Gilbert Arenas pretending to shoot his teammates last night before the Wizards played at Philadelphia was the straw that broke the camel’s back and led to him earning an indefinite suspension from the NBA – it made the Twitter venting look tame. (And the rest of the Wizards players who happily joined in that circle are also going to get punished by the team.) But it’s also looking like it wasn’t the last detail in this continually evolving saga, as here’s what’s being reported by The Washington Post, adding yet another huge variable into how this all plays out.
Here’s Arenas’s statement from earlier this evening:
“I feel very badly that my actions have caused the NBA to suspend me, but I understand why the league took this action. I put the NBA in a negative light and let down my teammates and our fans. I am very sorry for doing that.
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. I take full responsibility for my conduct.
Earlier today, I called Commissioner [David] Stern to apologize, and I hope we will be able to talk soon. I look forward to the day I can return to basketball. In the meantime, I will focus on dealing responsibly with this serious situation and I will continue to cooperate fully with the investigations by law enforcement and NBA authorities.”
Back to Cleveland, then. I said it before last night that it hardly seemed appropriate to talk about the box score, and I stand by that notion again. (If you don’t want to click, Antawn Jamison had 26 points, Randy Foye had 18, and Nick Young had 14. The Wizards trailed by 22 at halftime but cut the lead back to 11 before the Cavaliers reeled off four of their 11 three-pointers in the latter stages of the third quarter to put the game away.)
