One of the stranger chapters in Orlando Magic history is about to end.
Gilbert Arenas says he’s shutting down his controversial Twitter account for good.
Try to take a look at the @agentzeroshow Twitter feed, and you’ll find nothing. Not only has he deleted every one of the tweets he posted over the last several months, but he’s also deleted the account altogether. He’s said he’ll be done on Twitter by Sept. 1, and it looks like he’s already finished.
Over the last few days, he’s said his goodbyes, then deleted them.
“so i would like to do my thx u’s now…too all the fan’s that has humor in their lives thx u for understanding my approach to twitte,” he wrote. ”and for the ppl who just got pissed off and took my tweets too serious U NEED 101 HUMOR HELP u can laugh its okay”.
Those comments touch on the critical backlash that arose over the last few months, but they also beg some interesting questions:
• What rules, if any, should professional athletes adhere to on their Twitter accounts?
• What responsibilities do professional athletes have to their communities and to the franchises that employ them?
• And when, if ever, can a comedian — even an amateur such as Arenas — make misogynistic comments and then claim artistic license?
I don’t claim to have any answers to those questions. Let the thousands of people who’ve peered at his tweets make those determinations.
But I am confident that Arenas’ Twitter musings will have had a positive (albeit inadvertent) effect if they produce a rational debate about those questions.
Say this for Arenas’ work on microblogging service: It’s difficult to feel wishy-washy about it.
One of Arenas’ tweets from June 2 provides a case in point. He wrote: “good mornin twitter fam..i need me a slave to make me breakfast in the mornings..i guess yall might call them girlfriends…im hungry”.
Another case in point: Arenas’ Twitter avatars, many of which are not suitable for children and are not safe for work. Comedian Joe Mande recently
” href=”http://joemande.com/post/9549186868/can-we-talk-about-gilbert-arenas-twitter-profile” target=”_blank”>published a gallery of some of those avatars.
Say what you want about those avatars, but Arenas did engage his 50,000-plus followers. Each weekday afternoon, he asked his fans a trivia question, and the winners received a free pair of shoes from Arenas’ large sneaker collection.
“It’s just supposed to be entertainment,” Arenas told the Orlando Sentinel in an interview in June. “For example, if Denzel Washington does a movie and he plays a bad guy in a movie, he’s entertaining you for those two hours you’re paying for him. When he’s done, he is not that bad officer anymore. He’s back to being Denzel Washington.
“So if you can choose when to like a movie star, why can’t you choose when and when not to like a basketball player or an athlete? We are two different people, too. On the basketball court, around my job, I’m one person. Off the court, I’m another person. When I’m in the arena, I’m serious; I’m doing my job. Out of the arena, I’m a goofy person.”
The NBA was concerned enough that it fined him an undisclosed amount in June for making appropriate comments on Twitter.
The league, however, lost its ability to fine Arenas once the collective bargaining agreement expired on July 1.
Arenas utilized that freedom.
“Ladies imma buy 11 roses;10 real and 1 fake..after I leave ur crib don’t call me until the last one dies..GOOD MORNING,” he tweeted recently.
Ultimately, the Twitter account came back to haunt him.
It hurt him when he sought to prevent the mother of his four children from appearing on VH1’s Basketball Wives LA. A judge in Southern California ruled against Arenas, and the judge said Arenas’ Twitter account undermined his claim.
The account is empty now.
Some of his tweets have been saved, either in articles that have been written or in search-engine archives.
And those tweets lead to perhaps the most interesting question of all.
Who, exactly, is Gilbert Arenas?
Follow Josh Robbins on Twitter at @JoshuaBRobbins and e-mail him at jrobbins@orlandosentinel.com. Subscribe to our Orlando Magic newsletter at OrlandoSentinel.com/joinus.
