I’m not really questioning Beck’s work, it’s great.

However, and even though Beck gives an “albeit a subtle one” disclaimer, is Crittenton firing his agent in a contract year really a warning flag (or as you’ve put it, an indicator of a “sense this was coming”) to guns in the locker room?

Mike, you and I can both attest to all of the positive comments concerning Crittenton’s character in Beck’s article …. he was always polite, well-spoken, courteous and willing to talk (given the few times there was a reason to speak with him).

However, for Beck to allude that him firing his agent, deeming the decision to be “significant” (which, of course it is, in basketball terms, not ‘gun in the locker room’ terms) raised a flag for bad behavior to come is taking the issue WAY overboard.

Beck mentions that the father of Crittenton’s former agent is a “giant in Atlanta basketball,” and was “one of Crittenton’s earliest mentors.”

But what does this really mean?

Are we to assume that this mentoring meant an unbreakable bond between Crittenton and his agent?

OR, must we wonder if such mentoring more forced and/or provoked by, perhaps, the “way things work” on the AAU circuit?

I’m sure a lot of “agents,” or fathers who have sons who are agents, call themselves “mentors” while still participating in the seedy underworld that is amateur athletics in the United States.

While I’m not discrediting the theory that Javaris firing his agent indicates that something greater was “going on” …. but it playing a role to gambling on a plane leading to guns in the locker room? Give me a break.

didn’t really do much other than say ‘remember, there’s another player involved in this incident’.
otherwise i feel i learned almost nothing.

On this one. I didn’t get much insight from this piece; no sense that I know Crit better. I don’t take anything away from the agent firing. He doesn’t even say if it was because of a rift (I assume so, but it’s not clear).

I can’t remember where I read it, probably the Post, but right after the gun incident, someone who knew Crit (possibly an aunt) said that he has a lot of things in his past that he has to work through. Does anyone else remember this?
But I thought the article had some details I hadn’t heard before – like that he was considered a neat freak. Also, that he is good friends with Dwight Howard – that makes me wonder about the rumors that Gil and Orlando are interested in each other.