In January 2010, Gilbert Arenas was suspended indefinitely from the Wizards — a suspension that ultimately lasted the remaining 50 games of the season. The suspension followed the now infamous incident in which Arenas brought multiple guns into the Wizards locker room and told Javaris Crittenton to pick the gun he wanted to shoot Arenas with, following a dispute over a card game.
However, as Arenas recently explained on The Jump with Rachel Nichols, the suspension wasn’t for the actual act of bringing guns into the locker room. Instead, it was for, as he said, being how he is and mocking the investigation into the matter by dancing like he was shooting guns prior to a game. That earned him a “conduct detrimental to the team” suspension, which could be however long they wanted it to be, rather than a suspension for the guns, which he says would’ve been a few games.
I asked Gilbert Arenas if he had regrets about the way his Wizards career ended – his answer might surprise you. We also talked injuries and load management, since Gil is among the players who played the most minutes over the past 15 years. pic.twitter.com/eiDFN1OPQl
— Rachel Nichols (@Rachel__Nichols) November 8, 2019
The best part of the video is Richard Jefferson laughing at the entire thing and reminding him that the 50-game conduct detrimental suspension remains a record in the NBA that has not been topped since. It’s rather fascinating the dynamics at play, and when asked if he regrets anything about it, Arenas, in typical Gil fashion, says his main regret is that he actually claimed the guns as his.
They also discussed Arenas’ injury issues, which were happening at the same time, and the group ended up having a pretty interesting conversation about whether they wished load management had existed in their era — a stark contrast from the typical old player yells at cloud about today’s players being soft.
