The Story of 0

So, after a summer in which NBA Commissioner David Stern has been dealing with a scandal involving a referee who pleaded guilty to betting on games and providing information to gamblers, and after an absolute dud of a postseason that ended with the San Antonio Spurs sweeping the Cleveland Cavaliers and their league-approved poster child LeBron James in four games, professional basketball needs Arenas more than ever.

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Balky knee notwithstanding, that's why Arenas is pushing the envelope again. He took one genuine vacation over the summer, a trip to Tahiti with his two young children and their mother, who recently moved into his suburban Virginia home. After he returned, Arenas got an ornate tattoo -- a sturdy tree with vines wrapped around it, covering his entire back. It reads, "Family Is a Haven in a Heartless World."

He also shot a commercial for Adidas in Los Angeles and another in Tennessee for Spalding with Titans quarterback Vince Young. Besides that, his summer was composed of knee rehabilitation. Physical therapy. Lifting. Biking through downtown Washington. Running with two parachutes attached to his back on the track at Cardozo High School, where he recalls a few kids looking down from their classroom windows and yelling, "Gilbert! Gilbert! Is it him? It's him!"

If there is a next plateau for Arenas, it's not merely to lead the Wizards to an NBA title. That's just a destination. Arenas hates the perception that players who never won a championship -- current or future Hall of Famers such as Karl Malone, John Stockton, Patrick Ewing, Charles Barkley and Reggie Miller, to name a few -- had disappointing careers. For Arenas, it's about the journey.

"When I leave the NBA," he says, "I don't want my legacy to be, 'He won a championship ring.' I want my legacy to say: 'He played for the people. He gave everybody in the world hope that they can be just like him.'"

LAST SEASON, THERE WERE NIGHTS, BEFORE HE SCORED 40 POINTS or sent another arena into a state of delirium with some implausible circus shot to win a game, that Arenas sat by his cubicle in the Wizards' locker room, bobbing his head to and fro. Lyrics from hip-hop artist The Game penetrated his senses. One of Arenas's favorite riffs by the Compton, Calif., rapper is a duet with 50 Cent. The chorus goes like this:

Hate it or love it, the underdog's on top

And I'm gonna shine, homie, until my heart stop.

From the moment his father picked him up from a dilapidated Miami public housing complex as a young boy to his formative years in Los Angeles, Gilbert Arenas has viewed himself as the under-dog. But why has the NBA's newest superstar -- and arguably the most intriguing Washington athlete in the past two decades -- always felt like he had so much to prove to so many?

He was born January 6, 1982, to 18-year-old Mary Frances Robinson, who dropped out of West Tampa's Jefferson High School once she became pregnant. She and Gilbert Arenas Sr. had already broken up by the time their baby was born. Gilbert Sr. had gone off to Florida Memorial College in Miami to play baseball for an uncle who coached the team and promised him a scholarship. Robinson had moved to public housing with young Gilbert.

A year later, while home for spring break to visit his son, Gilbert Sr. says he came upon Robinson and a friend doing drugs outside. He scolded her, telling Robinson she had a baby upstairs. "You don't need to be doing this," he recalls telling her. Determined to someday obtain full custody of Gilbert, he left angrily.

Two years later, Gilbert and his infant half brother were left alone in a crack house. Gilbert was 3 years old. Soon after, his father received a call from the grandmother of Robinson's other son. Gilbert Sr. recalls the woman, Virginia Huggins, saying: "I have your son with me right now in Miami. I'm giving you an opportunity to be a father."