and run with 30 percent. I can run two miles and not feel anything. I’m also doing shooting competitions, I can spot shoot. I’m not really supposed to run or jog or do anything like that full impact until Wednesday. That will be 10 weeks. Right now I’m just strengthening up the muscle because I don’t want to do what I did last time when the muscle was not strong enough.

He shoots down the rumor that he and singer Mya are romantically involved:

It is not true. I’m off the market and the Mya rumor is false. I know her through a mutual friend, The Game, because she opened up for him on his tour. No, I am not dating Mya. That’s a false rumor. That’s where it started from because that’s the only time I’ve ever seen her.

Gilbert makes it clear that he’s not a fan of playing outdoors:

Do you know how hot it is? They better have the ambulance ready, because somebody ain’t gonna make it in that heat. Truthfully, I don’t want to play in no damn heat. If they picked another city besides Phoenix … Do you understand how hot it is in Phoenix, ladies and gentlemen? It is 197 degrees outside in Phoenix. It is so hot outside in Phoenix that they play in the coldest arena in the league.

Finally, he claims that he’s the best celebrity bowler:

I’m in the running for best celebrity bowler. There has to be a contest, they just can’t give the award to anybody. I got a few personalized balls. Are these real nominees or did they just every celebrity whoever said they bowled? I don’t think any of the other names on that list can beat me. If we went to the lanes right now I’d score anywhere from 220 to 240.

He also talks tries to get Nick Young in the Rookie Challenge, Caron Butler and Antawn Jamison in the All-Star Game, talks about the locker room rearrangement, Etan Thomas’ recovery, and losing a shooting contest to Oleksiy Pecherov among other things.  But don’t take my word for it, check it out for yourself.