Gil's Wardrobe and Gil's Summer Plans

Still clinging to the sweaty jerseys of D.C.'s most bloggable team, I present some of Gilbert's pre-Game-6 thoughts. I'll stop soon, I swear.

On whether DeShawn crossed the line from funny character to villain this year: "No, he's still on the borderline. Like I tell him, as long as you don't go overboard or do anything violent, you don't get into a fight on the court or anything, other than that you're safe. I told him, 'Other than that, if you're the most hated player in Cleveland, that's a great thing.' I mean, cmon; because that's one whole city who hates you. I told him, 'No matter what team you ever play for, you've got 20,000 booing you. That's a good thing.' Twenty thousand people who actually know you. Why not?"

On whether he enjoyed watching DeShawn unleash his personality: "Yes. Especially for somebody, we've been knowing each other since we were in high school, to finally get the identity where people know him as his own self. That's what I told him when he first started doing this [Can't feel my face hand wave], and then his agent told him 'Don't do that, that's a gang sign.' I'm like, 'five fingers across the face? What the hell kind of gang sign is that?' And I was like, 'You've found something that people are actually taken [with], you've got fans doing this, you've got little kids. Antawn's daughter used to do it. She used to come, 'daddy look.' [Waving hand.] So I was like, that's your snitch now, you've got to do it."

Snitch? "Stitch."

Niche? "Stick."

Schtick? "Yeah."

On why he wore gold during Game 5 in Cleveland: "That was ironic. I didn't really realize that until I'm sitting there and some fan yelled, 'Ha, you're wearing our colors.' And I'm like, [gosh darn] it, I am.' "

On why he wore cream during Game 6 in D.C.: "I couldn't find anything pure white in the house. I was gonna grab a blanket."

On picking out clothes to wear on the bench: "I hate dressing. I hate looking for stuff. Like, I have probably 45 suits that I've never worn. Like, that [Game 6] suit is probably two years old [and never-worn]. I hate actually looking at the suit, trying to find the shoes to the suit. Suits I don't repeat. Because after I take them off I just throw them on the ground and my girl takes them and puts them at the cleaners. After that, they split it up, I can't find nothing that never matches any more."

On how many suits he owns: "Probably 100. I like the sweater/tie/jean look. That's how I'm comfortable."

On what he does during in-game huddles when he's out: "Just try to make sure the young guys are paying attention, because it's easy for them to start looking for signs, start looking at the entertainment."

On whether he ever looks at the entertainment when he's out: "It depends. If we're in Miami, I'm looking at the cheerleaders."

On what he does while he's on the bench: "Just keep the guys upbeat. Because in games, you get heated. Players start to bicker at each other when stuff don't go right. When you're playing, you're a part of that. There's nobody from outside going 'Wait a minute, calm down, we're still up two.' So it gives me a chance to say, 'Hey, what the [heck] are we arguing about, we're still up, THEY should be arguing, calm down, you'll get the ball next time, [forget] it.' "

On whether he takes the same tone when he's playing: "No, I'm one of the [bleepers] like '[Bleep] it, what the [bleep], pick that [bleep] up, how hard is it to pick the ball up????' "

On his bench feelings: "I start sweating. Towards the end I start sweating, like, 'Aw [gee]!!!' I don't know why. In the game those nerves never kick in, but the nerves I get sitting there watching is the nerves I get when I'm in my first all-star game, when I played in my first playoff game, those kind of nerves. Like, you're all jittery."

On why he doesn't shout out to his teammates during the game: "Because I hate when people yell at me. It's the worst when you're actually trying to play D and the coach is yelling something. You're like, 'Huh?' "

On whether the team is better without him: "People say they're better without me. And, you know, for me to answer that, how would you know? How do you know if the team is better without somebody or with somebody? It's like, you can just speculate, but if you do the research, last year we was 10 games above .500, this year we didn't get 10 games above .500 without me. I mean, it's just somebody says it and everybody runs with it. Because you just assume that since I went down they're supposed to lose, and if they win games you say, 'Oh, they're better without him.' It's like, 'ehhh?' "

By Dan Steinberg |  May 6, 2008; 11:59 AM ET  | Category:  Wizards
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