As a Wizards fan, I am disappointed. As a Gilbert fan, I am speechless. Since this gun story involving Arenas and teammate Javaris Crittenton broke over New Year's weekend and as more information has come to light, I've been trying to wrap my mind around what's become the most bizarre story in the NBA this season. Was it Gilbert's fault or was is Javaris'? We're the guns loaded or unloaded? was there any actual altercation? The more information that comes out, the more confused I become, and the more dejected I feel that I've been one of the few people to stand up for Agent Zero for the past few years. I feel like I've been duped. I always refused to listen to people when they started hating on Gil. "We are paying this guy over $100 million to sit on his ass for two years," they would say, or "This is the dumbest move the Wizards have ever made." But I never stopped believing. Gilbert would get it together, I thought. He would prove all the doubters wrong, he would bring this team to glory after falling short in years past. We were finally healthy, we finally had an experienced coach and an experienced team loaded with talent. This was going to be his year. And the whole time I was sitting there laughing inside, waiting for everyone to come crawling back to Gilbert when we found ourselves back in the playoffs. Unfortunately, due to his own transgressions, Gilbert now may never have a chance to win Wizards fans back.
First of all, what the hell was Gilbert thinking? I mean, honestly, what could he have possibly been thinking. This is a guy who I thought was more or less logical. Sure, he was a bit of a space cadet, kind of a weird guy who liked attention and LOVED blogging. But I always thought he was relatively intelligent
, more or less harmless, and hardly thug. Then he rolls up to the Verizon Center with not one, but four guns, including a gold-plated Desert Eagle (or so I've heard). Then he claims that he was "playing a joke" and "didn't realize bringing guns into the locker room was against the law." Playing a joke with an arsenal in post 9/11 America when security is a major, major issue. Really Gilbert?! Really?! Even a five year old child would know better. What's worse is that he still fails to realize the seriousness of this situation, repeatedly joking about it on his twitter page and to the media. And now after last night's pregame huddle where he was centered around his teammates doing the finger pistols , it looks like David Stern had seen enough. At 4:30 this afternoon the NBA commissioner did what we all knew was coming and suspended Arenas indefinitely, most likely for the rest of the season. Unfortunately he couldn't have deserved it more. He obvously know the whole story better than anyone else, and maybe he knows that he wasn't at fault as far as a violent altercation is concerned, but whether or not Gilbert's name gets cleared in the eyes of the law, he absolutely had to exercise more common sense in this sitaution. Given his penchant for fooling around, he failed to do so and now he must suffer the consequences. On top the indefinite suspension, it looks like the Wizards will now try to void Gilbert's remaining contract, effectively freeing up about $80 million over the next four years. Yes its true folks, Gilbert just pissed away $80 million because he is an idiot.
What happened to the Gilbert who started the season, the "get down to business" Gilbert who avoided the press and carried himself with a serious demeanor and abolished the nicknames "Agent Zero" and "Hibachi?" That was the Gilbert that Wizards fans needed to show up following these series of incidents. Had Gilbert continued to avoid the press and go out on the court and do his job without opening his mouth, I don't think Stern would have suspended him as
hastily as he did. But instead, Gilbert took the whole situation as a huge joke, refusing to apologize to anyone because he didn't think he did anything wrong. Finally his lawyers got involved, issuing a statement prior to Tuesday night's game against the 76ers that stated "Joke or not, I now recognize that what I did was a mistake and was wrong," Arenas said. "I should not have brought the guns to DC in the first place, and I now realize that there's no such thing as joking around when it comes to guns – even if unloaded " and not three hours later he's on the court, again making a mockery of the situation and a mockery to the late owner, Abe Polin. Polin was so adamant about removing the perception of violence in the NBA that he successfully lobbied to change the team's name from the Washington Bullets to the Washington Wizards following the 1997 season. Maybe it was too soon, because thanks to Gilbert and Javaris the 2010 Wizards are looking a lot more like the Bullets.
Most NBA fans around Washington know that it had already been a tumultuous year for Gilbert, even before the whole gun incident. After a story broke in early November that Laura Govan, Gilbert's finance and mother to three of his children was allegedly involved in an affair with Cleveland Cavaliers' center Shaquille O'Neal, Arenas' world was turned upside down. He has since requested that all his children take paternity tests to ensure that he is the actual father. Think about this, if something like this happened in your life: a situation where you just found out that your children that you fathered for years may not actually be your own, wouldn't you probably be a little off too? I'm not trying to make excuses here, but maybe Gilbert did bring these guns into the Verizon center because he was afraid that if they were in his house and he lost it, he might have done something that he would regret even more. It's hard to say, but this incident, combined with the everyday pressure of being in the NBA and in the public eye could have something do to with what transpired over the past few weeks.
What's worse is that Gil was off to a stellar start this season. After being out of the game for nearly two years, Arenas entered January averaging 22.6 ppg and a career high 7.2 assists not to mention above NBA average statistics in steals (1.3) and 3-pointers made (2.0) per game. The bottom line, Gilbert WAS making a heroic comeback. Sure, the team was struggling, but individually Gil was playing as well as he ever had. Maybe he wasn't as clutch in close games but from a statistical standpoint he was play as consistently as he ever had and smarter than he ever had. Clutchness would have come back to him once he shook the rust off. But now the few Wizards fans that are out there will never know what could have been. With Arenas now out of the equation, no doubt a shaky road lies ahead for this team.
A third of the way through the 2009-2010 NBA season, the Wiz are in the midst of a free fall with rock bottom clear in their sight. After all, this was a team that was a near unanimous decision to finish among the top in the eastern conference. A lot of people had them penciled in as the number four seed behind Orlando, Boston, and Cleveland. Home court advantage, laughable. In retrospect perhaps people gave this team a little too much credit a little too early on. After all, this was a team who's superstar athlete was coming off a two year injury. This was a team with a new coach and a new offensive system and a lot of young guys who had never really developed under Eddie Jordan. This is a team that brought in three new veteran players this off-season who were used to much different roles on their old teams. Honestly, I can't say that I'm surprised that they've struggled so far this season. They still have time to turn it around, and there are some bright spots, but this team is going to have to put a lot of time in if they expect to play in the postseason at all, with or without Gilbert.
If I asked you at the beginning of the season who the most exciting team in the NHL would be, I think the majority of people would have gone with either the Capitals or the Penguins (At least that's what HBO would have us believe in the wake of their new 24/7 Series), but there's one team out west that nobody was talking about, a team who has all of a sudden taken the League by storm and is posting one of their most impressive runs over the last several years. I'm talking of course, about Colorado's very own Avalanche.
ric 14-game win streak in Washington has made his presence known on yet another up and coming team? I would say no. Fliecshmann has played lights out since joining the 'Lanche, racking up 5 goals and 6 assists including a Hat trick and a game winner in back to back contests against the defending Stanley Cup champion Chicago Blackhawks. He was also named the league's 2nd best overall player this past week. Who was the league's #1 player last week, you ask? That would be Flieschmann's teammate and linemate, Matt Duchene. Yeah, these guys are pretty hot right now.
