No Big Deal or Here We Go Again?

A season after playing just 13 games, Arenas said he won't be back until December, while the Wizards put no timetable on his return in their announcement.

Either way, that puts a lot of pressure on a 33-year-old point guard like Antonio Daniels or a still relatively inexperienced backup like Dee Brown. It probably was going to cost too much to keep Roger Mason in Washington, but Wizards President Ernie Grunfeld would sure like to have his dependability in the back court on that roster.

More than that, Arenas missing training camp and the first month of the season brings up all the old chemistry questions about whether the Wizards are genuinely better off without their franchise player. If the oncoming barrage couldn't be sensed in the blogosphere, it certainly could be found in Arenas's annoyed tone on the phone yesterday.

"I wasn't going to play in training camp or preseason anyway, so I don't know why it's such a big deal," he said. "They cleaned the knee out. I can't walk on it for three days. Monday I can start rehabbing. I knew this was going to happen. Dwyane Wade will probably have a debris clean-out next summer. People are making it much worse than it is."

Part of Arenas should be flattered by the attention every time he undergoes anesthesia.

If Boston proved anything last season, it's that you can buy an NBA championship with one decent offseason in a league that has no super team in the same realm of Jordan's 1990s Bulls.

But when Cleveland adds a guy like Mo Williams, who has shot down the Wizards before, and much of the Eastern Conference has become about young, up-and-coming teams such as Atlanta, even a relatively youthful squad like Washington might grow old before its time.

Bottom line, this is a minor surgical procedure. After all the drama, the feeling here is Arenas will return with much of the same explosiveness and again work his game and mesh with Butler and his teammates.

The idea that the player who lit up the arena and gave the District's hoopheads hope is now crippling its future simply because he's on crutches months after signing a $111 million deal and will be out for probably yet another month?

It just goes to show what he meant to everyone in the first place.