Gilbert Arenas Finds Peace After Gun Incident
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By DERON SNYDER
A three-time NBA All-Star at the time, Gilbert Arenas catapulted into the national discourse for all the wrong reasons in December of 2009. He became infamous in an instant, the player who brought guns into the Washington Wizards locker room after a confrontation with a teammate.
“Someone said they were going to shoot me,” Arenas told USA Today recently in his first extensive comments on the incident. “So since I’m one of those guys who says, ‘I want to see this happen; I want to see you actually shoot me,’ that’s where that came from. I brought the four guns in and said [in a note], ‘Pick one so the day you want to shoot me, let me know; I’ll be ready to get shot.’
Convicted on gun charges, he spent 30 days in a halfway house, performed 400 hours of community service and paid a $5,000 fine. NBA Commissioner David Stern suspended him for 50 games without pay. Arenas became persona non grata in Washington and flamed out last season through a 49-game stint with the Orlando Magic. The team released him in December, though it still owed him the $62 million left on his contract.
