It's Time for Zero Tolerance Towards Agent Zero

He's funny, he's fan friendly, and he definitely walks to the beat of a different drummer.

He is also a former second round draft pick, who, through hard work and determination, transformed himself from league afterthought to NBA superstar. He even wears the number zero to remind himself what NBA executives used to think of him.

He's Washington Wizards point guard Gilbert Arenas—the Ocho Cinco of basketball, a media darling and fan favorite, not to mention a great basketball player on the court.

And if his name was Ron Artest, he'd probably be out of the league right now.

For the NBA fans who haven't heard, it's being reported by ESPN that Arenas pulled a gun on teammate Javaris Crittenton in the Wizards locker room on Christmas Eve, after Crittenton became angry at Arenas for refusing to pay a gambling debt. Crittenton then responded by pulling a gun on Arenas.

This coming after weeks of reports that Arenas, who plays his home games in Washington DC, home of some of the toughest gun laws in the nation, was keeping unregistered weapons in his locker at the Verizon Center.

To top it off, Arenas has been making light of the entire situation on his Twitter page, saying things like: "i wake up this morning and seen i was the new JOHN WAYNE..lmao media is too funny".

Arenas is funny, jovial, and seems like a happy-go-lucky kind of guy, but even if these stories are completely false, they're still not funny. Not to mention that the media has gone relatively easy on Arenas thus far.

Just look at ESPN.com. The same network that reported on the "Malice at the Palace" for what seemed like forever after it happened and basically gave us daily updates of Tiger Woods' sex life, has delegated the Arenas story to a sidebar on the NBA page.

Admittedly, it's easy to like Arenas, but this is a huge problem, with possible federal legal ramifications. Hopefully Commissioner Stern realizes that Agent Zero, and Crittenton for that matter, need to go, at least for the rest of the season, and probably for longer than that.

As bad as the Pacers-Pistons brawl in 2004 was, a fight that spilled into the stands and saw a total nine players get league suspensions, including Ron Artest receiving the longest suspension in NBA history (73 regular season games and 13 playoff games), this is worse.

Sure no fans were hurt or attacked, but this altercation between Arenas and Crittenton included guns, and as anyone who watched the Plaxico Burress fiasco unfold last football season knows, sometimes guns discharge, even when you don't want them to.

Only the players and staff in that Wizards' locker room on Christmas Eve know what, if anything, really happened between Arenas and Crittenton. But what is known for certain, is that if this story is true, this scene could have turned ugly, very ugly. Thank God it didn't.

Hopefully David Stern acts swiftly to investigate and resolve this situation, and if what is being reported is true, he acts vigilantly.

In other words, the suspension Ron Artest was slapped with for the Malice at the Palace should pale in comparison to what Arenas and Crittenton receive.

From here on out, there needs to be zero tolerance for Agent Zero, no matter how much we love him.