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cold. gotta love them Spurs.The Spurs take pride in having character.
Don’t expect model Spurs to repeat Arenas’ ‘joke’
Mike Monroe - Express-News
The Spurs were visited Tuesday by representatives of the NBA's Team Awareness program, an outreach series designed to keep players aware of all manner of potential problems they might encounter off the court.
Each team is visited a few times every season, and veteran players know the material well enough to recite the lectures from memory.
There's usually a lot of give and take in the sessions, and players are encouraged to ask questions and express opinions. There is little question what the likely hot topics were when the Spurs had their pre-practice meeting — guns and gambling.
The Spurs were dropped smack into the middle of the biggest controversy of the season last weekend when they arrived in Washington to play the Wizards.
Details of Gilbert Arenas' latest dalliance with handguns (the Wizards point guard pleaded guilty in 2003 to charges of failing to maintain proper registration of a firearm in California while playing for the Warriors) were leaking out of an investigation of an incident in the Wizards'locker room on Dec. 21.
Arenas has admitted the folly of having brought guns into the locker room at Verizon Center, but he doesn't seem to understand that his self-described “misguided joke” — putting guns on a chair near teammate Javaris Crittenton's locker with a sign reading: “pick one,” isn't funny on any level.
Making fun of himself on Twitter hardly atones for being such a knucklehead.
What was it that brought about his bizarre behavior?
Reportedly, a card game.
Arenas and Crittenton had lost money playing cards on a flight back to Washington after a game in Phoenix. According to reports, the two players lost a lot — one published report put the amount at $60,000 — to teammate JaVale McGee.
One thing led to another, and Crittenton reportedly told Arenas he would shoot him in his surgically repaired left knee.
That was intended as a joke, too, but Arenas escalated things to the point of absurdity — and a potential jail sentence — when he introduced real, live guns as part of a punchline.
It's the ill feelings that grew out of that card game that ought to give pause to a few Spurs players who like to play Texas Hold 'Em poker.
Poker-playing Spurs?
What the heck, this is South Texas.
But do teammates risk hard feelings if a game gets out of hand, like the Wizards' flying card game allegedly did?
“I don't think it would ever happen on our team,” said Tony Parker, who makes no secret that he enjoys poker. “The whole character on our team ... we would never let something like that happen.
“I don't know how much money was involved (among the Wizards), but we play for smaller stakes. We don't do crazy games. We just do it to pass time because we travel a lot. It's a friendly game. We enjoy ourselves.”
Does the Arenas incident remind that the games need to remain friendly and the stakes relatively low?
“I don't even think like that, because nothing like that (problem) will ever happen on our team,” Parker said. “It's the character of our guys, the character of the Spurs.”
Arenas, who calls his alter ego Agent Zero, prides himself on being a character, a self-described “goofball.”
The Spurs take pride in having character.
cold. gotta love them Spurs.The Spurs take pride in having character.
“I don't even think like that, because nothing like that (problem) will ever happen on our team,” Parker said. “It's the character of our guys, the character of the Spurs.”
As uncalled for and as unnecessary as the act itself was, the fact that Arenas didn't show any immediate remorse and then for him to take it further by making light of the situation, via twitter, is absolutely absurd and stupid.
Last edited by SenorSpur; 01-06-2010 at 02:26 AM.
imagine tim duncan pointing a gun at bonner as they all laugh
If Tim really did that, it would be the gun from the arcades when they are on a team outing.
Dramatization of the Arenas incident:
HEHE... Timmy might bring a paintball gun in... My cousin played in a paintball league against him.... said he was really good
lol JT.. so true.. i gotta use that on my blog next week if u don't mind
I wonder what the Washington coaches and staff were doing on that flight,
while the players were playing 60K poker.
The Bullets FO just deserved what they got.
NBA Players do it all the time. I have heard stories of them playing 10K per hand on trips (not the Spurs).
Perfect.
That's great about the spurs. They are so down to earth, cultural, normal, just very cool guys in a cool team. There is no BS. Pop is like that, as well as Duncan, Parker, Ginobili the rest of the players and also the new players become like this.
It's seems like the Spurs have kind of a 'european' touch to their club. Without the flashy, fast, ego, bragging, show stuff in America. Just down to earth, no bull , no show.
The Spurs have the best image of any teams in this league. Some may find it boring but in my eyes its respect and think its wonderful. Taking pride in having character, yeah!
I can definitely see someone on another team putting two water guns with a sign that says "choose one" by a teammate's locker now. Brent Barry would have done it.
I bet the coaches and staff were preparing for the game/sleeping/playing their own card game.... they are not there to babysit. I don't agree the front office got what they deserved. But I can see where you are coming from. None of the Spurs would ever do this and that is because the front office does a great job of picking character guys that fit the professional atmosphere in SA. Not every team can do that.. there are just not that many character guys to go around. The teams that just don't care about picking character guys are asking for it, but I don't think that is the Wizards.
Another thing, I know most of you do already, but... this thread should be remembered when people are proposing trades and free agent signings.
Tim Duncan with a gun in the locker room
Exactly.
If I own a 100 millions business based on a group of largely overpayed, oversized overhyped youngsters in their 20s,
for the most part with modest education,
little culture,
and, in some cases, no brain,
I WOULD request that middle age, reasonable, if not brilliant, staff people take EXTREME care of what the kids do, even if that requires following them to the bathroom.
What is the % of professional athletes that go bankrupt by age 40, again?
70-80%?
Arenas is going to jail. You heard it here first.
lol, guns and gambling, i can hear your collective assholes puckering at the thought of it.
i don't see anything wrong with what happened with Gil. Sounds like a good hearty laugh to me. "i'm gonna shoot you in your surgically repaired knee"that's some good, clean humor right there.
From a recent game:
Brent Barry would have caused a controversy about a teammate's breath, and left two toothbrushes in the box with a "Pick One" sign.
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