Gilbert Arenas Will Wear No. 1 To Honor Penny Hardaway
I think I might be more excited than anyone to see Gilbert Arenas‘ debut with the Orlando Magic tonight, and it’s probably not for any reasons you may think. Back when Agent Zero was blogging for NBA.com in 2007, he let the world know that the Magic were his favorite team growing up and Penny Hardaway was his favorite player. “In my room I probably had 600 pictures up on my wall and 575 of ‘em were all Penny.” Tonight in Atlanta against the Hawks, Arenas will take the floor donning Penny’s No. 1 in his honor.
“It was funny when I played in Los Angeles all of my friends would say, ‘I hope you get traded to Orlando, your favorite team or some other team,” Arenas told OrlandoMagic.com’s John Denton. “It was funny because as soon as I got traded I thought, “You’re there! Now pick No. 1. Yeah, that’s what I’m going to wear for Penny Hardaway.”
Personally, I find it a little crazy that the Magic never retired Hardaway’s number, but they’ve only been around since 1989. With that said, Orlando did retired the No. 6 for “The Sixth Man” a.k.a. “The Fans,” but this was later un-retired in 2001–02 for Patrick Ewing.
What do you think? Should the Magic retired Penny’s jersey?
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December 20th, 2010 at 2:06 pm
DarkHorse says:
I hope Gilbert Arenas dosen’t end up broken like Penny, or T-Mac, who also rocked the 1 in Orlando.
December 20th, 2010 at 2:07 pm
bobby stew says:
When did Arenas play in L.A.?
December 20th, 2010 at 2:14 pm
Stunnaboy2K11 says:
@bobby
He played for the GS Warriors which I guess is close enough?
Why isn’t Penny retires?
December 20th, 2010 at 2:14 pm
Promoman says:
Penny has a better chance of getting his Magic jersey retired than Shaq in the short term anyway. Penny did hurt his legacy when he got Brian Hill fired back in the day and people will also look at how short his prime was too. Ultimately, he should since he was the first Magic player to be named to the All-NBA First Team and he did it twice. Nobody else did it until Tracy McGrady & Dwight Howard came along.
December 20th, 2010 at 2:23 pm
QQ says:
Wasn’t a Magic fan yet when Penny was donning the pinstripes (as i said, I was reppin GHill and Motown back then), but this is……… interesting.
December 20th, 2010 at 2:33 pm
karizmatic says:
They probably should have retired Penny’s jersey.
December 20th, 2010 at 2:53 pm
ctkennedy says:
no way in hell ..his career in orlando wont better than mcgrady he just played with shaq…mcgrady did EVERYTHING
December 20th, 2010 at 2:54 pm
ctkennedy says:
^^^better than penny^^^^
December 20th, 2010 at 3:23 pm
karizmatic says:
Mcgrady was probably better than Penny but either way shouldn’ the number have been retired by now?
December 20th, 2010 at 3:51 pm
ERIC says:
Ok, but mcgrady picked #1 to rep Penny (thats why he wore #1 in toronto – tmac wore #3 in high school)… and then ariza should never have been given #1… now that arenas is repping penny, clearly he is the major influence.
RETIRE PENNY’s #1!
December 20th, 2010 at 4:18 pm
hakasan says:
i don’t think penny will be too happy that a joker/excon like hibachi is wearing his number….
December 20th, 2010 at 4:35 pm
Jacktown Vet says:
@ karizmatic McGrady better than PENNY!!!!???? Really? Are you kidding me? Non basketball players should be banned from making such crass remarks. If you never played the game, stick to XBOX and PS3. A “REAL” hooper would never speak of Tracy and Penny in the same convo. Get real. What is a real hooper you ask? At the very least, you played high school ball and you were a FACTOR. Preferably, you played college basketball. That’s just my opinion…
December 20th, 2010 at 5:29 pm
Aron Phillips says:
@bobby stew
When he’d play against the Lakers or Clippers.
December 20th, 2010 at 8:22 pm
jojo says:
gil is from LA
December 20th, 2010 at 8:23 pm
jojo says:
gil is from Compton i think. he may be talking about when he was still in school.
December 21st, 2010 at 2:47 am
danny says:
Jacktown Vet, take 3-4 best penny years and 3-4 best t-mac’s. And compare.
December 21st, 2010 at 2:48 am
Carl says:
great debut nice revamped offense. J rich is gonna be so bad for this team and Vince is gonna ball with nash
December 21st, 2010 at 11:47 am
NYK says:
Magic should retire whatever number Nick Anderson used.
December 21st, 2010 at 6:02 pm
Bondzai says:
@NYK
Anderson wore #25 and Duhon is wearing it now.
December 22nd, 2010 at 1:51 am
Rich says:
Penny burned ALOT of bridges on his way out of Orlando, ask any long-term Magic fan. It’s never gonna get retired. Nick Anderson is WAY more worthy of that honor.