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NBA gave Agent Zero his mission, laugh track
By Adrian Wojnarowski
January 7, 2010
Year after year, David Stern sits in his 15th-floor office of Olympic Tower and watches the stories unleash on the NBA like tsunamis – Latrell Sprewell, the Palace of Auburn Hills brawl, the debauchery of a Vegas All-Star weekend. All the footage of players reading Dr. Seuss to schoolkids and passing out holiday turkeys come crashing down under the wall of waves, buried beneath the debris of a public relentlessly eager for it to feed into broader stereotypes and profiling.
When trouble hits the NBA, it inspires a nastier public discourse than its peers in other pro sports; different than the NFL and baseball, different than hockey and auto racing. So much of that is the reason Stern seethed upon watching Gilbert Arenas stay true to his sanctioned job as the court jester.
As the NBA waited for law enforcement to bring charges, league sources say Stern’s own investigation over a week ago uncovered the testimony The Washington Post reported on Wednesday night: Witnesses are testifying to law enforcement that Washington Wizards guard Javaris Crittenton loaded his own gun and chambered a round in the Dec. 21 locker-room incident with Gilbert Arenas. Stern had been waiting for the legal charges to be brought before he delivered crippling suspensions without pay for the players.
“Stern’s jail is gonna be full,” said one NBA executive briefed on the investigation.
It was just a matter of time until this spiraled out of control, until the disturbing testimony became public record and possible criminal charges toppled Arenas and Crittenton. The NBA could’ve survived Crittenton’s alleged act, but the involvement of Agent Zero – one of the true creations of the NBA’s propaganda machine, one of the blogging boons to its digital revolution – has contorted and compounded the story. Arenas had four guns in the locker room, laid them out on a chair and sent Crittenton into a rage.
Suddenly, Arenas isn’t so funny and he’s essentially wondering, Well, they’ve paid me a lot of money to be a comedian here. What’s changed?
The NBA propped Arenas up as one of its good guys, the convenient class clown to balance the ferocity of those peers who somehow seemed to startle the general public. The league and the Wizards played a prominent part in the promotion and marketing of a cartoon character, and now they were kidding themselves to think Arenas would treat this investigation with the seriousness it commanded. What always won him favor was playing the joker, the town jester, and Stern had to suspend him indefinitely without pay to finally get the player’s stand-up act to end.
The Wizards have marched around with the cover of Abe Pollin’s passing, the belief that the death of the honorable old owner gives his family endless latitude to grandstand with disingenuous declarations of moral outrage over Arenas. After Stern delivered a suspension that will save the franchise nearly $150,000 per game in luxury-tax payments, the Wizards owners issued a haughty tsk-tsk for Arenas’ “bang-bang” pregame act in Philadelphia on Tuesday.
Suddenly, the Wizards’ statement insisted that Arenas’ air-gun act and smart-mouthed comments are “unacceptable,” and sniffed that “some of our players appeared to find Gilbert’s behavior in Philadelphia amusing.” They punctuated the proclamation with pure mythology: “Under Abe Pollin’s leadership, our organization never tolerated such behavior, and never will.”
Sure, the Wizards never tolerated such behavior – all they did was encourage and enable and market and ultimately reward it. The Pollins never minded Arenas’ comedy act when the Verizon Center was packed and the jump shots were falling, when the blogs were clicking and the jerseys selling. The Pollins never minded Arenas’ act when his coaches pleaded he wouldn’t listen, when teammates growled he wouldn’t pass, when everyone understood it was impossible to ever stand up to him because Abe would always side with him.
Whatever Arenas wanted, they gave him. They handed him a $111 million contract while he was still recovering from his knee injury. Arenas was a hell of a showman and scorer – maybe the best in the sport – but turning the franchise over to him was never rooted in leading men, in winning.
As franchise players go, could you imagine the undermanned San Antonio Spurs losing two horrific games in the playoffs, returning home for a Game 3, and Tim Duncan calling a news conference to congratulate himself for getting selected for the cover shot of a popular video game? Agent Zero did, and the Wizards didn’t say a word. Now, the franchise is abandoning him, and wants badly the chance to void the $80 million remaining on his untradeable contract, on a basketball comedian whose act has dried up. Privately, Arenas knows the Wizards are hell-bent on voiding his deal; he knows they’ve abandoned him. Arenas is a political pawn now. On the cusp of the upcoming collective bargaining talks, when the owners will try to bring the union to its knees with take-backs, this gun investigation becomes an important bargaining chip. The commissioner can insist this is one more reason why revenues have dropped for the league; why its public standing continues to be unstable; why long, guaranteed contracts should be shortened to protect owners.
Crittenton could be in the biggest trouble, but it won’t matter: This story is about one of Stern’s cover boys, a relentless blogger and showman who had been marching the NBA into the digital age. Stern has made him go away with a suspension, but Arenas told Mike Wise of The Washington Post that he wants a chance to sit down with the commissioner sooner than later.
“I just want to remind him of who I am,” Arenas said. “I’m the kid who jumped off the trampoline at the All-Star game, the kid who throws his jersey to people in the stands. I’m not the hoodlum that’s being written and talked about right now.”
Agent Zero is right. He’s no hoodlum and never was. Only it’s too late. Stern doesn’t care who he is – just who the public believes he is now.
Yes, Gilbert Arenas was a comedy act, a Globetrotter, sanctioned and sanitized by the NBA and the Washington Wizards. Through the years, there have been a lot of players who’ve done much worse with weapons, with violence, and they paid a far smaller price than Arenas must pay now.
His job as the court jester is over, and the commissioner and the Wizards can milk it no more. They know who Arenas is, and always did. The league and team can dispense mock outrage and moral indignation to the public, can void his contract and pocket his $80 million, but they know the truth. They helped create Arenas. They helped hatch this whole, sad, sordid mess.
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Gilbert Arenas indefinitely suspended by NBA
By BRIAN MAHONEY
January 7, 2010
New York, NY — Some of his teammates laughed when Gilbert Arenas pointed his index fingers at them, as if they were guns.
David Stern didn’t.
Stern hasn’t found any of Arenas’ behavior funny lately, so on Wednesday he handed down a punishment he wasn’t expected to deliver until much later.
Arenas was suspended indefinitely without pay by the NBA commissioner, who determined the Washington Wizards guard was “not currently fit to take the court.”
A day after Arenas made the gesture with his fingers toward his teammates who encircled him before a game in Philadelphia, Stern warned the former All-Star that his conduct will “ultimately result in a substantial suspension, and perhaps worse.”
Arenas is under investigation by federal and local authorities after admittedly bringing guns to the Wizards’ locker room. Stern said he intended to wait for that to be completed before taking action, and directed the Wizards to do the same.
He changed his mind a day after the Philadelphia game, when Arenas said he feared Stern more than the authorities because the commissioner was “mean.”
“Although it is clear that the actions of Mr. Arenas will ultimately result in a substantial suspension, and perhaps worse, his ongoing conduct has led me to conclude that he is not currently fit to take the court in an NBA game,” Stern said in a statement. “Accordingly, I am suspending Mr. Arenas indefinitely, without pay, effective immediately pending the completion of the investigation by the NBA.”
Though Arenas first apologized Monday for his poor judgment and promised “to do better in the future,” he also joked on Twitter about the incident and the media firestorm it created.
That was the wrong tact for Stern, whose league has taken another public relations hit.
“The possession of firearms by an NBA player in an NBA arena is a matter of the utmost concern to us,” Stern said.
With each game he misses, Arenas will lose about $147,200 of the $16.2 million he will earn in the second season of a six-year, $111 million contract. The punishment came on his 28th birthday.
“I feel very badly that my actions have caused the NBA to suspend me, but I understand why the league took this action,” Arenas said in a statement through his attorney. “I put the NBA in a negative light and let down my teammates and our fans. I am very sorry for doing that.”
Arenas added that he had called Stern to apologize.
“While I never intended any harm or disrespect to the NBA or anyone else, my gun possession at the Verizon Center and my attempts at humor showed terrible judgment,” he said. “I take full responsibility for my conduct.”
Arenas said he brought four guns to the Verizon Center because he wanted them out of his house after his daughter was born. But two officials within the league who have been briefed on the investigation have told The Associated Press that the incident stemmed from a dispute over card-playing gambling debts and a heated discussion in the locker room with teammate Javaris Crittenton. The New York Post reported that the two teammates drew weapons on each other.
Arenas said in a statement Monday that he took unloaded guns from his locker in a “misguided effort to play a joke” on a teammate.
“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.”
Stern said members of the Wizards organization are still being interviewed by authorities.
“Some are scheduled for appearance before the grand jury and the investigation is proceeding with the intensity that one would expect for such a serious incident,” Stern said.
The story could get worse. The Washington Post, citing two firsthand accounts of the confrontation, reported on its Web site that Crittenton brandished his own gun and loaded a clip of ammunition into it. Arenas spoke to the district attorney about Crittenton’s loaded gun, a person with knowledge of Arenas’ testimony told the Post.
Crittenton told the Post in a series of text messages that the account was “false.”
“I have done nothing wrong. Let the investigation process take its course and you will see that,” Crittenton told the Post. “My name is dying in this situation.”
Arenas has been suspended once before because of a gun-related matter. He sat out Washington’s season opener in 2004 because he failed to maintain proper registration of a handgun while living in California in 2003 and playing for the Golden State Warriors.
The Wizards supported Stern’s decision in a statement attributed to president Ernie Grunfeld and the Pollin family, which owns the team. The late Abe Pollin changed the team’s name from the Bullets because of the violent connotation.
“Strictly legal issues aside, Gilbert’s recent behavior and statements, including his actions and statements last night in Philadelphia, are unacceptable,” the statement said. “Some of our other players appeared to find Gilbert’s behavior in Philadelphia amusing. This is also unacceptable.”
Union executive director Billy Hunter said the players association will wait until the investigation is complete before taking any action.
Since the firearms language was strengthened in the 2005 collective bargaining agreement, NBA players are subject to discipline if they bring guns to the arena or practice facility, or even an offsite promotional appearance. That gave Stern the option of taking action now instead of waiting until the completion of the criminal case, as he usually does.
Arenas’ suspension deprives the Wizards of their top scorer and on-court leader. After Arenas left the team in Cleveland, the Wizards fell to 11-22, last in the Southeast Division, with a 121-98 loss to the Cavaliers.
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