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Gilbert Arenas #9 of the Washington Wizards during a game on December 14, 2010 in Washington, DC ; Javaris Crittenton #8 of the Washington Wizards shoots a free throw on January 7, 2009 in Washington, D.C.
Today, Gilbert Arenas is a famous media personality and retired NBA All-Star. But in 2009, he was involved in an incident that shocked the basketball world.
In December 2009, Arenas and his Washington Wizards teammate Javaris Crittenton pulled guns on each other in their locker room after a card game went wrong. The incident is the subject of Netflix's Untoldepisode called "Shooting Guards."
“There’s always a line between being a prankster and going too far, and I was always on that line,” Arenas said in Untold.
No one was injured, but neither Arenas nor Crittenton's basketball careers were ever the same. Arenas moved on to two more teams before retiring in 2012, while Crittenton never played in the NBA again. In 2011, Crittenton was charged with manslaughter for shooting and killing a bystander; he was released in 2023, according to Fox News.
Here’s everything to know about Gilbert Arenas and Javaris Crittenton's gun incident.
What happened during the Gilbert Arenas and Javaris Crittenton gun incident?
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Gilbert Arenas #9 of the Washington Wizards during a game on December 8, 2010 in Sacramento, California ; Javaris Crittenton #8 of the Washington Wizards during a game on April 1, 2009 at FedExForum in Memphis, Tennessee.
Arenas and Crittenton's feud began during a December 2009 flight. The team was playing a game of booray, a card game native to Louisiana, and Crittenton was on a bad losing streak.
Arenas started "talking my good old s---," he told Action Network in 2022.
"When anyone was getting killed, I’d hit the stewardess button. ‘Oh no, we have a jumper. Tell the pilot! We have a jumper, people!’ " he said. "Javaris is 1,000 degrees hot. But everyone knows my style. I’m gonna keep poking. I want you f----- up."
After both Arenas and Crittenton lost money, Arenas made a threat in jest about burning Crittenton alive. Crittenton took this seriously and threatened to shoot Arenas, to which Arenas replied by saying he would bring the guns for him to do it.
"It was about me calling his bluff," Arenas said. "You say you're going to shoot me? Fine, I'll bring you the guns to do it."
Just days later during a Dec. 21 practice, Arenas brought unloaded guns into the locker room to call Crittenton's bluff, teammate Caron Butler wrote in his 2015 biography, Tuff Juice: My Journey from the Streets to the NBA. But then Crittenton pulled out a loaded gun, causing every other team member to run out of the locker room — and lock the door behind them.
Ultimately, no one was injured, but Crittenton later said that he felt he had to retaliate to Arenas' purported threat.
“They said, ‘Don’t get caught up in Gilbert Arenas’ antics,’ but he made his threats to my life,” Crittenton said in Untold. “You keep talking about fighting. I play with guns.”
Afterwards, it was widely reported that the incident concerned gambling debts. But Arenas says that's not true.
“It was about the s--- talking while I was losing," Arenas told Action Network. "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."
Both Arenas and Crittenton later apologized for the incident. But just weeks later, Arenas jokingly gave his teammates a two-handed gun salute ahead of a January game against the Philadelphia 76ers, per The New York Post.
What punishments were handed down in the Gilbert Arenas and Javaris Crittenton gun incident?
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Washington Wizards' guard Javaris Crittenton leaves D.C. Superior Court on January 25, 2010 in Washington D.C ; Washington Wizards' Gilbert Arenas arrives at D.C Superior Court on January 15, 2010 in Washington, D.C.
Both players faced hefty punishments for their actions. In a January 2010 statement, then-NBA Commissioner David Stern said that Crittenton and Arenas would be suspended without pay for the rest of the 2009-10 season.
“I have met separately with Mr. Arenas and with Mr. Crittenton. Both have expressed remorse for their actions and an understanding of the seriousness of their transgressions,” Stern said. “Both have volunteered to engage in community service in order to turn the lessons they have learned into an educational message for others. I accept fully the sincerity of their expressions of regret and intent to create something positive from this incident.”
At the same time, the Washington Wizards released a similar statement, writing that the team agreed with the sentencing. The organization was particularly passionate about the issue since former owner Abe Pollin — who died just months before in November 2009 — had changed the team name from “Bullets” to “Wizards” in 1997 "precisely to express his abhorrence of gun violence in our community," they wrote.
"We hope that this negative situation can produce something positive by serving as a reminder that gun violence is a serious issue," they said.
In addition to their suspensions, Arenas and Crittenton both pled guilty to misdemeanor gun charges in January 2010. Crittenton was sentenced to a one-year probation, per ESPN. Arenas was ordered to serve two years probation (beginning with 30 days in a halfway house), complete 400 hours of community service and pay a $5,000 fine, per ESPN.
What happened to Gilbert Arenas and Javaris Crittenton after the gun incident?
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Former Los Angeles Lakers guard Javaris Crittenton appears in Los Angeles Superior Court for an extradition hearing on August 31, 2011 in Los Angeles, California ; Gilbert Arenas #1 of the Orlando Magic during Game Four of the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals in the 2011 NBA Playoffs on April 24, 2011 in Atlanta, Georgia.
Although Arenas had played well in the NBA for years — even once scoring 60 points against Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers — his career was never the same after the incident. After his suspension concluded, he came back to the Wizards for the 2010-11 season, but was traded to the Orlando Magic in December 2010. In March 2012, he was signed to the Memphis Grizzlies.
Arenas played his last NBA game in May 2012 when he was 30 years old. In a 2024 interview on The Pivot Podcast, Arenas said that the fallout from the incident eventually led to him walking away from the game he loved.
“I really hated the world,"Arenas said. "It was just one of those things where it was like, I'd rather just not play basketball so you can't talk about me no more, right? I don't care what it is. You can't say, 'locker room guy,' if you can't see me no more. And that was one of the reasons I walked away."
After serving his NBA suspension, Crittenton attempted a comeback. He joined the Charlotte Bobcats for training camp in 2010 but was released before the regular season began. He later played overseas in China in 2010 and with the Dakota Wizards in the NBA D-League in 2011.
On Aug. 19, 2011, Crittenton shot and killed 22-year-old Julian Jones, a mother of four who happened to be walking outside with friends, in southwest Atlanta. He had reportedly mistaken one of the members of the group for someone involved in an April 2011 robbery that cost him $55,000 worth of jewelry, according to multiple ESPN articles.
In 2015, he pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter with a weapon and aggravated assault. He was sentenced to 23 years in prison, per ESPN.
In 2016, former Fulton County district attorney Paul Howard made a deal with Crittenton to reduce his sentence to 10 years if he could prove that he learned from his mistakes and be an example for others, according to Fox News. Crittenton was released from prison in 2023.
In Untold, Arenas said that he believes their gun incident was what led Crittenton down a darker path.
“Our decisions that day ruined his life,” he said. “That locker room situation put him on a road that he was not wanting to be on.”
Where are Gilbert Arenas and Javaris Crittenton today?
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Javaris Crittenton poses for a photo in December 2023 ; Coach Gilbert Arenas of the Enemies during BIG3 Week Five on August 05, 2021 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Today, Crittenton and Arenas have not only since reconciled, but even claimed they were great friends during their playing days, they said when Crittenton appeared on Arenas' podcast Gil’s Arenain 2023.
“Me and you were super close. You was my partner. We used to hang out all the time,” Crittenton told Arenas. “This was a friend ... the media created a completely different narrative because of the situation. People really have no clue how close we were.”
Related: Where Is Javaris Crittenton Now? Inside His Life After the Washington Wizards' Gun Incident
Arenas continues to host the podcast Gil’s Arena, which recently celebrated reaching 1 million subscribers. He co-hosts the podcast with social media personality Josiah Johnson and a rotating cast of former NBA and WNBA players.
Arenas shares four children with his ex Laura Govan and a daughter with his ex Lindsay Faulk.
Related: Gilbert Arenas' 5 Kids: All About Izela, Alijah, Hamiley, Aloni and Gia (Who Learned Basketball From the NBA Star Himself!)
Since his 2023 release, Crittenton is now serving his five-year probation. During that probation, he must abide by a 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. curfew and complete 7,200 hours of community service during the first 10 years of probation, per WSB-TV.
The former NBA player now coaches a youth basketball team in Atlanta, Ga. In December 2023, he shared his experience at the Next Level Boys Academy, an empowerment center for young men in Union City, Ga.
"Sometimes our mistakes and shortcomings will lead us directly into our purpose," he wrote on Instagram. "I gotta thank God that He made a way "
In 2024, Crittenton welcomed a son, Cross Jayce Crittenton. He has multiple other children, one of whom is following in her dad's footsteps to play basketball at Mississippi State, per an April Instagram post.
Read the original article on People
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