Gilbert Arenas

Despite strong consideration from many teams in the first round, Arenas fell to the second round, being selected with the 31st overall pick by the Golden State Warriors.

Arenas would wear the number 0 on his jersey to signify the number of minutes that experts predicted he would play coming from a small high school going to a college powerhouse in Arizona.

Arenas started 30 games and averaged 10.9 points per game for the Warriors, who finished in last place in the Western Conference that season.

Gilbert Jay Arenas Jr. (born January 6, 1982) is an American former professional basketball player.

Arenas attended Grant High School in the Valley Glen district of Los Angeles, and accepted a scholarship offer to the University of Arizona late in his junior year.

He guided the team to a 45-win season and its first playoff berth since 1997.

Arenas led the team in scoring with 25.5 ppg, finishing seventh in the league in that category.

He was drafted by the Golden State Warriors with the 31st overall pick in the 2001 NBA draft.

One of his teammates, Richard Jefferson, would later join him in entering the 2001 NBA draft.

In 2001, Arenas's sophomore year, he was named first-team All-Pac-10.

He helped lead Arizona to the national championship game, where they lost to the Blue Devils, 82–72.

Shortly after the tournament, Arenas announced that he was foregoing his last two years at college and would enter the 2001 NBA draft.

After a productive college career, Arenas entered the 2001 NBA draft.

Arenas is a three-time NBA All-Star, three-time member of the All-NBA Team, and was voted the NBA Most Improved Player in the 2002–03 season.

Arenas was nicknamed "Agent Zero", due to his former jersey number and his late-game shot-making ability.

He has also been nicknamed "Gibby."

Both names quickly became fan favorites during his time in the Washington, D.C. area.

In 2002–03, his sophomore season, Arenas received the NBA Most Improved Player Award and was named Most Valuable Player of the Rookie-Sophomore game during the NBA All-Star Weekend.

After the 2002–03 season, Arenas became a restricted free agent.

He reportedly flipped a coin to decide among several teams seeking to sign him, including the Wizards, Warriors, and Clippers.

The Washington Wizards offered him a six-year, $60 million contract.

The Warriors were unable to match this offer because they were over the salary cap and because Arenas was a second-round pick.

If Arenas had been drafted in the first round, the salary cap had exceptions that would have allowed the Warriors to match the offer sheet.

The "Gilbert Arenas Rule" was later created to allow teams to re-sign restricted free agents who were not first-round picks.

Arenas battled a strained abdominal muscle injury all season.

Arenas teamed up with shooting guard Larry Hughes (22.0 points per game) in 2004–05 to give the Wizards the highest-scoring backcourt duo in the NBA.

Arenas was selected for his first NBA All-Star Game.

He also finished sixth in the league in steals per game in 2004–05 with 2.24 (Hughes led the league with 2.93 steals per game).

In the fifth game of the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs in 2005, Arenas hit a 16-foot fadeaway as time expired to give the Wizards a 112–110 win over the Chicago Bulls.

The Wizards eventually won the series, the franchise's first playoff series victory in more than two decades.

Arenas averaged 29.3 points, which ranked fourth among the scoring leaders, two steals (also fourth), and 6.1 assists per game during the 2005–06 NBA season.

In 2006, Wizards fansite Wizznutzz.com jokingly nicknamed him "Agent Zero", a nickname Arenas liked so much that it stuck.

Arenas was suspended for most of the 2009–10 NBA season because of handgun violations stemming from an episode on December 24, 2009, and for subsequent actions that appeared to make light of this episode.

In late 2010, Arenas was traded to the Orlando Magic.

After the 2011 NBA lockout, Arenas was the first NBA player to be waived under the "amnesty clause".

He signed with the Memphis Grizzlies for the 2011–12 NBA season.

Arenas was born in Tampa, Florida.

Arenas was raised in the San Fernando Valley section of Los Angeles where he played basketball at Ulysses S. Grant High School.

His #25 was retired by the school.

Arenas played basketball at the University of Arizona.