Check out an interview with Gilbert Arenas from Sole Colector where Gil talks about his many shoes, his previous sneaker deals, his favorite kicks, and much more.

Michael Tillery: Being out Gilbert, what have you focused on mentally seeing the game from the outside looking in?

Gilbert Arenas: Watching the game like a coach. It’s easy to watch it as a player. You see things and you try to figure out what coach is talking about. As you sit there, you begin to think like a coach instead of a player.

The DC Sports Bog has some highlights from his interview with Men’s Journal that just have to be read.  I’d give you a snippet, but I don’t want to ruin it for you.  Once you read it you’ll probably understand why he licked his teammates’ donuts.

Finally, the Washington Times got Gilbert’s thoughts on the Shaq trade.

“I’m trying not to be excited too much. We went out and had an excellent practice today. We’re jelling as a group, especially offensively. And defensively. And we’re just ready to show what we have Wednesday night. We have to be determined in practice and attack each other if we want to do that on the floor.”

C: Growing up were you a sneakerhead?
Gilbert Arenas: Yeah I was a big sneaker head. That’s why I know I wasn’t going to wear no 15 dollar pair of shoes. I’d spend my whole allowance to go buy some Jordan’s. Every shoe that came out that was hot, I had ‘em.

C: You still buy Jordan’s?
Gilbert Arenas: Yeah. You know what? I have about 40 pairs of them. (laughs) I don’t lie.

Gilbert on being considered a “shoot first point guard”:

C: Would you consider yourself a shoot-first, pass-second point guard?
Gilbert Arenas: When I look at that, and this is for our “experts” out there, when they call me a shoot-first point guard, and I’m like, am I the only shoot first point guard in this league that ever had two players that scored 20 points a game? Yes. So If I’m a shoot-first point guard, how do I have two other players that average 20 points? And no one ever realized that. I said name another scorer that averages the same amount as me that also has two players that average 20 points. You will never find one.

Gilbert on opting out of his contract next season:

C: So you mentioned that you’d opt out after this season what cities would be your top choices to play in?
Gilbert Arenas: L.A., San Antonio, Dallas, Houston

If I were a Wizards’ fan (and coincidentally, I am) I wouldn’t be too concerned with his last quote. The only appeal for Gilbert to going to L.A. would be to play with Kobe, and since it looks less and less likely that will happen, I doubt we’ll see him don the purple and gold. As for the three Texas teams, those are just smokescreens. The only way he’d end up on any of those teams is if he took a massive, massive pay cut which would defeat the purpose of opting out of his contract.

HG: How serious do your online sessions get?

GA: A couple of weeks ago, I sat playing Halo 2 for 14 hours straight. I had some sandwiches ready because I knew I’d be playing a long time. But I didn’t think it would be that long. Fourteen hours, although I did take a bathroom break.

(HT: Scott Van Pelt Style)

A look into Gilbert’s web-surfing:

I think you appeal to a certain type of smarter fan, like the Wizznutzz crew, who aren’t necessarily the Paint Your Face And Scream Obscenities. (Ed. Note: Nope. They just dress up like Wizards.) I think the blog is a large part of that.

Well, some people would rather not go to arenas, they’d rather just sit at home and watch the game at home, or play on the computer. There’s a lot of people like that. You’ve got your video gamers, who just sit at home and play video games all day. So by blogging, and playing video games, I’m actually getting to them.

Have you been to Wizznutzz?

My dad is more into the stuff like that, the RealGM, the Wizznutzz, those types of things. He tells me what’s going on. He was sitting there for five, six hours, posting under fake names, “how do you like that Gilbert Arenas? He’s a jackass, huh?” Just to see what the response is.

Do you at least go to ESPN? Do you have an email account?

I don’t, no. If someone tells me someone wrote something about me, I’ll go check it out, and I’ll “log in.” [makes actual air quotes]

Gilbert manages to take a shot at Chris Paul and NBA 2K8:

Was the idea to do the site yours?

They actually came to me about it. At first I didn’t think I had the time for it, but I thought if Chris Paul has the time to do it, I can.

And nobody reads Chris Paul’s site.

That’s what I’m gonna outsell him in video games this year. Nobody reads his site.

Finally, Gil talks about how blogging has made him realize that he has a life:

Do you guys ever scramble to come up with stuff for the site?

That’s what it’s surviving: I have an entertaining life. I thought I was boring. When I went through my life, I was like, “I sit around and play video games all day. Nobody wants to hear about this.” But once I started doing the site, I was like, “Yeah, I do have an interesting life!”

On what shoes he would want to battle, ala Kayne vs 50:

I called it out. I want to see who takes the challenge. If it’s D Wade, LeBron or Carmelo. Or Kobe, hey. I have no problem challenging you guys.

The original concept was for Gil to wear a sneaker comparable to the classic adidas Superstars in 82 different colorways, rocking a different color for each game. Gil eventually squashed that idea, preferring to keep it to a more manageable 20.

All I can say is wow.  If you can even think of 82 different color combinations, more props to you.