Gilbert Arenas gave his twitter followers an introspective look at his personality Thursday night. He claimed he wasn’t a role model, but rather a regular person who does nice things and some dumb things. One of those dumb things was bringing guns into the locker room when he played for the Washington Wizards.
Arenas was initially suspended indefinitely for the incident, but his suspension was extended for the season after he mocked it with this pre-game gesture. The suspension essentially ended Arenas’ career with the Wizards, and on Thursday he intimated that the team leaked the story.
Here’s what he said in a series of tweets as shared by IamaGM.com [edited for grammar and spelling]:
Everyone knows about my troubles last year ..the only reason you do know about it is because my money making days were up… as long as you are making somebody lots of money they will let you do what ever you want..when your time is up they will expose you to the world.
If you ever hear about anything in a locker room it’s because somebody in high power wants it to get out… once all the free shoes are gone..I will be attacked by the media…because there’s nothing to be gained anymore.
I know what people are saying..I brought ….into the locker room..there’s been full blow paint ball shoot outs in locker rooms. Being in the NBA you see everything…what I got in trouble for I’ve seen over a dozen times..
I did give them the tool to take me down so its know one’s fault but mine..and I’ve learned and got wiser from it.. Like I said I’ve made mistakes when you feel like u can do anything you want you try..and I got smacked down to reality when i went too far.
Arenas was in the second season of his six-year $111 million contract when the incident was first reported. He had played only 15 games the previous two seasons because of multiple knee operations, and the team was struggling (10-17) when the incident was revealed. Given all that background, it’s quite possible that some of what Arenas is suggesting is true.
For starters, if he were the same fun-loving Agent Zero from his early days in D.C. when he was an All-Star leading the Wizards to the playoffs, perhaps there would have been more of an effort to handle the matter internally. Can you really see a club going out of their way to report an incident to the league office about one of its star players? Me neither. Maybe Arenas is onto something, but like he said, if he never brought the guns into the locker room, this never would have happened.
