Javaris Crittenton’s arrest casts locker room incident in a more disturbing light

On one of Gilbert Arenas’s final nights as a Washington Wizard, he stood in the corridor leading from the locker room to the floor — fearful of being booed almost a year after he and a teammate had irrevocably tarnished themselves and a franchise by bringing guns to Verizon Center.

Asked whether he had spoken to Javaris Crittenton since they were both suspended for the remainder of the 2009-2010 NBA season and Arenas had spent 30 days in a halfway house, Arenas replied, “No, but I heard he became more hard.”

More hard, he explained, meant “more gangsta.”

“You know, like some people turn over a new leaf when something bad like that changes their life. I heard Javaris went the other way — he became more ’hood, more hardened in that way. I don’t know if that’s the case, but that’s what I heard.”

Crittenton was on the lam for several days after being wanted by Atlanta police in connection with an Aug. 19 murder. He was arrested Monday evening after checking in for a red-eye flight in Orange County, Calif. Shuttled to a Los Angeles police station, he was booked on suspicion of being a fugitive from justice. A federal arrest warrant had been issued after the FBI found out he left his home for Southern California, where he was known to have family and friends, via a one-way ticket.

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All of us have probably run into a serious-as-a-heart-attack individual once or twice in life, someone we just weren’t sure about. As Gilbert Arenas Sr. said, “I remember guys going to their bag to get something and everybody went running from the park. There was always one guy you didn’t want to agitate too much. Or else.”

But was Crittenton really that guy? The hard part today for everyone who spent time around him: They never saw that side.

“All the guys I’ve talked to are like, ‘Can you believe this stuff about Javaris?’ ” said Brendan Haywood, his former teammate in Washington, who now plays for the Dallas Mavericks. “This is a grounded guy everybody got along with, real quiet guy. I’m still in shock and think there has to be some mistake.”

So do others, especially the people who knew Crittenton when, who may be wondering where it all went wrong.

He was named a captain his sophomore year in high school, on a Georgia state championship team featuring Dwight Howard, a senior mentor to his teammate.

A member of the Future Business Leaders of America, Crittenton carried a 3.5 grade point average. He was recruited to Georgia Tech by Paul Hewitt, the current George Mason coach. Hewitt declined comment Monday, perhaps having trouble with an incongruent thought — how the kid he knew didn’t quite match with the headline, “Crittenton Wanted in a Homicide.”