Gilbert Are­nas

Wiz­ards guard Gilbert Are­nas still wants to change his jer­sey num­ber, but he wants some­thing other than No. 6.

“He would like a dif­fer­ent num­ber than new num­ber 6 — more as it devel­ops,” new Wiz­ards owner Ted Leon­sis said.

Are­nas has worn No. 0 since col­lege, but the NBA said in March that he had filed paper­work ahead a league dead­line to switch to No. 6 for the 2010-11 season.

Real GM

Gilbert Are­nas

A per­son with knowl­edge of the Magic’s plans said a trade for Gilbert Are­nas, the one-time super­star whose rep­u­ta­tion took a mas­sive hit with his gun sus­pen­sion last sea­son, remains a “def­i­nite possibility.”

Smith has a good rela­tion­ship with Are­nas, but a stum­bling block could be the fact that Dwight Howard is not sure whether Are­nas would fit in.

If Howard gets the answers he is look­ing for, there could be legs to the Arenas-to-Orlando scenario.

CBS Sports

Gilbert Are­nas

Accord­ing to sources, the Wiz­ards are com­mit­ted to remov­ing Gilbert Are­nas from the ros­ter before next season.

Another source added that the team will “def­i­nitely con­sider buy­ing out” Are­nas’ con­tract if he can­not be traded.

The Wiz­ards will select John Wall with the first over­all pick the team will do every­thing in their power to make sure that Wall is never in the same locker room as Arenas.

Real GM

Gilbert Are­nas

Gilbert Are­nas will not have to serve jail time, a judge ruled Friday.

The Wash­ing­ton Wiz­ards three-time All-Star point guard was sen­tenced Fri­day in D.C. Supe­rior Court by Judge Robert E. Morin on one felony count of vio­lat­ing the Dis­trict of Columbia’s strict gun laws.

Are­nas must serve 30 days in a halfway house and reg­is­ter as a gun offender.

He was sen­tenced to two years pro­ba­tion and must donate $5,000 to vic­tims of vio­lent crimes fund and do 400 hours com­mu­nity service.

Are­nas apol­o­gized in court for his actions, say­ing, “Every day, I wake up wish­ing it did not happen.”

ESPN.com

Gilbert Are­nas

Gilbert Are­nas is back to writ­ing in the wake of his suspension.

“Rewind. I had a big gun col­lec­tion. About four to five hun­dred guns. The guy I bought it from was in his sev­en­ties. He’d been col­lect­ing them for years. He had First World War guns. I bought his whole col­lec­tion and added to it. I didn’t need a license to keep them in my house,” Are­nas said.

“There was an offi­cer who would come by and look out for them. The door was rein­forced and a secu­rity sys­tem was set up. But when my kids came, I said, I can’t have these guns around. We put every­thing in stor­age, but I kept four.”

Fan­Na­tion

Gilbert Are­nas

Good­bye, “Agent Zero.” Gilbert Are­nas is switch­ing his uni­form number.

The sus­pended guard sub­mit­ted paper­work to go from No. 0 to No. 6, and the NBA approved the change.

Are­nas has worn zero since col­lege, say­ing he picked that num­ber because that’s how many min­utes peo­ple expected him to play at Arizona.

HoopsWorld

Kobe Bryant and LeBron James

Just days after sus­pend­ing Gilbert Are­nas and Javaris Crit­ten­ton for the sea­son for bring­ing pis­tols into the Wash­ing­ton Wiz­ards’ locker room, the NBA is fac­ing the hand­gun issue again because of Nike.

The new issues of Sports Illus­trated and ESPN the Mag­a­zine con­tain a two-page Nike ad with LeBron James and Kobe Bryant in dra­matic black-and-white pho­tos for the company’s “Pre­pare for Com­bat” campaign.

“I’ll do what­ever it takes to win games,” Bryant is por­trayed as say­ing. “I don’t leave any­thing in the chamber.”

Tim Frank, a league spokesman, said in an e-mail mes­sage: “We had no prior notice of this ad. We think it is inap­pro­pri­ate.” He would not elab­o­rate, but he added that the league gets advance notice about ads, and approval rights, only if they con­tain the NBA’s logo or trademarks.

HoopsWorld

Gilbert Are­nas

NBA com­mis­sioner David Stern sus­pended Wash­ing­ton Wiz­ards guards Gilbert Are­nas and Javaris Crit­ten­ton for the remain­der of the NBA season.

Stern’s dis­ci­pli­nary actions were announced Wednes­day after­noon after Are­nas met face-to-face with Stern for the first time since the gun inci­dent that put Are­nas’ future with the Wiz­ards in doubt.

The Wash­ing­ton Post first reported the length of the Are­nas sus­pen­sion, and a source with knowl­edge of the meet­ing told ESPN.com that Are­nas told Stern that he expected and deserved to be sus­pended for the rest of the season.

ESPN.com

Javaris Crit­ten­ton

Javaris Crit­ten­ton has been sen­tenced to a year of unsu­per­vised pro­ba­tion after plead­ing guilty to a mis­de­meanor gun charge stem­ming from a dis­pute with team­mate Gilbert Arenas.

Senior Judge Bruce Beaudin ordered Crit­ten­ton to do out­reach work with young peo­ple after accept­ing his plea Mon­day to one count of pos­ses­sion of an unreg­is­tered firearm.

Pros­e­cu­tors agreed to drop a sec­ond mis­de­meanor charge of attempted car­ry­ing a pis­tol with­out a license.

Crit­ten­ton apol­o­gized for what he called an “embar­rass­ment” and said the inci­dent was out of char­ac­ter. His lawyer says the 22-year-old brought the gun to D.C. because he feared Are­nas would carry out threats he had made.

ESPN.com

Gilbert Are­nas

To escape pay­ing Gilbert Are­nas the rest of his con­tract — $80.2 mil­lion for four years after this sea­son — the Wiz­ards may seek to void the deal, and do so by invok­ing the morals clause in the uni­form player con­tract under the league’s col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing agreement.

The Wiz­ards have dis­tanced them­selves from Are­nas since the hand­gun inci­dent, remov­ing his like­ness from the Ver­i­zon Cen­ter and issu­ing terse state­ments that could be a pre­cur­sor to an attempt to void the deal.

Fan­Na­tion