“C’Mon Son!!!” is a semi-regular column on The Shadow League where we lovingly tap some fool on the shoulder in order to help them through some personal growth. Today’s moron is Gilbert Arenas, formerly known as Agent Zero who has now turned into a real-life zero with his latest bout with mental bankruptcy and offensive social media rants.
Arenas seems to think he’s very funny, but the uncomfortable laughs he brings about nowadays are directed at his growing capacity to make himself look more incompetent, juvenile, foolish and utterly oblivious and insensitive as the years progress.
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It wasnt that long ago when Gilbert Arenas was lovable. But those days seem light years away now.
My first recollections of him were at the University of Arizona, where he formed a flashy, dynamic freshman backcourt tandem with Jason Gardner. Big man Loren Woods was rebounding and blocking everything in sight back then in the fall of 1999, fellow frosh Luke Walton was playing some excellent all-around ball as a scorer, passer and rebounder in limited minutes, and Richard Jefferson was soaring to the rim with jaw-dropping electricity.
I remember the Preseason NIT Final against Kentucky, when Gilbert dropped 20 points and was named the tournaments MVP. Making such an immediate splash on the college hoops scene, the media flocked to him, portraying the first-year guard as somewhat of a playful clown, a practical joker.
Gilbert wasnt just a scorer. I remember being impressed with his defensive effort. After an early exit in the NCAA Tournament his freshman year, he returned to have a phenomenal sophomore campaign. He swiped six steals in the Final Four against Michigan State after being named the Most Outstanding Player in the Midwest Regional.
Against Duke in the national championship, Shane Battier, Mike Dunleavy, Jay Williams and Carlos Boozer proved to be too much for the Wildcats in the Blue Devils 92-82 win.
And yet, you couldnt help but be drawn to Arenas. As the details emerged about his upbringing, we learned about his nomadic journey from a Miami housing project, and a teenage mother caught up in drugs who was ill-prepared to take care of him, to the streets of Los Angeles being raised by a caring single father.
His dad, Gilbert Sr. was a former football player at the University of Miami who came out to Los Angeles to chase dreams of stardom after a few modeling gigs and bit roles in the TV series Miami Vice. When we learned that the father and son slept in their car as the Hollywood dream initially turned into a homeless reality, we couldn’t help but cheer for this aloof goofball with the mega-watt smile and phenomenal hoop skills.
Pops eventually worked his way through gigs at a furniture store and a night job at UPS to taste a sliver of the actor’s life, although he played mostly bit parts in TV shows and soap operas, with a few Pepcid and Pepsi commercials in the mix as well. His biggest moment was uttering his sole line in the film Lionheart, “Kick his ass!!!”
(Photo Credit: NBA.com)
We learned that Gilbert transformed himself from a local delinquent as a kid who was often caught breaking windows and keying cars into a high school hoops sensation.
But as we look back on his history and bizarre behaviors through the rear-view mirror, I’m not so certain that he ever really matured out of his penchant for seeking out trouble.
Basketball masked his prolonged adolescence for a long time.
After his second year with the Golden State Warriors, where he put up 18 points and six assists per game in his first year ever as a full-time point guard, Washington offered him a free agent deal worth $65 million over six years.
When he admitted that he chose the Wizards over returning to the Warriors due to the outcome of a coin toss, it let us know that he was an oddball, though he seemed like a harmless one at the time.
He became an All-Star during his second year in D.C. and formed the league’s highest scoring backcourt along with Larry Hughes, taking the team to its first playoff berth since Rod Strickland, Chris Webber, Calbert Cheaney and Juwan Howard did so in 1997.
Over the next four years, Arenas was considered one of the NBA’s best guards. He signed another contract with the Wizards in 2008, this one worth $111 million over six years.
But his game suffered due to leg injuries, and his reputation for being a fun-loving fan favorite took a serious detour in December of 2009, when the news of his bringing three guns into the locker room after a gambling dispute revolving around unpaid debts with former teammate Javaris Crittendon surfaced.
It was not his first brush with the specter of firearms, as there was a well publicized incident of him walking around, unlicensed, carrying heat during his time with Golden State. Gilbert had also raised eyebrows by throwing a lavish 25th birthday party for himself that reportedly cost $1 million.
It seemed like for every great story about him mentoring kids in D.C. and donating money to schools, there were other stories that made you question his mental stability. He admitted that, in true moron fashion, that he ran about 60 red lights in four months, and got over by keeping the dealer tags on his vehicles.
This past December, he posted some idiotic, sexist, insensitive and disparaging remarks about the WNBA in Instagram, suggesting that the women players dress like they work at strip clubs during games in order to increase the league’s popularity.
(Photo Credit: washingtonpost.com)
Last month, as the country learned of the plight of Flint, Michigan’s residents and the city’s despicable water crisis, Arenas posted on Instagram, “Am I the only dude blocking any girl from Flint right now? Hahahahah. Sorry ladies, but your dirtiness is public. Youve been washing your a with dirty lead water for months. Cant be fing no [dirty women]. Hit me when you move to 8 Mile.”
When he got some pushback over his insensitive and idiotic comments, he piled on with, “I see all the chicks from Flint is mad at me. I dont know why. Nobody told you too post yall bath water, s looking like yall about to brew tea.”
C’mon Son!
It’s become more and more evident that Gilbert Arenas is about as bright as Ed in Goodburger. But at least Ed had a sensitive heart.
He’s bragged about committing bank fraud at strip clubs, claiming that he’d take out $80,000 worth of one dollar bills, throw half of it at strippers, take the rest home and then call his credit card company to claim that the charges werent his.
They would proceed to refund his money while he pocketed 40G’s, saying, “…strippers gave me that vagina on the house.
This dummy thinks it’s funny, admitting to bank fraud. And he’s got a following of what has to be the dumbest dudes around, imbeciles that hail and salute his idiocy with claims of, “BRUH Gilbert Arenas is the GOAT.”
Seriously? That’s GOAT behavior? SERIOUSLY???
It’s sophomoric and stupid is what it is.
(Photo Credit: bossip.com)
Gilbert Arenas is no kid anymore, who you can make excuses for.
He’s a 34-year-old father of four with too much money and free time, and little to no common sense.
His latest unsavory act of reprehensibility was his recent Instagram post where he asked the Lakers for a 10-day contract so he can have a great seat for Kobe’s last game in Los Angeles.
The only problem with that funny thought is the far from funny statement that he doesn’t want to sit next to Roy Hibbert and Nick Young because they have Down Syndrome and “...it looks like it’s catchable.”
WHAT??? He actually thinks it funny to disparage people with chromosome abnormalities and a genetic disorder that has no cure?
C’mon son!!!
Gilbert was fun, entertaining, engaging and interesting 10 years ago. Today, far from it. I used to be a fan of the player. Today, I feel sorry for him and the emptiness between his ears.
Once seen as fun, unique, quirky dude, Agent Zero has become a real-life zero and an embarrassment.
