Shooting Guards

Very sad story for Javaris, and although he commited the tragic crime, it's Arenas who comes off as being the immature moron of the two. I didn't know much about Arenas before this docco, apart from him being an elite scorer. But he seems like a super annoying guy to be a teammate of, and someone who , despite making tens of millions in the NBA, threw away his talent because he was more interested in ego and chilish pranks than winning. Javaris on the other hand would have killed (no pun intended) to have Gil's opportunity but instead got goaded into an ego situation. For some reason I thought this had to do with them fighting over a woman (I thought I remembered hearing about it at the time of the incident), but in the end, it wasn't even that. Just completely unnessesarry stupidity.

It must be really interesting to see this story from an outsider perspective where guns aren't part of daily life. The solution seems so simple, get rid of them. This story plays out acting as if it's normal or ok for NBA players to bring guns into their locker room. No, it's not a joke or funny. I live ATL and it's such a shame that the culture here is so focused on having a weapon to feel strong or hard. Here we have yet another tragic story about how it has ruined several people's lives needlessly. The show itself makes it much less about how this could be prevented and more insists that this is an unavoidable tragedy. The solution is simple. Get rid of them. We cannot handle the responsibility.

It's weird to say that there is a "plot hole" in a documentary but as someone who lived through this story unfolding over a 5+ year span it felt like so much was left out which would make the narrative of the documentary much more compelling.

Nothing in this documentary was incorrect by any means, but many details which construct a more intricate narrative were not mentioned. Gilbert Arenas was primarily involved in a lot of the hazing nonsense because of a catastrophic knee injury in 2007 which was essentially the beginning of the end for him, the gun incident was just the nail in the coffin for his NBA reign. The changing of ownership hands in 2009 after the death of Wizards owner Abe Polin has been speculated to have played a major role in the incident's leak because the new ownership wanted a good reason to unload the 111 million dollar deal that Arenas had on the books for the next 3 or 4 years. Polin had a very good personal relationship with Arenas so that played a factor in the all-star basically doing whatever he wanted.

They featured Andray Blatche who was a steal second round draft pick for the Wizards, but did not mention the story of how he was shot in DC during his rookie year which caused him to miss many of his first year games.

For some reason Etan Thomas and Brendan Haywood were not interviewed for the doc, who had been there even before Gilbert Arenas and Javaris Crittenton had gotten there.

There was no coverage on how the shooting incident broke up the team in the 2010 season and many guys who had been there for nearly a decade were all split separate ways.

And lastly, no mention of what happened to Gilbert Arenas legally and professionally after the locker room incident.

Not to say every single detail is 100% necessary for a doc on this matter, but the last 30 minutes getting into Javaris' incident in Atlanta after his playing career and leaving a grey area with no conclusive stance felt less important to show than how it affected the team and city as a whole, along with the politics at bay.

All in all, DC sports fans get very little in terms of national media coverage so any Wizards fan should watch this since we are given so little. Though I can say with almost perfect certainty that whoever directed/produced this is talented at what they do, but definitely did not live in the beltway during the Wiz Kids era.