Dumbassery and professional sports go together like red beans and rice. My favorite recent example is the trouble Washington Wizards star Gilbert Arenas has gotten into overpulling a gun on a team mate. Arenas is now saying the whole thing was just a joke. Obviously. I don’t know about you but nothing tickles my funny bone like having a gun pointed at me. Hardy har har. The District of Columbia has very strict gun laws so Arenascould face chargesand wind up being lionized by the NRA.
An interesting sub-plot to the Arenas story is that the Wizards used to be known as the Bullets when they had a good team that won a championship and had some great players such asEarl (The Pearl) Monroe, Elvin HayesandWes Unseld. But yet again, I digress: the team nickname was changed by ownerAbe Pollin in 1996 because of his concern that the old name glorified gun violence in a city wracked by it. Way to go, Gilbert: dishonoring the memory of the recently deceased owner of your team.
It occurred to me that the word that best describes the hoop star Arenas is one frequently used by Deadwood’s master of invective, Al Swearingen. Gilbert, you sir, are not only a hoopster but a fuckinghooplehead.