But here's one for you: What if the Wizards were winning? Say everything's hunky dory, Washington comes back from that West Coast trip with a 17-8 record, rather than 8-17. Say Arenas is averaging 29 points and eight assists and is on his way to a fourth All-Star appearance and the Comeback Player of the Year award. What then? Would the world have even known that possibly five guns were in the Wizards' locker room? Two league insiders say "No chance," and "Probably not." Charles Barkley last night on national television also said this wouldn't have gotten out if it was a winning squad.

As I wrote shortly after the initial report of Arenas storing guns in his locker, the Wizards aren't the first team to learn a player has a gun on team property, I'm told. The players are simply told Get that out of here, and receive a stern talking to. This situation is more serious than someone simply carrying a weapon on their person, but the insiders I asked seem to think that although Ernie Grunfeld would have been furious, that he would have huddled everyone together for a tongue lashing and swept it under the rug, and the Wizards would have went on jockeying for position among the Eastern Conference's elite.