NBA PLAYERS OR THUGS?

I wanted to talk about another sports figure who recently got involved with the law as a result of brandishing a weapon. NBA guard Gilbert Arenas whose a guard for the Washington Wizards pleaded guilty Friday, January 15, 2010 to one count of carrying a pistol without a license in the District of Columbia. It seems like getting in trouble with the law is something these players look forward to doing. You would think that after seeing the end result of all the other figures who get in trouble for carrying pistols, they'd be more cognizant and responsible for their actions but this is not the case. Gibert Arenas is fortunate to receive a plea agreement instead of receiving four charges. The Assistant United States attorney could've given him the maximum penalty of five years of being Suspended In Time. Instead, prosecutors didn't push for that. The three time All-Star is expected to do six months for his actions and scheduled to be sentenced on March 26, 2010. He awaits sentencing and has since been suspended indefinitely by the NBA. The league is currently investigating the matter and have not issued a final punishment until said investigation is completed. Another great career down the drain as a result of poor decision making.


Arenas’s gun charge was the result of a Dec. 21 altercation in the Verizon Center locker room with guard Javaris Crittenton. On Friday, Kavanaugh presented a statement of facts regarding the dispute between Arenas and another player, although Crittenton was not named.

The prosecution said that Arenas and the other player were involved in a dispute on the team plane as it flew from Phoenix to Washington after the Wizards’ Dec. 19 game against the Suns.

Arenas and the player got into an argument over a card game. The other player suggested that he and Arenas have a fistfight, but Arenas, 28, said he was too old to fight. Arenas then suggested he would burn the player’s vehicle or shoot him in the face.

The other player said he would shoot Arenas in his knee. Arenas told members of the Wizards’ organization that the statements were made in jest.

On Dec. 21, at about 9:30 a.m., according to the statement, Arenas entered the Wizards’ locker room wearing a backpack over his chest. Arenas was carrying at least one firearm in the backpack, a Smith & Wesson revolver.

Arenas walked from his locker to the locker of the player, opened the backpack and placed four unloaded firearms on a chair near the player’s locker. Arenas wrote “Pick 1” on a piece of paper and placed it on the player’s chair.

When the other player entered the locker room, he asked Arenas, “What is this?” Arenas told the player that he said he was going to shoot him, so he should pick one of the weapons.

According to the statement, the other player told Arenas he did not need one of Arenas’s guns because he had his own. He then threw one of Arenas’s firearms across the room. Arenas saw the other player display what looked like a silver-colored, semiautomatic handgun.

“I never threatened or assaulted anyone with the guns and never pointed them at anyone,” Arenas said in a statement released earlier this month. “Joke or not, I now recognize that what I did was a mistake and was wrong.”

After the altercation, Arenas placed the firearms inside his locker before putting them into a suitcase. He gave the suitcase to a teammate and instructed him to place them in Arenas’s car, which was in the Verizon Center’s parking garage.

The prosecution said there was no evidence that the teammate knew the bag contained firearms. The teammate could not find Arenas’s vehicle, so he placed the suitcase in a secured area of the garage, according to the statement.

Wizards team officials soon learned of the firearms, and Arenas told team management about the altercation. Arenas led a member of the Wizards’ security staff to the suitcase, and the security staff took the weapons from Washington to Virginia.

On Dec. 24, Arenas surrendered four firearms to the Metropolitan Police Department. All four guns were unloaded, but Arenas does not have a license to carry firearms in Washington, and the firearms were not registered there.

Crittenton has not been charged with a crime. On Thursday, the police searched his Arlington, Va., home for the gun that was reportedly used in the dispute with Arenas.

It is unclear if the Wizards will seek to void the rest of Arenas’s six-year, $111-million contract.

After Arenas entered his plea, the Wizards issued a statement that called him “a cornerstone” of the team for six years but said they were “deeply saddened and disappointed” in his actions and that he had used “extremely poor judgment.”