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How long for Arenas?

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Arenas suspended indefinitely

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=4802267

ESPN.com said:
NEW YORK -- NBA commissioner David Stern has indefinitely suspended Gilbert Arenas, saying the Washington Wizards guard is "not currently fit to take the court" for a game.

Stern says in a statement Wednesday that Arenas' actions will "ultimately result in a substantial suspension, and perhaps worse."
Because Arenas violated NBA rules by bringing guns into Washington's locker room, Stern decided to punish Arenas now. He said the suspension begins immediately.
"We fully endorse the decision of the NBA to indefinitely suspend Gilbert Arenas," the Wizards responded in a statement on Wednesday. "Strictly legal issues aside, Gilbert's recent behavior and statements, including his actions and statements last night in Philadelphia, are unacceptable. Some of our other players appeared to find Gilbert's behavior in Philadelphia amusing. This is also unacceptable. Under Abe Pollin's leadership, our organization never tolerated such behavior, and we have no intention of ever doing so."
Stern says he originally planned to wait for the criminal investigation to be completed before taking action, and had directed the Wizards to do the same.
Every game Arenas, who celebrated his 28th birthday on Wednesday, ends up missing during the suspension will cost him $147,208.

The suspension comes after multiple media reports over the weekend said that a dispute over a gambling debt led to a conflict between Arenas and teammate Javaris Crittenton.
Multiple sources told ESPN.com that an argument commenced during a card game on the team's overnight flight back to Washington from Phoenix on Dec. 19 and escalated into a heated exchange between Arenas and Crittenton. The Wizards had Dec. 20 off, but sources say hostilities between the two resumed Dec. 21 in the locker room on a practice day.
Sources say that Arenas, in response to what was said on the flight, placed the three guns on a chair near Crittenton's locker stall and invited him to pick one before practice on Dec. 21. Sources said that Crittenton subsequently let Arenas know that he had his own gun.
The Washington Post reported in Sunday's editions that Arenas, according to sources, was expecting Crittenton to see the guns on his chair as a joke based on the earlier back-and-forth on the plane, during which Crittenton allegedly said that he would shoot Arenas in his surgically repaired knee. But Crittenton, according to Post, reacted angrily and tossed one of the guns to the floor, saying he had his own.
In his statement, Arenas confirmed that the guns were brought out at the Dec. 21 practice.
"As I have said before, I had kept the four unloaded handguns in my house in Virginia but then moved them over to my locker at the Verizon Center to keep them away from my young kids," the statement read. "I brought them without any ammunition into the District of Columbia, mistakenly believing that the recent change in the D.C. gun laws allowed a person to store unloaded guns in the District. On Monday, December 21st, I took the unloaded guns out in a misguided effort to play a joke on a teammate.
"Contrary to some press accounts, I never threatened or assaulted anyone with the guns and never pointed them at anyone. Joke or not, I now recognize that what I did was a mistake and was wrong. I should not have brought the guns to D.C. 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."
Arenas met with law enforcement officials on Monday to explain why he had guns at the Verizon Center last month.
Arenas' lawyer issued a statement saying that the player met with federal prosecutors at the United States Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia and detectives of the Metropolitan Police Department for more than two hours.
At the NBA's request, the firearms language was bolstered during collective bargaining in 2005. Players are subject to discipline if they bring guns to the arena or practice facility, or even an offsite promotional appearance.
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Just heard about his indefinite suspension on Around the Horn. Apparently just yesterday Arenas was laughing and pointing his fingers like pistols in the Wizards' pre-game huddle, so clearly he didn't mean a word of his apology and hasn't learnt a thing from what has been said in the past couple of day, and therefore deserves any suspension he gets. I was a fan of Arenas, and I'm all for people being independent and being there own person, and I don't take life too seriously most of the time, but when you're clearly in the wrong (like Arenas was) and then make a mockery of that by putting out (what turns out to have been) an insincere apology, then you're just an idiot who needs to grow up. It's not about athletes being role models (I'm against that, but that's another conversation entirely) its about being a responsible person with integrity - standing up and admitting you were wrong with humility and sincerity - and Arenas clearly isn't that right now.
 

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Damon_3388 said:
Just heard about his indefinite suspension on Around the Horn. Apparently just yesterday Arenas was laughing and pointing his fingers like pistols in the Wizards' pre-game huddle, so clearly he didn't mean a word of his apology and hasn't learnt a thing from what has been said in the past couple of day, and therefore deserves any suspension he gets. I was a fan of Arenas, and I'm all for people being independent and being there own person, and I don't take life too seriously most of the time, but when you're clearly in the wrong (like Arenas was) and then make a mockery of that by putting out (what turns out to have been) an insincere apology, then you're just an idiot who needs to grow up. It's not about athletes being role models (I'm against that, but that's another conversation entirely) its about being a responsible person with integrity - standing up and admitting you were wrong with humility and sincerity - and Arenas clearly isn't that right now.
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AxelFoley said:
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His teammates are a bunch of clowns for laughing along with him too. In particular, I don't know why Andray Blatche (in the black headband on the left) is laughing, considering he missed training camp in his rookie season (2005-06) after getting shot in a carjacking.
 
diablo14 said:
I dunno, perhaps i'm out of touch, but this does seem like complete and utter overkill to me.
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If he'd issued a sincere apology and shut up and then kept his head down, then he probably wouldn't have gotten anything more than a fine. Instead, he decided to continue to joke about it and (after issuing a half-hearted apology) continue to state that he's done nothing wrong. He deserves to be punished for acting like a clown.

If anything, it's a blessing in disguise for the Wizards, as they'll be getting out of his anchor of a contract and might be able to construct a more balanced team with the freed-up cash.
 
Bringing guns to the stadium is obviously a stupid thing to do and Arenas should be punished for it, but I kinda feel the same way as diablo on this one.

Mainly because I get a bit annoyed by these questionably sincere, ghost-written athlete apologies you see all the time (e.g. Ben Cousins, Shane Warne etc) and it seems that if Arenas presented that front then Stern would've come down less harshly.
Dunno, but the fact that it seems a bit of an exercise in PR puts me off a little.
 

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hans moleman said:
Bringing guns to the stadium is obviously a stupid thing to do and Arenas should be punished for it, but I kinda feel the same way as diablo on this one.

Mainly because I get a bit annoyed by these questionably sincere, ghost-written athlete apologies you see all the time (e.g. Ben Cousins, Shane Warne etc) and it seems that if Arenas presented that front then Stern would've come down less harshly.
Dunno, but the fact that it seems a bit of an exercise in PR puts me off a little.
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The difference is that both Cousins and Warne made their apologies and then just got on with their business. After issuing his ghost-written apology, Arenas continued to joke about it (with his actions in public and through Twitter) and then came out and said he still doesn't think he's done anything wrong. If he'd just shut up and accepted that he was wrong, whether he truly believed he was wrong and/or was sincere in his apology, he probably would have gotten away with just a fine. But by continuing to make a spectacle of himself and continually referencing the incident, he's just being an immature brat, thumbing his nose at everyone in authority and continuing to make a mockery of what is a serious issue (the use of guns) in both Washington DC and the USA as a whole.
 
Funny how the NBA only suspended him now because they probably felt their brand was being affected and they had to do something.

Only in America can someone stash and play with guns in the locker room and it be deemed perfectly acceptable behavior by the team.

Can you imagine if an AFL player did what Arenas did? Oh lordy.
 

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I guess at the end of the day I don't mind seeing the league do something to try to change a bit of the gangsta culture that has pervaded the league since the likes of Iverson and Marbury entered it.

Gil is just lucky there are no longer any Bullets in Washington ;)
 
WALL-e said:
I thought it was his constitutional right to bare arms?
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In the workplace with potentially women and kids around?

Any other job in the world he'd be fired in a heartbeat. I like Gil, but he seems really immature with this and just for the scandal of it, I kinda hope the Wiz void his deal.
 
DoubleA said:
In the workplace with potentially women and kids around?

Any other job in the world he'd be fired in a heartbeat. I like Gil, but he seems really immature with this and just for the scandal of it, I kinda hope the Wiz void his deal.
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Specific ban on firearms in NBA locker rooms.

And DC, unlike much of the US, has some fairly stiff firearms laws.
 
I love reading the comments from that article that MDC linked to. Hilarious stuff.

Agent 0 has lost touch with reality.
 

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