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Gilbert Arenas was fined recently over $50,000 for faking his knee injury. The Washington Wizards’ guard did this so he can give young guard, Nick Young, some playing time to prove himself. Young did, in fact, leading the team in points that game.

This is Arenas’ second controversial incident in the past two seasons after being in trouble for locker room incident with guns last December.

“I screwed up again, so I just want to say sorry,” he said. “I wasn’t really thinking that this was going to be another media outburst. It’s like everything I do now, someone, tit for tat, tries to blow it out of proportion.”

Arenas came back when playing against Milwaukee Bucks, this time actually getting injured as he strained his groin.

I have a lot of respect for Arenas for doing this. He would go through all of this just let a young guy like Nick Young prove himself to the Wizards. I guess Arenas wanted Young to display his talents so he could have a better shot at minutes with the team, let alone making the roster much easier.

Arenas knew he would go through trouble, but still he did what he did with the mind-set of helping a kid make it into the NBA.

By going through this Arenas shows he is a great teammate. He knew when he told the media after the game he was going to get into trouble for his antics. But he got a young guy a little bit of the time in the spotlight: Big ups to him!

This really won’t affect him all that much. He will get his playing time as the Wizards are anxious to have their three-guard set featuring John Wall, Kirk Hinrich, and Arenas himself.

LeBron James Returns to Practice

The Miami Heat are getting their superstars back.

Dwyane Wade and LeBron James were both out for much of the pre-season games. James, who was coming off a hamstring injury, came back to practice Saturday.

James was dismissed from the third quarter in a game against CSKA Moscow and skipped a game against the New Orleans Hornets.

James wants to play in Monday’s game versus the Charlotte Bobcats, but it will be the team that decides on that.

Wade was not here Saturday, as he was in court versus his ex-wife for the custody of his two kids. Wade will not return until the middle of next week.

Besiktas Waiting On Allen Iverson

The Besiktas, a team part of the a Turkey basketball league, are waiting for Allen Iverson to make his decision on whether he will play for them or not. The deal will be worth around $2 million. Iverson will only accept if there are no penalty fines in the deal.

Crittenton Waived by Bobcats

Javaris Crittenton failed to wow the Charlotte Bobcats in training camp. So, hence, he was cut. Instead, the Bobcats wanted to give more playing time to undrafted rookie, Sherron Collins.

“It was him or Sherron,” coach Larry Brown said of Crittenton, who scored 13 points on 4 of 17 shooting in four exhibition games. “We were taking time away from D.J., time away from Sherron. But Javaris did everything I asked.”

Crittenton was involved in the gun incident with Arenas last season when they played for the Washington Wizards.

Crittenton did everything Larry Brown asked, but was more of a scoring-type guard than a play-maker.

“Any other year, you remember some of the third point guards we have, he would have made our team,” Brown said. “He did what I asked of him. He’s got strength, quickness. He just needs to be more of a point guard.”

Rumors

• Andrew Bynum has been progressing lately with the Los Angeles Lakers….”We hope that it’s within a week or two that he’s on the court with us,” Lakers head coach Phil Jackson told ESPNLosAngeles.com. “That doesn’t mean that he’s going to go through a full practice, but he can do some of the things.”
• There has been no movement lately between the Atlanta Hawks and Al Horford with a contract extension, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution….”We are still talking to the team,” Horford said. “I just hope it gets done.”
• Chris Kaman was forced to play a lot of minutes in his last game with 37, due to DeAndre Jordan’s injury. Jarron Collins was also there, but is a third-string center. This means the Clippers could add a big man….”We have interest in anyone that can help our team and explore avenues to improve our team and explore avenues to improve our roster on a daily basis,” vice president of basketball operations Neil Olshey told the Los Angeles Times. “We have no interest in players that make us look better getting off the bus because they happen to be 6-10.”
• Steve Novak could beat Brian Cardinal for a job with the Dallas Mavericks. But nobody is ruling anybody out in this competition….”We’re definitely going to look at it,” Mark Cuban told The Dallas Morning News. “If it’s best for the team, we’ll do it.”
• The Sacramento Kings waived Marcus Landry, who is the younger brother of Carl Landry. They also waived Joe Crawford and Connor Atchley. But don’t be surprised if any of these guys return to the Kings soon…”I wouldn’t be surprised to see one or all of them either land back with us or in the league for sure,” head coach Paul Westphal told The Sacramento Bee. “It’s always tough, but it’s also necessary.”
• Jordan Crawford played well at point guard but won’t take Jeff Teague’s spot at point guard, says head coach Larry Drew…..”I’ve made no bones about it as far as how I see Jeff,” Drew tells The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “My expectations for him was to come in and push Mike Bibby for the starting role. Jeff has had a good camp and then unfortunately he had the ankle injury. I look at Jordan as who he is. He is not a point. He has the ability to play some point, but he doesn’t have those natural point-guard instincts. He’s a good passer. That being said, I just view him more as a [shooting guard] than a [point guard].”