Arenas Converts House to 'Colorado Altitude'

WASHINGTON, Oct. 3, 2006 — -- Take a deep breath, and get ready for thelatest in Gilbertology: Washington Wizards point guard GilbertArenas is thinning the air in his house.

"I had my house converted to the Colorado altitude, so I amalways above sea level," Arenas said Monday at the Wizards annualpre-training camp media day.

Say what? He's going to live at high altitude in the nation'scapital?

"You know, that's kind of weird," Arenas said.

He'll get plenty of nods with that statement, but, yep, he'sreally doing it. Instead of going to the mountains to train -- assome endurance athletes do -- Arenas has hired a company to simulatethose conditions in a home environment.

"I had to put a tent in one room, and then they are going tocome during training camp and fix the whole house," Arenas said."Then I have a have a portable tent I'm taking on the road."

Arenas' hopes the living arrangement will give him more energyin the fourth quarter of NBA games, when everyone else is gettingtired from breathing the same old heavy air.

"How I start the game is how I finish the game," he said.

There's always something up with Arenas, whether it was hisrevelation last year that he played online poker during halftimes,or the multitude of ways he finds to keep chips on his shoulders.No wonder coach Eddie Jordan said last week that he hadn't spokenmuch to Arenas this summer because he could stand only so much"Gilbertology."

Despite the extra-curriculars -- or maybe because of them --Arenas is one of the best in the game. He was fourth in league inscoring last season, averaging 29.3 points, and made his secondconsecutive All-Star team.

Even so, there's a feeling he's never really been given his due.That's why he wears the No. 0 -- he was supposed to get zero minutesat the University of Arizona. Yes, he was an All-Star last season,but only as a late replacement for an injured player.

Fuel was added to the fire this summer, when Arenas was amongthe final cuts for the U.S. world championship team. The convenientexcuse was that he had a strained groin, but Arenas said heessentially withdrew after learning that he probably wasn't goingto make the team anyway.