Arenas one star worthy of our forgiveness

You can find no quick truths to a man's contrition. Take Gilbert Arenas, for example. Arenas wrote a column in The Washington Post decrying the stupidity of his brandishing handguns, as if he were Wyatt Earp, in a place where Glocks and .44 Magnums didn't belong.



His essay was a compelling piece of prose, words worthy of a man who knew his behavior was outside the lines.

"I understand the importance of teaching nonviolence to kids in today's world," Arenas wrote an op-ed piece for The Post. "Guns and violence are serious problems, not joking matters -- a lesson that's been brought home to me over the past few weeks."

From his words, he sounds as if he understands his civic failings, though who can be certain. I mean, what Gilbert Arenas wrote might just be another one of those SportsCenter moments that athletes are fond of.

For we've seen apologizes aplenty from high-profile athletes - from men like Mike Tyson, Kobe Bryant, Mark McGwire, Alex Rodriguez, Donte Stallworth, Michael Vick, and we all know that, at some point, we will see Tiger Woods producing his camera-ready moment. It will, of course, come with the appropriate tears and the maudlin words penned by Tiger's agent to give humanity to his client's serial infidelity.

But Tiger and Tyson and none of the other athletes gone wild are what interest me this day. Besides, a few of them have already fallen on their swords in hopes of being forgiven. I'm sure some people have forgiven, knowing that nobody's life is absent flaws.

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LeBron's decision: Slam door on dunk contest

It was a thought too luscious to consider. It was something you had longed for -- dreamed about, really -- hoping it was more than words floating in the air like the aroma of fresh peach cobbler.

You wanted to believe more than disbelieve, and LeBron James had left much for basketball fans to discuss: In or out, who could say for sure?

He had dropped hints that he might be "in." Yes, LeBron had weighed putting his name into the NBA Slam Dunk Contest, an All-Star Game sideshow that used to be cooler than the game itself.

But its cool factor has taken a beating in recent seasons. The contest is akin now to pay phones in an IPhone era. For gone are the days when Dominique Wilkins, Larry Nance, Kobe Bryant, Vince Carter and Air Jordan himself - the highest of the high flyers -- signed up for the slam-fest.

The contest needed a big name to revive interest in it, and no name in the NBA is bigger these days than LeBron's. Of course, having Kobe back would have heightened interest in the contest as well, but Kobe had done his turn. He won the contest in '97 when it was played in Cleveland, LeBron's town.

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New LeBron rumor: L.A. is his next stop

I would give credence to speculation like this from only a handful of NBA writers. Marc Spears of Yahoo! comes to mine, so does Chris Broussard of ESPN. I can mention a few other names as well, but the list is short: shorter than the reins Kobe Bryant has on the mercurial Ron Artest to fit in with the Lakers.

But it is hard for me to ignore the speculation when Sam Smith trots out a scenario on where LeBron James will end up next season.

Probably no player in NBA history has had his future examined through a crystal ball (or tea leaves, perhaps?) the way LeBron has had his. The constant forecasting of where LeBron will sign when he becomes a free agent after this season has, at times, been tedious to read. The talk has taken away an appreciation of one of the greatest players to ever play the game.

Most of that talk has LeBron packed and wrapped with a first-class stamp, and the package addressed to the Knicks or the Nets. The contention is that LeBron wants the bright lights of Broadway, turning his star into a supernova.

Smith, though, dismissed the New York angle. He posited an alternative that would bring LeBron the glitz and glamour he can’t get in Cleveland. Read what Smith said:

“Well, at least I’m fairly sure now where LeBron James is going to be playing next season.

“Los Angeles, most likely the Lakers.”

In his article on LeBron’s tomorrows, Smith backtracked a bit when he said the consensus is that LeBron will remain in Cleveland. No reason for him to leave, Smith said, for fame elsewhere, because in this global economy, LeBron can market his basketball brand in Tucson or Timbuktu, if that’s where he decided to play.

All of this speculation is unsettling in Cleveland. I think fans here have tired of it as well. They wish LeBron would end it and let everybody know what he wants to do.

But that would be LeBron. He’s asking a lot from the Cavaliers, a team that has tried to build a winner around him. In the NBA and in life, nothing comes with a guarantee, and if LeBron is leaving because he doesn’t think he can win here, then, well, good riddance. Go West, young man, should L.A. be where you decide to go.

I’m not about to argue that LeBron shouldn’t go where his heart takes him. He and Kobe Bryant make a dynamic one-two punch in the West. LeBron has left hints here and there that he does want to remain in Cleveland.

I just want the rumors about the man's future to end -- for everybody’s sake.

Smith, who covered the Jordan era for The Chicago Tribune, might be right; LeBron James might have an L.A state of mind. For now, however, he’s a Cavalier, and he looks good in the Wine and Gold.

Clevelanders should enjoy that sight for however long it lasts.

Cavs coach welcomes all-purpose West back

Coach Mike Brown still had to wonder how his Cavs might look when all the pieces were in place. Brown, as with almost everybody else, knew he had been blessed with a good collection of splendid talent, but how to blend that talent had been his struggle.

It didn't help Brown, a defense-minded coach, that he was forced to play without Delonte West, his hustling, all-purpose guard who had to sit out the first three games of the season with psychological problems.

His mind right now, West returned to a standing ovation Saturday night, no small matter to Brown. He was as pleased to have West in the lineup as the fans were, because West can open Brown's offense in ways not possible without him.

No other Cavaliers player, including LeBron James, is as versatile as West.

"Delonte can play," Brown said. "He really affects the game in a lot of different ways. He's a guy who can score but also run the team and distribute the ball at the right time."

Doubt his words if you'd like. Surely, Brown wouldn't be the first coach to inflate the contribution of a player. In this case, he was speaking the unvarnished truth.

The evidence was in West's performance, and in the comparison to how the Cavs played in their first three games as opposed how they played in their last game, West proved the difference in this 90-79 dismantling of the Bobcats. He played a bigger part in the win than any of the 20-562 fans in The Q could have expected.

"It wasn't a surprise," LeBron said.

West scored 13 points and handed out a couple of assists, statistical totals that didn't match the nightly outputs of Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade or Brandon Roy. Brown doesn't need those kinds of statistics from West, not when he can count on LeBron for them.

What Brown does need from West is what he got: a productive performance from the floor, strong defense and selfless play. His first game back wasn't markedly different from games he had in the past. If West had any first-game-back rust, he didn't show it. He looked good.

So did the Cavaliers.

"Missing piece," Mo Williams said of West. "It felt good to have the whole team back."

Williams called West's performance "terrific," perhaps an overstatement. Such hyperbole isn't uncommon when one teammate talks about another teammate. In this case, Williams meant it, because West's return gave him someone to share the point guard's.

Brown counted on that, too. He was, however, more circumspect in his analysis of West's return. He didn't necessarily expect West to be in midseason form. What player is four games into the season?

The fact that West is back will allow Brown to reconfigure his substitution patterns and build an offense and a defense that are cohesive. Compared to the first two games of the season, he did a better job of rotating players in and out in the victory Friday night in Minneapolis, and his rotation had few exposed seams against the Bobcats, no NBA powerhouse.

West was the glue that Brown's Cavs had been missing. With him back, they should get better and better the more they work together.

"I think we're taking steps in the right direction," Brown said. "We still have a long way to go. I think guys understand that, and in time, we will be a very good basketball team. We're pretty good right now, but we have the chance to be great."

(Photo of Cavs coach MIke Brown from NBA.com)

Reality of Shaq's TV show: It bites ...

They say reality bites, but I think they were actually talking about reality shows.

No argument there if that's the point, because if people have watched Shaq O'Neal's reality show "Shaq Vs," they have but one conclusion to draw: The show bites.

Two minutes into his second episode last Tuesday (I skipped his first episode and won't dare tune in tonight for his third), I wondered why a proud network like ESPN would even bother with a show that takes viewers deep inside an athlete's obsession for the spotlight. The network had to think it's doing what paparazzi do daily as they trail Hollywood stars into the toilet.

ESPN should know better. The World Wide Leader has seen Paris Hilton, Terrell Owens, The Donald, Dog the Bounty Hunter and Hulk Hogan, among others, debase TV, taking viewers in places only the mindless want to go. None of these other celebrities, however, took us where Shaq's reality show does.

There was a time when I found Shaq an intriguing personality, but that was, oh, a decade ago when he was playing the king-sized clown for boys and girls everywhere. But his public feud with Kobe Bryant changed my image of him. No, I don't blame the 7-foot-1 Shaq alone for what happened between he and Kobe. Pro basketball is a game of gigantic egos, and L.A. wasn't large enough for two egos the size of Mount Everest.

Ego is a funny thing, because it soon turns into arrogance. That's what Shaq's show is: brazen arrogance. Because it takes arrogance of the highest order for an athlete to go out of his element and expect to compete against top athletes in a different sport, even if it is for giggles.

I would no more expect Shaq to hit a CC Sabathia fastball than I would expect Sabathia to slam dunk in Shaq's face. I'd like to think Shaq (and ESPN) was wise enough to see that, too.

Wisdom, however, doesn't always come with age. Often, we seem to lose a few IQ points as our 20s roll into our 30s, our 30s roll into our 40s and our 40s roll ... OK, OK, you get my message here, right?

But as much as I want to pimp-slap Shaq for his stupidity, the culprit behind this reality show fiasco is The World Wide Leader itself. The network aided and abetted this reality mess, and it shouldn't compound this stupidity by keeping the show on the air.

Please, ESPN, spare us on Tuesday nights from seeing a side of Shaq that nobody wants to waste an hour on -- not even Shaq.