Friday, January 8th, 2010 at 3:35 pm  |  18 responses

Keep It Simple?

5,000 words on precedent and inconsistency…

by Myles Brown/@mdotbrown

I’m certainly not the first to note the discrepancies between the treatment of Gilbert Arenas’ gun case and those of recent past. But no matter who broaches the subject, the refrain has been “this is different because he brought his guns to work”. And to that I say …

Section 9. Firearms.
(a) Whenever a player is physically present at a facility or venue owned, operated, or being used by a Team, the NBA, or any League-related entity, and whenever a player is traveling on any NBA-related business, whether on behalf of the player’s Team, the NBA, or any League-related entity, such player shall not possess a firearm of any kind.

Got it? Good.

Now let’s review…

+

x ( + )=

Still with me? Yeah, me neither.

David, you got some splaining to do.

*It’s worth mentioning that Telfair was also connected to the October 2006 shooting of rapper Fabolous and picked up another gun charge in 2007, for which he was suspended 3 games.

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  • http://slamonline.com/ niQ

    Suspended 3 games. Wow. Just 3.

  • Andrew

    So the going rate on loaded gun possession is three games per gun so gilbert shouldn’t miss more than twelve games by my laths but Gilberts guns weren’t loaded so should he get less per game? Say a two game per unloaded gun? I’m sure stern is thinking the same…

  • nastierthanu

    I like the nba plane pic. I dunno seems pretty messed up. My thought is when u behave like an as$ u get what u get. Telfair behaved like an ass and shut up about it. arenas ran his yap on twitter and acted a fool. I find it diffucult to be overly pissed off @ stern for his discipline when cats are actin like idiots. This happens to parents. For the most part ur kids do the normal things that deserve a regular punishment but then there are times that they do something so outlandish that u don’t have a punishment set up, because the behavior is so idiotic that u would never think they would try to pull off some ish like that. Welcome to the sterling family. Clap clap. If we rounded up 100 people from all over the country and asked them if the would do they would do the same thing as arenas or telfair 98 people would say no.

  • Rich

    As Lang’s already said in his ‘Stop Being Gilbert Arenas’ piece, Telfair (and Delonte West) didn’t exacerbate their situations by performing choreographed shoot-em-up routines and talking smack on Twitter. If Stern has treated Arenas inconsistently, then Arenas still doesn’t deserve a shred of sympathy.

  • fut.

    Telfair pretending nothing happened and going secret agent is not the same as “shutting up about it”. Arenas had the balls to admit (mostly) what happened straight up with no prodding.

    12 game suspension, Sternbot. He cannot go against the rules of mathematics.

  • http://www.boogiewillaims.com Boing Dynasty

    @Myles, i dont think Gilbert’s current suspention is suposed to be punishment for the gun incident. Gil’s actions since the story broke kind of forced Stern’s hand into moving Gil out of the spotlight were he cant do anymore damage to himself or the reputation of the leauge.

  • Peter

    Myles, the one difference between these cases is that Telfair proclaimed innocence(ignorance?) by saying he wasn’t aware the gun was in his backpack. Whether that is true or not is another question, but the NBA obviously bought his story. As Lang noted in his column he issued an apology and then kept his mouth shut. Gilbert admitted to storing guns in his locker deliberately (whether he would have gotten off easier if he had of lied is another issue, but harder to claim you didn’t know they were in your locker than in a bag you picked up from your house), and then couldn’t shut up about the situation to the point where he made a joke about it in an actual game. Obviously huge discrepancies in the punishments but there are clear differences. As in, a (possible) accident vs. a deliberate lapse of judgement.

  • http://idunkonthem.blogspot.com/ albie1kenobi

    love the subtitle. genius execution.

  • http://myspace.com/showbread Bryan

    Brilliant.

  • http://shawn-kemps-offspring.blogspot.com/ Tariq

    To paraphrase the dude from the Wu-Tang Clan kung-fu skits: “A stroke of genius!”

  • Jeronimo

    Possibly David Stern wanted to reward Telfair for being involved in shooting sorry-ass Fabolous.

  • http://slamonline.com Sam Rubenstein

    dammit I wanted to read 5000 words not 5 pictures worth 1000 words each.
    nah just kidding well done.
    Aaron is the reincarnation of Jacob, yeah I said it!!!

  • http://dsjfhklf.com Jukai

    And with this article, Myle moves infront of Russ on my all-time favorite SLAM writers.

  • http://myspace.com/weezyleezy337 GametimeWeezy

    Just because the situations with Telfair and Arenas both involve handguns doesn’t mean they are ANYTHING alike. Telfair was caught with a gun in a backpack, bad judgement yes. So if Arenas was ‘merely’ caught with a gun in the locker room, sure the precedence wouldve been already set. But when Agent Zero broke it out in the locker room like the mister funny guy that he is, and tried to make a joke of it or whatever, his bad judgement kinda went over the top. And what really makes me wonder is why in the world Gilbert really just played it up like he did. Did he think he was playing it DOWN when he said “David Stern is kinda mean..” ??? The difference between the two situations is as simple as the difference between the two people. Bassys previous gun charges or whatever were in the streets. And given his run-in wit Loso he might actually really need protection. Whats NBA Commish Stern gonna do, he’s not NFL Comissioner Goodall. He’s not goin there. Arenas on the other hand, being the clown that he is, really shows us why some people shouldn’t be around guns whatsoever. But I really like where you was goin with this Myles cuz you actually cited Section from what im assuming is the Collective Bargaining Agreement. And the pics and post 9/11 and all that. I just don’t believe the precedence was set because these are 2 WAY different situations. In a way i do and i don’t feel bad for Arenas, I mean yea he seems like a super nice guy and all. But i just dont think that type of sh*t is funny when out in the real world (not an NBA locker room) people don’t play that sh*t.

  • http://dsjfhklf.com Jukai

    GametimeWeezy:
    No, dude. Telfair was found with a gun in his bag on an NBA plane, then was investigated in shooting someone in the leg, then was found with a loaded unregistered gun in his car when pulled over for going way over the speed limit. Soooo yeah.

  • vic21

    Gilbert got suspended cus the crazy tweeting and stupid pregame introduction he pulled

  • http://www.luketynan.blogspot.com litetitan

    I’d go all the way and say stern shoudl lose his job too… gilbert is beaing made the scape goat purely because washington want their 111 mil back.

  • http://myspace.com/weezyleezy337 GametimeWeezy

    Jukai…soo yea what? youre saying gilbert should b suspended only 3 games? or are we supposed to revisit the Telfair case?

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