Links To The Present: January 1st, 2010

-NBA story of the day appears to be the report that Gilbert Arenas and Javaris Crittenton  pulled guns on each other in the locker room prior to a December 21st practice over a gambling debt. This will almost certainly become a punchline in the coming weeks, and more than a few people will view this story through the prism of the Wizards’ on-court problems, but the bottom line here is that two young guys almost gunned each other down in a locker room. I’m all for some Wizards-related schadenfreude every now and again, but this is another piece of evidence that pro athletes and guns do not mix well.

-Looks like those “leaked” pictures New York LeBrons were fakes.

-Stein with some more “Best of The Decade” stuff on the Weekend Dime, worth a read.

-I do know a few people around the league, and this summer I was talking to one of them about Brandon Jennings playing ball in Europe. He immediately said that the fad would die out when players figured out how often European clubs don’t honor their contracts with players. Looks like stories of that are starting to surface.

-Reader Bradley e-mailed me to say that Sasha Kaun has started the last four games for his Euroleague Team, CSKA Moscow, and has been great in all four starts. Overall, he’s averaging 9 points and 6 boards in 20 minutes a game, and shooting 63% from the field and 71% from the line. Given that the Cavs will lose some bigs after this year, the level of competition over there is high, and 9/6 is the type of role-player production the Cavs would want from Kaun in a perfect world, there appears to be a possibility that the flyer the Cavs took on Kaun could pay off. Have a good weekend, everyone.