Arenas pulls plug on comedy routine

WASHINGTON, D.C. – After all the years of being Agent Zero, the prankster, the joker, the class clown skipping games to dodge paternity suits or whatever he felt like on that particular day, Gilbert Arenas(notes) needs to grow up, stop changing personas and find a way to save his career.

On Monday he showed up to his first public appearance since the guns and the conviction and the Washington Wizards pulled his face off the Verizon Center. He wore a new number, 9, a heavy beard and scowl. And here was yet another new Gilbert. Serious Gilbert. Brooding Gilbert. Maybe even angry Gilbert, bitter at the way everyone ran from his comedy act when a gun joke went wrong.

They called Monday media day in Washington, the first time the Wizards players all came before the press. But it was really a glorified photo opportunity, and Arenas slumped between photo sets, glaring daggers into each lens.

“A little smile Gil?” offered one of the photographers.

Arenas stared, his face cold.

Later, after he had been cornered for a brief news conference – one in which the old Gilbert would have shined – he grunted in that manner of the petulant athlete forced to atone for his indiscretions.

“The only place I want to smile is on the court,” he said. “That’s where my job is, that’s where my love is.”

He went on to say that in the past he “showed happiness on the outside.”

Then he added: “There’s no need to do that.”

In other words, now that the old Gilbert – the fun, out-of-control Gilbert – finally stepped too far by shooting imaginary pistols in the air while police still investigated whether he brought guns to the Verizon Center, blowing up any hopes for last year’s Wizards season, he is going to remake himself as a basketball dissident, speaking cryptically about the joy he will no longer show.

This has to be wearisome to the Wizards who would no doubt love to just be rid of Arenas and the more than $80 million he has left on the $124 million contract previous owner Abe Pollin ridiculously lauded upon him in 2008 hoping to bank on his silly, unrestrained act.

Unfortunately, there are no other fools in the NBA who want to saddle themselves with Arenas and his contract as long as they are unsure about his knees and many personalities. The few who have shown interest would like to know they are acquiring a man, who, at 28, with a felony gun conviction to his name, might actually have learned something from his ordeal and matured.

This latest Gilbert must have them wondering just who he is now. Is the sullenness a sign of evolution or merely another of his acts? He didn’t resolve matters when he mumbled that he was “very happy,” or “I’m more to myself now, I’m getting old.”

Wizards guard Nick Young(notes), a frequent video game companion of Arenas’, said he has become more serious around the other players. “He understands things more,” Young said.

His coach, Flip Saunders, said these are merely the words of a player realizing that with injuries and age, the window is quickly closing on his career. He said he would have been shocked if Arenas had returned as the frolicking buffoon from the past. Too much had happened.

“I think he’s got something to prove to everyone,” Saunders said. “I think he’s got something to prove to himself.”

But ultimately he has something to prove to the rest of the NBA because someone else is going to have to take the chance on him. And his new serious act is still tainted with enough of the old antics to give teams pause. Like his number change. After his conviction Arenas seemed done with being Agent Zero. This was a wise choice given the parameters of that character – whatever they were – seemed to lead to his most outlandish behavior. Yet even the simple act of choosing a new number became a farce cloaked in mystery.

In March, Arenas informed the league he wanted to wear No. 6, then in July he applied for the No. 9. Even his teammates seem unsure what this was about. When Young asked him about the significance of 9, he was told “it’s a secret.”

Of course the NBA – which fed handsomely off Arenas’ shenanigans before the argument last fall that led to Arenas and teammate Javaris Crittenton(notes) brandishing weapons against each other in the locker room – hasn’t helped. Last week, NBA commissioner David Stern told the Washington Post’s Michael Lee he ordered Arenas and new owner Ted Leonsis not to discuss the gun incident publicly as if this could make people forget that NBA players sometimes bring guns into locker rooms.

Even the NFL, the most publicly confining of all American sports leagues, understands the importance of addressing crimes so everyone can grow from the experience. Imagine telling Michael Vick not to talk about the dogs he killed, denying him some of his most powerful work in churches and community centers where he has admitted his mistakes to rapt audiences and begged others not to make the same mistakes.

Arenas could be wonderful in such situations, talking in schools about the stupidity of playing with guns. Perhaps he’d even find himself there. But, apparently, it’s better to let him act like a recluse, pretending his greatest failure never happened, leaving him to be washed up at 28 – the comic who went one joke too far and can never get back.