Arenas’ Suspension Not Enough
Gilbert needs even more grounding.
by Seth Gruen
A wrecking ball may not have been enough to knock some sense into Gilbert Arenas. After he was charged with weapon possession, Arenas acted as clueless as Kelvin Sampson at an NCAA compliance meeting.
In a decade full of controversy including Michael Vick’s dog fighting ring, Plaxico Burress’ conviction on gun charges, Tiger Woods’ affairs, the steroid era in baseball and Adam “Pac Man” Jones’ numerous bouts with the law, the text book for How a Professional Athlete Should Behave 101 can be written with ease.
Clearly Arenas didn’t do his required reading. How many athletes does Arenas need to see go to jail before he realizes it’s not just a place you go when you play Monopoly?
Not only did he violate the League’s Collective Bargaining Agreement—not to mention the law by bringing guns into the locker room—but he made no effort to conceal his wrongdoings. Generally when someone does something that’s illegal or taboo, they keep quiet. Arenas aired his argument on Javaris Crittenton like he was on Jerry Springer.
He didn’t want his guns near his children. That’s about the only logical thing he’s said over the past month. But his options were endless and didn’t end at the Verizon Center. He could have locked them in a strong box or kept them at a shooting range. If they were for protection, he could have hired his own security team.
In his own ignorance he was cavalier regarding rules governing him as an NBA player and the laws of Washington DC. He had no regard for the media members, locker room attendants, Wizards security personnel and other people who walk through that locker room on a daily basis. He showed no remorse for the potential ramifications his actions could have on others.
He wasn’t in any danger and nobody was threatening him. Athletes are the targets of violence, but an NBA arena is as secure as the White House. It’s one of the last places his life would be threatened.
So, David Stern did what was only logical by suspending him without pay for the remainder of the ’09-10 season. Yet I don’t believe it’s enough.
Arenas did his part in antagonizing the commissioner. After the incident he continued to scorn the situation when he told reporters he didn’t do anything wrong. He later staged a mock shooting before a game with the Philadelphia 76ers. It’s as if he was trying to see how much he could escalate the situation before Stern would react.
There’s no questioning Arenas’ talent. He saw few scholarship offers out of college and had to wait until the second round of the draft until his name was called. The same attitude that causes his shortcomings, in part, has enabled his success. Entitlement is huge part of professional sports and particularly in the NBA when star talent rules. But he needs to realizes that his privileges end when he steps off the court.
Every time he enters the locker room he should be reminded that his franchise changed its name from the Bullets to Wizards because of the excessive gun violence in the Washington DC area. He spit in the face of his franchise, the League and his teammates.
His recklessness has given the Wizards no other choice but to rebuild. It’s expected that before the trading deadline they’ll try to trade Caron Butler and Antwan Jamison, both who were brought in to help Arenas make Washington a contender in the Eastern Conference.
Now the team has to start from scratch. Granted the franchise was struggling before Arenas decided to start a civil arms race with Crittenton. It’s possible the franchise won’t be able to void his contract because Arenas is protected by the Collective Bargaining Agreement that he violated when he brought guns into the locker room.
Since Arenas has proven difficult to trade prior to the incident, the Wizards will have to pay at least a portion of his remaining contract. Maybe he’ll get to test his market value in the most anticipated free-agent period in franchise history. It’s like grounding a kid by sending him to Disney World.
Then again, a grounding might be exactly what he needs—one in reality.
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Second, the author suggest that he’s disturbed the Arenas didn’t try to hide his wrongdoing. It would be one thing if Arenas was brazenly flaunting the rules and daring the league to act, but that’s not what happened with the guns. Nobody believes that. Instead, he may have just been ignorant of the leagues rules, just like MOST people are ignorant of many of the rules in their own workplace. Doesn’t excuse him from punishmet, but it does undermine the premise that he should be punished mroe because he didn’t skulk around with his guns.
Finally, the author asks for more punishment yet doens’t say what he wants. Plus, he ascribes motives to Arenas with no factual basis, since Arenas’ own explanation of his motives differ greatly from the author’s assumptions. Arenas wasn’t trying to show Stern up, he just failed to truly understand how to handle a terrible situation he created. He’s admitted as much. Yet the author seems to believe Gilbert really just wanted to show Stern who was the boss. Why? Why make that assumption in the face of evidence to the contrary.
This opinions expressed by this piece relied heavily on outrage over athlete behavior in lieu of actual facts or analysis. They misrepresented information, and they called for a serious punishment without ever discussing what that punishment would be.
Shoddy.
But anyways, this piece is subpar. No new information, just someone’s opinion. Hey, like this post!!
Did you read my post clearly? I explicitly said that ignorance of the law is no protection from its consequences. Which is why Arenas deserved to be suspended whether he was aware of the rules or not. It’s his job as an employee to know the rules of his job.
But, I noted that most people in the REAL WORLD are unaware of all of their companies policies. Plus, I noted that the author wanted Arenas punished MORE because he didn’t hide his guns.
So the logic is taht it’s better to sneak handguns into your job and hide them without anyone’s knowledge than it is to let everybody know you have guns with no attempt to hide them? That’s the safer and better move? That’s idiotic.
And your personal belief is that guns should NEVER be brought to work. My personal belief is that if you have a legal right to carry a gun and you job doesn’t prohibit you from bringing it to work, then I’m not upset.
Arenas was wrong because his job prohibited guns. He was wrong because he was in violation of federal laws. He was REALLY wrong for playing a joke involving guns.
But, I disagree with the idea that he needs to be punished further, and I disagree with the author’s reasons for that request, which boils down to “His attitude was all messed up, guns are dangerous and these athletes don’t know how to act.”
Those, in my opinion, are not valid reasons for advocating for a nebulous punishment.
Finally
NOBODY ON THIS THREAD HAS SAID GILBERT WASN’T AT FAULT. NOBODY. YOUR CLAIMS THAT SOMEBODY HAS MADE THAT CLAIM AREA BOGUS AND RIDICULOUS ATTEMPT TO CREATE A STRAWMAN ARGUMENT SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO DEAL WITH REALITY AND CAN INSTEAD RAIL AGAINST PEOPLE GIVING ATHLETES FREE PASSES.
You’re the one behaving in an immature fashion, not the other posters on this thread. Point to an instance where someone said Gilbert was not responsible for his own actions as a man. Point it out.
I’ll wait.
Don’t strain a muscle patting yourself on the back about your debating skills.
Particularly since your first comment was a personal attack on the maturity of all the previous posters, and your first comment to me needed to result to snarky profanity to buttress a riduculous assertion.
You want to debate?
Debate what I wrote.
Don’t make up arguments so you can climb up on your soapbox and hold forth on your favorite topic.
Which appears to be how ungrateful athletes are for their blessings.
Like you’re there when they do or do not pray to God. Like making a mistake is a sign of a lack of gratitude instead of a lack of good judgement.
Good thing you’re not God, everybody on Earth would be in trouble if they had to show their gratitude for their blessings in a fashion approved by you.
And, for the record, EVERYBODY WHO BRINGS A GUN TO WORK DOES NOT LOSE THEIR JOB. STOP REPEATING NONSENSE THAT CAN BE EASILY DISPROVING BY A SIMPLE GOOGLE SEARCH OF “JAMES WEBB” + “SENATE CHAMBERS” + “GUN
See, this guy brought a gun to work, kept his job, and eventually did no jail time.
Oh my, I thought everybody who brought a gun to work got fired and went to jail. Oh my, how could this have happened?
http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2010/01/post_290.html
What’s troubling in the context of our society is the mentality that the blame for Gil’s individual stupidity should be spread around to the stupidity of the collective. You can bet that Stern has come down on officials over this, but hopefully for their individual actions, not Gil’s ability to exploit them and commit his own offense.
Two obvious example of people bringing guns to work and not being fired.
-Sports on my Mind “This is a sport in which owners and front-office executives have mismanaged franchises into financial ruin, but the fall-back plan never changes: The public always wants to believe the worst of the NBA’s players, and they’re given the ammo to validate stereotypes. As much as anything, Arenas and the union gave the commissioner the pulpit to grandstand on gun control when past punishments were arbitrary and modest. From Sebastian Telfair(notes) with a loaded gun on a team flight, to Stephen Jackson(notes) playing shoot-‘em-up outside an Indy strip club, Stern never reacted so much to the severity of the transgressions as he did to the severity of the publicity. Stern doesn’t always play to the problems, but the public outcry. He’s a master manipulator of the message and the NBA messengers. Feel free to pound away on players, coaches and executives on NBA.com, but don’t you dare criticize the commissioner and his owners.”
-Wojnarowski Yahoo! Sports
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