Gilbert Arenas

Gilbert played at Van Nuys high school and played varsity basketball since the tenth grade. He was an oustanding scorer, finishing with 2,124 points and is arguably the greatest player to ever emerge from LA's San Fernando Valley. His best game was scoring 61 points against LA power Crenshaw HS (at Crenshaw) in a city playoff game, although his team was beaten soundly. He was also an oustanding rebounder and passer. However Gilbert did not recieve a great deal of attention because Van Nuys was not a great high school team. Had he played at a school such as Crenshaw, Fairfax or Mater Dei, he would've been more well known then he was and been a McDonald's All-American. Thus there was not an intense recruiting battle as there might have been and Gilbet seemed to be headed to DePaul but Arizona slipped in at the last second to sign him. Despite his accomplishments in high school, there were those who predicted he would not do well at Arizona, thus Gilbert picked the jersey number of zero (... Read more