Photo used under a Creative Commons license with
Keith Allison.

Preseason NBA basketball is some pretty boring stuff — which means the the spotlight is all on Gilbert Arenas with his latest head-scratcher. See, the Wizards had their first preseason home game last night (the phenomenal John Wall had 19 and an awesome coast-to-coast layup, by the way) and before the game, Arenas told head coach Flip Saunders that he had a sore knee. Arenas had been complaining about a achy ankle recently, so Saunders scratched Arenas from the lineup and started Nick Young in his place. Young led the team in scoring with 24 points and the team won by 15.

Which apparently Arenas took as the cue he needed to admit that he wasn’t actually hurt.

“I told him I’d sacrifice playing tonight so he can get some time in because I know he’s kind of frustrated he’s not getting a chance to crack the three position, especially since we’re going three guards,” said Arenas. “So I told him, ‘I’ll go ahead, fake an injury or say something’s wrong with me so you can start.’”

The follow-up question was clear: So the knee is alright?

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

So Gilbert Arenas faked an injury in a kind-hearted attempt to get Young some extra playing time. (Arenas told reporters today that “I screwed up again.”) Of course, lying to your coach is generally frowned upon in sports, and Saunders fined Arenas today.

The bigger topic here is what’s going on in Arenas’ head, of course: a few years ago, we probably would have chalked this little charade up to “Gilbert being quirky ol’ Gilbert,” had a laugh and let it go. And some Wiz observers are obviously still content to let it slide — SB Nation’s Mike Prada actually theorized that Saunders could have been in on the gag. The strangest thing is that if Arenas had just walked up to Saunders before the game and told him that he thought Saunders should give Arenas’ starting spot to Young, we’d have to think Saunders would probably have taken him up on it. That’s kind of the thing they have the preseason for, after all.

But after everything that’s happened in the last year or so, it’s questionable about whether Arenas gets to be this kind of loosey-goosey with the rules. It’s not really possible for us to expect that “emo Arenas” was going to be a permanent fixture this season, but I don’t think that anyone would be super disappointed if Arenas just applied some common sense to something — even if its just a meaningless preseason game.