Legal News

On Gunslingin? Gilbert and the Law

By Ashby Jones

Let’s stay in the world of sports and talk briefly about Gilbert Arenas, the Washington Wizards’ guard who was suspended on Wednesday by NBA commish David Stern indefinitely without pay. Stern deemed him “not currently fit to take the court.”

The backstory: Arenas’s recent troubles began shortly before Christmas, when he brought four guns into the Wizards’ locker room.

But Arenas’s behavior since then seems to have caused Stern as much, if nor more, grief than the original incident. Arenas joked about the incident on Twitter and playfully pointed his index fingers at teammates as if they were guns before a recent game. Click here for the story, from ESPN.

It’s fairly clear that the league is well within its bounds to suspend Arenas, and suspend his pay along the way. The 2005 collective bargaining agreement states that NBA players are subject to discipline if they bring guns to the arena, practice facility or an offsite promotional appearance. The provision gave Stern the option of taking action now instead of waiting until the completion of the criminal case, as he usually does.

But would the Wizards be within their rights to cancel Arenas’s six-year, $111 million contract?

ESPN’s J.A. Adande dug into the issue, and rendered this interesting analysis:

[V]oiding the remainder of Gilbert Arenas’ contract for his violation of league rules by bringing guns into the locker room is unlikely unless he is convicted of a felony. That is one of the actions that can automatically terminate a contract. Short of that, the Wizards would be forced to invoke the “moral turpitude” clause, which can be difficult to define. The thinking is that if Latrell Sprewell and Ron Artest could have their contracts remain intact after choking a coach and fighting in the stands, respectively, Arenas could not be cut loose for an act in which no one was physically harmed.

In other words, the answer is probably no. That said, continues Adande, the effect of the Arenas situation could transcend his case alone:

[I]t’s possible it could rally owners to push for stronger language in collective bargaining negotiations next year. They could make it easier to void contracts. Perhaps they even attempt to go after NBA players’ greatest asset: fully guaranteed contracts. As one team executive said: “Thats the first thing I thought of when this thing happened.” Make no mistake, the owners are mad.

For further treatment of Arenas’s potential legal trouble, check out this wonderful blog post from the folks over at the WSJ’s The Daily Fix.

Photo: AP

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on January 07, 2010 (boomark / email).