Maddenation
Gilbert Arenas’s Blog
NBA star Gilbert Arenas is officially my favorite basketball player. It’s been unofficial for a couple years, but after hearing reporter Mike Wilbon talk about it several times I decided to look up Gilbert’s blog.
It’s amazing. He writes dorky stories about XBox and Halo 3 and how he crushes little kids in online video games. He titles one of his posts about the preseason, “Man, I’m shooting 4-24!” He discusses, in ridiculous detail, his midnight paintball fight in his backyard with some guys hooking up his stereo equipment against a few rookies from his team.
And he wrote this post. I can’t figure out if it’s true or not. Gilbert cracks a lot of jokes straight-faced, but this seems real. Either way, great story.
Reminds Me of a StoryDan • Recommendations • 10/30/07 • 0 commentsThis is kind of a feel-good story, in a sense. I had a friend in high school, named Eddie. We called him ‘chicken wing’ because he was skinnier than Tayshaun Prince before he came into the NBA.
There was five of us and we had our own little team when we were 14-years old. Well Eddie used to always say that he could dunk. Every time we’d show up to the park and he’d already be there he’d be like, ‘Oh man, I dunked it today! I dunked it today!’ And we were like, ‘Yeahhhh, rigggghhhht.’This used to go on for years. It started when we were 14 but then we were sophomores, juniors, seniors and none of those years he could dunk the ball.
So when I went off to college and the summer before my freshman year, I got a phone call. My friend was on the other line and he’s like, ‘Yo, Eddie passed away.’ And I was like, ‘What?! What happened?’
And he started laughing.
So I was like, ‘What the hell are you laughing for?’
He goes, ‘It’s funny, but it’s not funny ”
‘OK, can you explain why the hell you’re laughing?!’
He was like, ‘Well we were playing five-on-five ”
‘All right ”
‘And Eddie went up and dunked it and he got so excited that he collapsed.’
And you know what? I totally forgot about him dying and I was like, ‘Eddie dunked?! You got to be kidding me. He really dunked it?!’
They said he really dunked it and he got so happy he finally dunked in front of his friends that he passed away. He died right there on the court we grew up on.
For a kid who plays basketball, if I had to pass away, that would be the way I would want to pass away — like if I won the championship and I was so happy that I passed out right there.
That’s a memory that I can always live with.
He didn’t pass away from a gun shot or this or that. He passed away doing something he loved. It wasn’t a feel bad story when I first heard. I was so excited that he finally proved us wrong and he dunked, and he was so happy that he finally proved us wrong and he dunked that he passed away from it.
His favorite player was Allen Iverson so we buried him with an Allen Iverson jersey and No. 3 was actually going to be my number going into college, but it was already taken so I had to go with zero.
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