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Arenas averaged 29.3 points per game, good for fourth in the NBA.
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But he's back to square one. Today, he will begin tryouts and training for USA Basketball Men's National Team in Las Vegas. The coach? Mike Krzyzewski.
"I'm excited…a little nervous," Arenas said. "It's just like when you see rookies come in and they are trying to make a squad. That is how I feel going out there. It's different. I have to go out there and fight and try and win a spot on that team."
The fact that Arenas has to even try-out for a spot on the 12-man active roster that will compete at the 2006 FIBA World Championship in Japan speaks to the talent that Team Managing Director Jerry Colangelo has amassed. The roster includes almost every big name out there, including Kobe Bryant, Lebron James, Dwyane Wade and Carmelo Anthony. And with scorers like those, Arenas will look to play a different role with the U.S. team than he is accustomed to playing with the Wizards.
"I can be the passing point guard, I don't need to score," Arenas explained. "I can hit the open shot, I can be a spot-up shooter; I can do those things. And I am happy to show that. Three of the NBA's top four scorers will be there; seven out of the top 10. Some of us aren't going to have to score, and I am one who is willing to do that."
Jamison led the Wizards in rebounding last season (9.3 per game) to go along with 20.5 points.
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A nine-year NBA veteran, Jamison was highly recruited out of high school, and was seriously courted by both perennial powers Duke and North Carolina. He eventually decided on the Tar Heels, but attending the collegiate rival of his current coach has cultivated no prejudice towards Kryzyzewski.
"I was recruited by Coach K and if I hadn't gone to Carolina, I'd have gone to Duke," Jamison said. "I've got so much respect for him. Next to Coach Smith, I think he's one of the best college basketball coaches ever. I have nothing but the utmost respect for him and I think it's going to be fun. For us, it's about putting USA basketball back on the map, and it's about winning."
Jamison starred at North Carolina, and was picked 4th overall in the 1998 NBA Draft by the Toronto Raptors, who sent him to the Golden State Warriors for his former teammate Vince Carter later that night. The Warriors saw him as a franchise-savior, and he did his part, averaging a career-high 24.9 points per game in his second year.
After five seasons with the Warriors, Jamison was traded to Dallas in 2003, and that season showed his ability to excel in any role as he won the NBA's Sixth Man of the Year Award. He came to the Wizards in the Jerry Stackhouse deal before the 2004 season, and was again given the task of lifting a franchise to the playoffs. Jamison, along with Arenas, delivered in his first season, and has made the NBA's Eastern Conference All-Star team each of the two seasons he has been with the Wizards.
Photo courtesy of John DeFrities
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“We said from the get-go we’re not picking an all-star team, that we’re going to put together a group of players that represent what a real team is made of,” Colangelo said during a July 13 teleconference. “So the composition would have a lot of ingredients: certainly scoring, certainly versatility and athletes, size, shooters that are necessary in the international game and role players. You need people who are prepared to step in at any moment and give you what you are looking for.”
He recruited players like Bruce Bowen, a defensive stopper from San Antonio. He interviewed Dwight Howard, a rebounding machine from Orlando. Shane Battier, who is best known for his fundamental skills, only averaged 10 points per game for the Memphis Grizzlies last year, but he will be in Las Vegas. (Link: Full 2006-08 Men's National Team Roster.
Arenas and Jamison were among the players whom Colangelo considered, and the teammates impressed him during his recruitment for the national team. Both players eventually received interviews and ultimately invitations.
"It's an opportunity of a lifetime," forward Jamison said. "Not too many guys get this chance and I'm happy to have this opportunity to represent my country. To have the opportunity to represent my country and play for a gold medal would be one of the best things I've ever experienced."
Despite averaging under 19 points per game only twice in his career and never averaging under 6 rebounds per game, Jamison looks to fit in with the national team as a role player. Although he is the second-leading scorer on the Wizards, what likely attracted him to Colangelo was his spot-up shooting, rebounding, and the ease with which he can mesh with other players. Just as he has made himself an integral part of the Wizards franchise, he hopes to make himself indispensable to the national team as well. And he will certainly have a chance.
Mike Krzyzewski and Jerry Colangelo
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Once the 12-man team is named, it's important to note that all 24 players will remain on the roster for all three years, and will continue to train with the team and have a chance to be selected for future international competitions within the next three years.
"Everybody who's there, even the guys who are injured or have some family matters, are not being cut from the team," Krzyzewski said. They're on the team -- we'll just decide a group that we feel is better at this time based on conditioning and the competition that we'll face that will be best. That's how it will differ."
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"I told [Colangelo] if I don't make the team I am still going to be playing somewhere," Arenas said. "I would be playing on streets or in a gym. I am going to be playing, so he might as well just use me out there. I can be a practice player – I don't mind – as long as I have that jersey on."
Jamison and Arenas represent the attitude of the whole program. All the players on the team are excited to play internationally and to represent their country.
Arenas, for one, will do whatever it takes to both make and fit in with the team. He's expressed a willingness to "dive on the floor" and "run into walls" if that's what Krzyzewski and the team needs. And unlike players who turned down the opportunity to represent their country in the past because of fears of tiring themselves out, Arenas, who has spent countless hours at Verizon Center in preparation for this week, plans on working even harder training with the U.S. team than he would otherwise.
"I told Coach, if someone is better than me, I can accept not making the team," Arenas said. "But no one is going to work harder than me. I am going to work myself onto the team."
For many of the players invited to play with the national team, the opportunity represents their accomplishments reaching yet another astronomical level. The players mostly starred with their high school teams, excelled for a prestigious college program or skipped it all together, and became NBA All-Stars. Now they are completing the journey with the opportunity to be included on the Olympic team.
This is the route Jamison took, and it is the more well-traveled path. For Arenas, the opportunity represents a full circle of sorts. Just as he's been forced to prove his ability at every level of the game so far, he once again must fight for a spot on the final 12-man roster and show everyone that he can compete at yet another level.
And he can't wait.