Gilbert Arenas' threats to Javaris Crittenton came before infamous gun incident

Gilbert Arenas shared new details about what precipitated the infamous gun incident in the Washington Wizards' locker room in an interview published Tuesday. 

Arenas told The Action Network that his taunts of teammate Javaris Crittenton included telling him he would "burn your car, while you’re in it."

The 2009  event, in which Arenas brought out four guns and Crittenton brandished his own pistol in a confrontation, "had nothing to do with gambling debts,” Arenas said. It was, however, traced to a card game on a team plane where Arenas said it was about "calling his bluff" as Crittenton lost on a hand won by teammate JaVale McGee.

“The plane lands and now Javaris says to JaVale, ‘So you just gonna let me lose my money like that? You ain’t even gonna be a real (expletive) and give me a chance to get my money back?' " Arenas said. 

Arenas responded: " ‘Javaris, I will burn your car, while you’re in it. Then we’ll find an extinguisher to help ya ass out.’ And he says, ‘Well, I’ll just shoot you then.’ I said, ‘Man, I’ll bring you the guns to shoot me!’ ”

Two days later, on Dec. 21, 2009, the locker room confrontation took place.

“Hey, (expletive), come pick one,” Arenas said he told Crittenton as he pointed to the four unloaded guns he had laid out. “I’m going to shoot your (expletive) with one of these.”

Crittenton responded by pulling his own gun, one which Arenas said was loaded. 

Both were suspended the rest of the 2009-10 season and each faced criminal charges in Washington, which has some of the stiffest gun laws in the country. 

Arenas pleaded guilty to a single felony count of possessing a gun without a license and was sentenced to 30 days in a halfway house and served two years of supervised probation. Crittenton was sentenced to a year of probation as part of a plea deal for a gun possession charge. 

The events of that day in the locker room detoured Arenas' NBA career and effectively ended Crittenton's. 

Crittenton was arrested on suspicion of murdering a woman in Atlanta in August 2011 and pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter. He was sentenced to 23 years in prison in 2015. 

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