Wally Santana / AP

Commissioner David Stern dropped any lawyer-speak when ripping Gilbert Arenas, which is an indication of just how mad he is, Sean Deveney of the Sporting News writes.

OPINION

By Sean Deveney

updated 6:22 p.m. ET Jan. 6, 2010

Sean Deveney

David Stern went to law school, became a lawyer and eventually latched on to the NBA as the league's general counsel in 1978. He became commissioner six years later, but in everything he has done as the head honcho, he has maintained his lawyer-liness. His decisions always come with the trappings of legal procedure. He is a master of attorney-talk, deft at answering questions without ever answering them. He sets precedents, and sticks to them. He is adamant about putting the legal process before the interest of the league.   

Which is why Gilbert Arenas truly should be sweating. Because the statement that Stern put out Wednesday was surprisingly frank, not couched in the typically vague language of a legal brief, but very much to the point. And Stern is clearly very angry with Arenas.

The first part of Stern's statement needs little interpretation — he says that he intended to treat the issue of Arenas bringing guns into his locker at the Verizon Center as he always would, which would be to do nothing out of respect for the legal system issues.

"I initially thought it prudent to refrain from taking immediate action because of the pendency of a criminal investigation involving the office of the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia and the Metropolitan Police Department," Stern said. 

But then Stern gave out an inkling of just how ticked off he is about the incident, especially with Arenas' poking fun at the whole thing by standing in the center of the Wizards' pregame huddle in Philadelphia on Tuesday night, holding both hands in the shape of guns (with his thumbs cocked) and fake-shooting at his teammates, who laughed and encouraged him. Immediately after the game, though, Arenas seemed to recognize that was in poor taste, and posted to his Twitter account, "I wanna say sorry if I (ticked) any body off by us havin fun...I'm sorry for anything u need to blame for for right now."

Stern does not appear to be big on tweeted apologies, however, and it's in the second half of his statement that we can get a sense of his anger.

"It is clear that the actions of Mr. Arenas will ultimately result in a substantial suspension," Stern said.

The big question there, of course, is what Stern means by, "substantial suspension." It's likely to be at least 20 games, if not for the rest of the season.

Further, it's easy to see how angry Stern is by the way he drops his typical attorney-ish restraint and goes right at Arenas' antics, a clear indication Stern will add games to Arenas' suspension simply because Arenas has taken this thing so lightly.

"Perhaps worse," Stern said, "his ongoing conduct has led me to conclude that he is not currently fit to take the court in an NBA game. Accordingly, I am suspending Mr. Arenas indefinitely, without pay, effective immediately pending the completion of the investigation by the NBA."

That is one ticked-off Commish.

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