Source: Keipher McKennie / Getty
If there was one time in sports when we wish social media was thriving (that wasn’t Kobe Bryant or Michael Jordan‘s reigns), it’d be that time Gilbert Arenas brought a gun to the Washington Wizards locker room, right?
While Twitter would have been running wild with different stories about what would have happened, it’s only just been revealed by Arenas himself what actually went down.
Speaking on the situation for the first time, with The Action Network, Arenas said it all stemmed from a card game with then-Washington Wizards teammate Javaris Crittenton. While playing a game of bourré, a cross between poker and spades, things escalated when Crittenton was already losing at Arenas decided to jump in.
“I mean, this man was bleeding. I’m already hyped because there’s $1,100 in the pot,” Arenas said, according to the website. “I smell the blood. … I came in on my deal, and already he’s f—ing livid. He’s all heat. ‘This is bulls—! How you gonna get in the game now?!’ He’s upset because he started thinking about the odds, and he’s the last person to get the cards.”
Source: Mark Wilson / Getty
The trash talking continued as Crittenton continued to lose and Arenas rubbed it in.
“I was like, ‘Javaris, I will burn your car, while you’re in it. Then we’ll find an extinguisher to help ya ass out,'” Arenas said. “And he says, ‘Well, I’ll just shoot you then.’ I said, ‘Man, I’ll bring you the guns to shoot me!'”
Low and behold, Arenas brought the guns to the locker room two days later. Four of them to be exact.
Both players would be suspended for the rest of season, but Crittenton would never be the same again and eventually pleaded guilty to manslaughter in 2015 and was sentenced to 23 years in prison. Arenas did rejoin the team but became injury plagued and would be out of the NBA after the 2010-11 season.
Arenas revealed that the longstanding rumor that money was the motivation behind the bizarre events, wasn’t true.
“It was about the sh*t talking while I was losing,” Arenas told The Action Network. “It was like someone scoring on you every time down. I’m the designated sh*t talker. I could be down $40,000, but if I irritated someone so bad they feel like they lost $20K? I’m happy. I won. I don’t feel like the biggest loser of the night.”
