Washington Wizards point-guard Gilbert Arenas is known for his scoring. One of the NBA’s most lethal shooters, Arenas has long been revered for both his accurate shooting and amazing quickness. Recently though it’s been Arenas’ pass-first mentality and climbing assist-totals that have been garnering the 25-year-old attention.

The three-time all-star’s most recent performance — a 36-point, 11-asist, seven-rebound effort on Tuesday night – may too have been his most-complete. Arenas couldn’t have been any better in his team’s monumental 104-99 home-win over the Detroit Pistons, which kept the Wizards atop the Eastern Conference standings. Read the rest »

CALL Gilbert Arenas whatever you’d like. “Gil” and “Gilly” are obvious options, but he also responds to Agent-Zero, the newest of his various nicknames. Whatever you call the Washington Wizards guard, though, make sure that come the 18th of next month you refer to him as an NBA All-Star starter. 

Not even the incessantly confident Arenas was expecting to start in next month’s All-Star Game in Las Vegas. Two weeks ago the California native trailed New Jersey’s Vince Carter by more than 200,000 votes in the race to start opposite LeBron James in the East’s backcourt. Read the rest »

I’m about to begin my draft coverage in the next day or so. My plan is to rank the top-10 at every position and to break-down each of the 10-players ranked at each position. I’d also like to provide a mock-draft or two for you as part of our pre-draft coverage.

I figured though that before I did all that I should at least post the draft order for you to gander at. Hopefully you’ve given it a look once-or-twice already this winter, particularly if your favorite team has a high-pick in round-one. Read the rest »

It didn’t take the Washington Capitals (21-22-7) long to give the home-crowd at the Verizon Center something to cheer about on Saturday night. Within a minute of the game’s opening face-off the Caps had registered two board-rattling hits. Each of the hits, dished out by Brian Sutherby and Alex Ovechkin respectively, resulted in a Carolina Hurricane (26-19-6) falling to the ice.

By the end of the opening-period Washington had tallied more goals (three) than they did in an entire 60-minute game against Carolina 24-hours earlier. Despite allowing two late fist-period goals, which came 50-seconds apart from one another, Washington was able to bounce-back from a 6-2 loss in Carolina on Friday to hand the Hurricanes a 7-3 loss, their 20th loss of the season. Read the rest »

Call Gilbert Arenas what you want. Gilly, Gil, Agent-Zero, he answers to all of those names. Just make sure that come February 18th you refer to him as an all-star starter, a well-deserved honor Arenas found about early on Thursday evening.

It wasn’t expected that Arenas - the best player on the Eastern Conference’s best team - was going to start in next month’s all-star game in Las Vegas. Just two weeks ago the California-native trailed New Jersey Nets guard Vince Carter by 200,000 votes in a race for a starting-spot in the Eastern Conference back-court. Read the rest »

If you are awake tomorrow morning at 6:25 am eastern and have your XM Radio handy, tune your dial to channel 144, XM Sports Nation. That is when I’ll be appearing on “XMSN This Morning” with host and wealth-of-knowledge T.J. Rives.

We’ll probably talk about sports. More accurately we’ll primarily discuss basball, football, and basketball.  Read the rest »

Longtime basketball star - and the current interim starting center for the Houston Rockets - Dikembe Mutombo was honored as one of President George W. Bush’s guests at his annual “State of the Union” address last evening. Mutombo, a 19th-year Center who played his college-ball at Georgetown University, was one of three special-guests who sat with first-lady Laura Bush last evening as President Bush addressed our nation.

Mutombo was being honored not for any of his accomplishments on the hardwood, but for his tireless and diligent work as a humanitarian in his home-country of Zaire. The President spoke about the NBA big-man’s incessant efforts to better his homeland, and brought attention to a Hospital that Mutombo funded the building of ($29 million) and opened in Congo. Read the rest »

The Washington Wizards and Phoenix Suns are about to tip-off. The last time these two teams played Gilbert Arenas led the Wizards to a win with 54-points, as his team narrowly overcame a 42-point effort from Phoenix’s MVP Steve Nash.

The two team’s combined for more than 160-points in a game that wasn’t decided until the final moments. Phoenix brings with it to Washington the Western Conference’s second-best record, having won 29 of-their-last 31 games and Washington owns the Eastern Conference’s best record. Read the rest »

It’s Monday January 22nd, and we now know who will be playing for the Lombardy Trophy in 13-days in Miami. Here’s who I’m happy for on this particular day. We here at www.grantpaulsen.com like to call this our “Good For You” awards. Read the rest »

1. Bill Belichick is looking sloppy and wearing a cut-off hoodie. (Wait, that doesn’t mean he’s playing the Colts, that just means the Patriots are playing.)

2. Peyton Manning is frustrated on the bench, licking his fingers and scrolling through those still-pictures he’s always liked gawking at angrily. He’s launching long-balls towards his pro-bowl receivers, and New England’s defensive backs are making terrific plays to break-up potential completions.

3. A fumble that the Colts should have recovered without incident somehow squirts out of a pile of bodies, and rolls right to a New England offensive lineman standing in the endzone, away from the play. The lineman, Logan Mankins, pounced on the ball for a score - the kind of luck that allows a team to win three Super Bowl Championships in five-years.