Tag: Gilbert Arenas suspension

Arenas to be suspended for rest of season?

The Washington Post reports that Wizards’ star Gilbert Arenas will be suspended for the remainder of the NBA season.

According to the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity, Arenas also told Stern that he would tell the players’ union not to fight the suspension. Stern will announce his ruling later this afternoon.

Arenas met with Stern at the league offices in New York for nearly an hour this afternoon. He was accompanied by his attorney, Ken Wainstein.

The meeting came nearly two weeks after Arenas pleaded guilty to a felony gun charge and was expected to provide Stern with the final details before he determined a punishment for Arenas and teammate Javaris Crittenton, who were involved in a locker room dispute in which guns were displayed at Verizon Center on Dec. 21.

Arenas was suspended indefinitely for his behavior after the incident was first reported, including his decision to mockingly pretend he was shooting his teammates with his fingers before a game in Philadelphia on Jan. 5. Arenas has missed the past 12 games while serving the suspension. The Wizards have 38 games remaining, which would put the total of suspension at 50 games.

The article also notes that Arenas has no desire to play for Wizards’ President Ernie Grunfeld again, which is why it makes sense that Arenas wouldn’t fight the suspension.

Update: It’s official, David Stern suspended Arenas the rest of the season, according to Yahoo! Sports.


Photo from fOTOGLIF

Report: Wizards haven’t decided to void Arenas’s contract

Mike Jones (former Wizards beat writer for the “now defunct Washington Times sports department”) reports that the team hasn’t decided what to do with regard to Gilbert Arenas.

It was believed that the Wizards would exercise their right to void the remaining four years and $80 million left on Arenas’ deal because of the felony conviction. This belief was further fueled by multiple media outlets outlining the Wizards’ options, and seemed to be further backed up by the TMZ report that Wizards president Ernie Grunfeld told Arenas he had the right to void the deal in a text message.

But according to a source speaking on the condition of anonymity, the Wizards have not had any discussions or communications with Arenas in regards to voiding the deal, and haven’t decided what their course of action is in the situation because the legal process must play out, and then David Stern, who already has suspended Arenas indefinitely, must decide what – if any – additional punishment the player will receive before being reinstated into the league.

If Arenas is able to avoid jail time, and is re-instate to the league by Stern, the Wizards are hopeful that they can mend what Arenas’ perceives as broken fences, and move forward with him as their franchise point guard.

“The Wizards did give him that $111 million contract when everyone thought they shouldn’t, and this still is a player who was averaging 22 points and almost seven assists in his first season back from a two-year layoff,” the source said. “They know that, and would like this thing to work, but just have to see.”

He’s also shooting a paltry 41% from the field and isn’t much of a defender. He wasn’t worth the contract even when he signed it, and he certainly isn’t worth it now. If the Wizards want to turn this thing around, hitching their wagon to an overpaid volume shooter with a long injury history and a tendency to bring guns into work isn’t the best way to do it.

Jones’s source uses the pronoun “they” to describe the Wizards, so it doesn’t sound like he/she is actually with the team. It will be interesting to see how the team proceeds; this could just be a ruse (by the source or team) to lead the media to think that Arenas’s fate hasn’t already been sealed. We shall see.


Photo from fOTOGLIF

Why is Gilbert Arenas acting so dumb?

Here’s an excerpt from a nice piece by Kelly Dwyer over at Ball Don’t Lie

Worm your way into your second gun-related hassle of your professional career? Passable, to a certain extent. Most people Gilbert’s age (or, really, half his age) would understand that even bringing four unloaded weapons into the workplace is a no-no of the highest order, but Gilbert’s a professional athlete.

Even though he grew up broke, even though he’s less than a decade removed from remembering “what it was like,” he’s still a professional athlete.

And professional athletes, as has been proven time and again, year after year, just have no idea how life actually works. It’s not a basketball thing, or an African-American thing, or even an American thing. Follow the Sunday papers for the latest on the various soccer ball-kicking types overseas, if you don’t believe me. Or even the international rulers of open-wheel driving organizations.

Living in a bubble. That’s what it’s called. Some of our politicians live in a bubble. Our movie stars live in a bubble. And our athletes live in a bubble.

Only in a bubble does it seem okay to take four unloaded weapons to work. Common sense would tell most people that this is not a good idea, but common sense has a tough time surviving in a bubble. The aforementioned people only interact with a select few, and most of those lucky folks are living in their own bubbles.

Common sense can’t penetrate this much bubble.