When did I know Gilbert Arenas had changed a franchise and acity? Martin Luther King Jr. Day, 2007, almost three years ago tothe day.
He had just let fly another deep rainbow jumper that won a gameat the horn for the home team. Amid the pandemonium, two old-schoolplayers who had seen everything in Washington were sought out forcomment.
'We finally got us one,' said Steve, an arena security guard forthe Bullets/Wizards the past two decades. 'We finally got a bonafide superstar. Michael was nice, but that was different than this.'
Dave, the reliable sentry next to the entrance to the team'slocker room area, shook his head with delight after the player theyaffectionately called 'Gil' had equaled Michael Jordan's 51-pointarena record that day. 'Woo-eee!' he said, surveying the box score.'That's definitely the MVP.'
We finally got us one.
So many creaky-kneed stars had already passed through, someoneelse's stars: Michael. Mitch Richmond. Moses Malone. Bernard King.Spencer Haywood.
So many talented youngsters unable to grab the torch because theywere either still too knuckleheaded to understand (Chris Webber),not quite gifted enough to live up to their exorbitant contract(Juwan Howard) or not appreciated enough when they were here (RipHamilton).
But Gilbert was different. He arrived in 2003, stopping andpopping from beyond 25 and 30 feet, making aging hoopheads and new-jack kids believe in a franchise that had come to know two thingswell: losing and the lottery.
Halfway through that season, he had hit 11 shots to end either aquarter, half or game. He broke Earl Monroe's single-game scoringrecord by outdueling Kobe Bryant in overtime. Sixty points in L.A. -- followed up by a 54-point performance against Steve Nash and theSuns.
Then came that 51-point game against the Jazz. At the time, justtwo other players in the past two decades had had three 50-pointgames within a 15-game span: Michael and Kobe.
A Southern California kid, Arenas somehow became part ofWashington the way LeBron James was always of Cleveland, the kind ofplayer a fan would boast of to his South Florida co-worker on theirbreak.
'You might have D-Wade, but we got Agent Zero.'
Gilbert Arenas was an original source of pride for the Districtbasketball fan, where old heads don't merely reminisce about WesUnseld and 1978 or Len Bias. Or even 'Hoya Paranoia' and what JohnThompson Jr.'s Georgetown teams meant to the sporting history ofthis town by playing in three NCAA finals in four years; they stilltalk about the great high school team Big John played on atArchbishop Carroll 51 years ago, its 55-game win streak, how it beatCardozo in the 1959 City Title Game.
Greater Washington will always seep burgundy and gold, buteveryone I speak to over 40 knows D.C. proper is a basketball townat its core, waiting for the right player and the right team toembrace. And three years ago -- before the knee surgeries, beforeguns in the locker room sadly became a Google search -- this townopened its arms and a young kid with a magnetic smile and gamejumped in them gleefully.
Arenas wasn't Jordan. And in the beginning, that was the bestpart. He wasn't corporate or imperious. He was just Gilbert.
When did I know he had changed a franchise and a city? A littlemore than three years ago, a few days after a 12-year-old kid hadlost his mother, twin sister, great grandfather and a cousin in afire in the 400 block of 17th Street SE, near Capitol Hill.
'One day you're sleeping with your parents and the next day,they're not there,' Arenas said then of Andre McAllister, the boy hebefriended and provided for, becoming his big brother. 'It's goingto be hard growing up without family in his life.'
'Every year, he comes around for my son's birthday,' said AndreMcAllister Sr. Saturday night. 'I can't thank him enough for beingthere for us. I know what he did was wrong, but . . . '
Two weeks ago, he brought Andre Jr. to Tysons Corner to theAdidas store -- the shoe-and-apparel company canceled theirendorsement with Arenas on Friday -- for a shopping spree. 'Morethan that,' Andre, now 15, said, 'he came along in my life when Ididn't have no one.'
Miles Rawls wrote a character-reference letter to the judge whowill sentence Arenas in eight weeks, writing: 'He's far from thethug and animal he's being portrayed. Now, I say he's a fool. Butonce he gets some strong people in his corner to set him straight,he'll be fine.'
Rawls, the commissioner of the Goodman League at Barry Farm inSoutheast Washington in his spare time and a federal police officerwith Homeland Security during the week, welcomed Arenas back to thecity's most famous playground courts this summer the way JuliusErving used to be welcomed back to Rucker Park in New York. 'He's b-a-a-a-ck,' Rawls said.
And now he's gone, a victim of his own hubris and denial.
'A big-time scorer like that, man, it will be a while beforeanother franchise guy who took the city by storm comes here,' Rawlssaid. 'It's a sad story all the way around. I thought for sure he'dretire here, you know? He was perfect for the city. Stupid thing.It's just sad.'
Arenas, the Barry Farm commissioner added, bought the rims andthe backboards for the courts and donated thousands of dollars tochildren. He spent $19,000 at a Costco in 2005, going out and buyingtoiletries and personal amenities for Hurricane Katrina refugeesstaying at the D.C. Armory.
'You believe this?' Arenas once said to me, sitting on the bed ofa movie trailer that Adidas had rented for him in Marina del Rey,Calif. He was filming a national commercial for the company in thesummer of 2007, putting on a futuristic jumpsuit that helpedcomputerize his moves amid lasers, lights, cameramen and a director,who kept intoning, in cornball fashion: 'Okay, Gilbert. Action!'
'If you told me this would happen -- playing in the NBA, usingmy position to help others, filmin' Adidas commercials -- I wouldhave said, 'Man, you got a better imagination than me.' '
He had grown up about an hour away, where his father had given uphis own dream of becoming an actor to provide for his son. GilbertSr. showed me the park he took 7-year-old Gilbert while they werehomeless and living out of his Madza RX-7 for a few days almost 21years ago. The father pointed to the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter hisyoung son used to climb up on, which still sits at Izay Park inBurbank, Calif.
The baby-blue jet arches toward the sky, its nose pointed towardthe heavens.
As a teenager, Gilbert said he began dreaming about a bigspaceship in a park. 'My life was good when I saw that spaceship,'he said. 'I just wanted to ride away on it and I knew everythingwould be okay.'
Told the jet and the park were not his imagination a few yearsago, Arenas smiled in wonderment. 'That wasn't a dream? The ship wasreal? That park is where we stayed?' '
When did I know Gilbert Arenas had changed a franchise and acity?
When he pleaded guilty to a felony weapons charge on Fridayafternoon in D.C. Superior Court. He will most likely never play forWashington again.
Tears welled up in his eyes in front of the lead attorney for theNBA last week as he explained how much he loved his career, how hisfavorite players when he was growing up were Penny Hardaway andGrant Hill, that he never intended to do anything to hurt the leaguethat granted him his dream.
He also said he wouldn't complain if David Stern suspended himfor the rest of the season, that he just wanted to move on from afranchise whose management scrubbed his likeness from their arena, ateam that no longer wants him because of the irreparable harm theyfeel he has brought to the franchise.
There is genuine crime -- bringing four guns to the VerizonCenter and foolishly provoking an already angry teammate -- andthere are crimes against the game and the city that adopted him, thepeople who believed they finally had an NBA superstar to call theirown for a decade or more.
For those who had waited so long for a transcendent young player,there is no sixth-month jail sentence, probation or communityservice. There is just emptiness and disillusion, the harshrealization that, in Gilbert Arenas, Washington did not get one.
wisem@washpost.com
