Jahidi White Wednesday Links

Gilbert Arenas, while discussing his return, blames the Washington Wizards for allowing him to return when he really was not ready:

"“If you have a kid that loves basketball, that eats, sleeps, drinks and thinks basketball and all he knows is basketball and he gets hurt and he's your franchise player, you need to hold him back from himself.”"

In SLAM’s rankings of the top 50 NBA players, Antawn Jamison recently came in as their 37^th ranked best player in the league. Now Gilbert Arenas is ranked a surprisingly high 34^th:

"“While the past two years have been brutal for Arenas, thanks to back-to-back-to-back knee surgeries (on a knee that is now adorned with seven tattooed crosses almost seeming to serve as battle scars), despite his desire to keep his comeback underwraps, the hype is both undeniable and unavoidable. Thanks to twitter (shout out to you, @AI9 for starting it all with your “Runs at attack were pretty good today, gilbert arenas is back like he left his black card!” announcement to kick things off), a streetball game and some media coverage, the countdown to the 2009-2010 NBA season is also the countdown to the comeback.”"

Slam also ranked Caron Butler at 28:

"“Butler is one of those players who fly under the radar and get the job done. You want 20, 6 and 4? Done, done and done. The Butler did it along with very few else but don’t expect basketball fans around the world to discuss his merits all that often.”"

Wizards new head coach Flip Saunders addressed the Wizards pre-season media. It was broken down by Wizards Insider, and Truth About it.