Whether it is self-inflicted or not, the Washington Bullets…oops, I mean Wizards…have been a huge disappointment this season, and the team’s problems go beyond Arenas and his penchant for carrying weapons and storing them at the Verizon Center in case someone calls him out on a gambling debt.

Washington is only 11-22 for the season and has dropped seven of its last 10 games. The latest loss was a 121-98 thrashing at the hands of the Cleveland Cavaliers on Jan. 6.

Those are very dismal numbers for a team that was projected to be a playoff contender in the East, boasts three legitimate NBA All-Stars in Arenas, Caron Butler and Antawn Jamison, and owns a resume that includes four postseason appearances in the last five years and an offense – when all three stars are healthy – considered one of the best in the league.

And, as if the team needed more bad news, Arenas was recently involved in a troubling gun incident with teammate Javaris Crittenton in which Arenas admitted to pulling out unloaded guns from a strong box stashed in his locker.

Arenas – who has five years remaining on a $111 million contract he signed in 2008 – says it was all part of a “practical joke” and denied threatening or assaulting anyone. He reasoned that he brought four guns to the Verizon Center to keep in his locker in order to get them out of his house and away from his children.

Well, NBA commissioner David Stern didn’t find the humor in Arenas’ so-called prank, as Stern suspended Arenas indefinitely without pay and the incident is still under investigation by the police.

Even some of his peers are having a tough time defending Arenas.

“Gilbert has been a little quirky at times on and off the court. This should get him straight,” former NBA player and current TV analyst Jalen Rose said on ESPN’s First Take. “If he doesn’t get a felony, he doesn’t get any jail time and he has a misdemeanor or anything less, if I’m David Stern I suspend him for the rest of the season.

“[The season] is only halfway through, and the Washington Wizards are the most disappointing team in the league anyway,” Rose continued. “They’ll get a lottery pick and it gives them and their fans a fresh start for next season.”

Washington’s implosion was definitely a mystery to many oddsmakers and handicappers, including Las Vegas Sports Consultants, which had the Wizards at 50-1 to win the NBA championship at the start of the season. Did the oddsmakers simply overrate them?

“Absolutely we overrated them,” said Mike Seba, sports book manager with Las Vegas Sports Consultants, who dropped the Wizards down to 200-1 in his latest power rankings.

“This is a classic case of the parts being greater than the whole,” said Seba, who added that the Wizards’ troubles started well before the Arenas-Crittenton situation.

“You have great individual players, but this is a team that doesn’t play together. They don’t look like the same team as they did before,” he said. “There are not enough basketballs to keep them happy. Too many offensive weapons and there’s a lot of animosity.”

It’s quite obvious that the Wizards are not playing with the kind of free-flowing style that they enjoyed under former coach Eddie Jordan and, so far this season, the players have not bought into Flip Saunders’ more structured approach.

“Flip has tried to come in and change things. With this kind of a team, they’re better off letting them play,” Seba explained.

When Arenas, Jamison and Butler are in sync, which was in the 2006-07 season, the Wizards were fourth in the NBA in scoring (104.3). This season, they are in the middle of the pack at 17th (99.1).

But whatever the team’s issues are, the firestorm starts and ends with the eccentric Arenas, the noted self-proclaimed goof ball whose been known to drift in and out of reality from time to time.

Often times, Arenas seems to be more concerned with his statistics than his team’s success, which hasn’t exactly endeared himself to his teammates. “Arenas is not the same player since the injury,” Seba said. “He’s still a good player but he just doesn’t like the players around him. He’s kind of an individualist.”

When he was healthy, Arenas was a 28-point scorer and comparable to Kobe Bryant when in comes to late-game heroics. But after two injury-plagued seasons that limited him to just 15 games from 2007-09, Arenas’ scoring average has dipped to 22.7 and the multiple surgeries have robbed him of his explosiveness off the dribble.

Now with this latest gun incident, Arenas may have robbed himself of his freedom.

“The problem for Gilbert in dealing with the commissioner is he’s not the first NBA player to have issues with guns,” Rose said. “You saw it with Stephen Jackson and now you see it in the news with former Net Jayson Williams. Gilbert may unfortunately be the example, and you don’t want to be the example like Michael Vick was.”

This article also appears on Covers.com.

Brandon Jennings, who plays for Lottomatica Virtus Roma, has gone from high school star to European League neophyte. (REUTERS)

If college and professional basketball were caught in a Matrix, Brandon Jennings would be an anomaly. He is the glitch in the system. He’s the worm virus that everyone needs to pay attention to because the impact could cause a complete overhaul of the system.

A year ago, Jennings was considered the best high school player in the country out of Oak Hill Academy (Va.) with his sights set on Tucson, Ariz., to play for the University of Arizona and follow the road taken by past standout Wildcat point guards such as Steve Kerr, Damon Stoudamire, Mike Bibby, Jason Terry and Gilbert Arenas. But when Jennings did not meet the academic requirements, the Compton, Calif., native was knocked off the fast lane to stardom and was faced with a very difficult decision.

Because Jennings was too young to enter the NBA draft, he needed to take a different route, a path that landed him 7,000 miles away from home. He decided to play professionally in Europe, becoming the first high-profile high school player to make this move.

Instead of living in a college dorm,  Jennings is now making a living in Rome as a member of Italy’s Lottomatica Virtus Roma. Instead of attending 8 a.m. classes, he works out with his pro team for three hours in the morning and repeats the process later in the afternoon. Instead of battling Tyreke Evans and Greg Monroe for freshman of the year honors, he’s battling Ibrahim Jaaber, Rueben Douglas and Sani Becirovic for playing time.

And instead of preparing to play against top-seeded Louisville in the Sweet 16 with the 12th-seeded Arizona Wildcats, Jennings is preparing to play in Serie A against Carife Ferrara this Sunday.

During an interview with HBO’s Real Sports, the 19-year-old basketball pioneer revealed to Bryant Gumbel that the transition from high school star to Euroleague rookie has not been easy. Though Jennings is making the best of the situation, he is clearly homesick and is counting the days when he returns to the States.

Off the court, he’s had to adjust to a completely different culture and a more subdued lifestyle. On the court, his still-maturing body has been overwhelmed by some of the European veterans who could care less that he was a McDonald’s All-American. “It could be worse,” Gumbel said about playing in Europe, to which Jennings replied, “It could be. I could be in college. I could be in class right now.”

During his senior year at Oak Hill, Jennings averaged 15 points a game. Through 21 games in the Italian League, he’s averaging less than eight points. “I’m playing against grown men,” Jennings said. “I’m playing against guys that are way stronger than me. Guys with a lot more experience.”

Despite being thousands of miles away from his basketball dream and the ups-and-downs of his European experience, Jennings has not wavered on his decision to spurn the books in favor of booking a flight to Italy and getting a head start on his pro career. It’s a calculated risk that Jennings is willing to roll with, hoping that his name would be synonymous with Curt Flood and not Maurice Clarett.

“It’s the best decision I’ve made so far,” said Jennings, who credits Sonny Vaccaro for authoring the idea of having high school players play overseas for a year.

Vaccaro, a former high-powered shoe executive turned Father Flanagan, firmly believes that high school players should be afforded an option. So, when Jennings reached out to him, Vaccaro agreed to advise him and helped negotiate a deal with Virtus Roma.

Jennings ended up signing a three-year professional contract that pays him $1.2 million a year, complete with a three-bedroom apartment, a car and tuition for his younger brother. There is a clause in the contract that will allow Jennings to apply for the NBA draft once he fulfills his one-year obligation with the team.

The fact that Jennings has been able to survive his European odyssey, Vaccaro believes “the kid” has already succeeded. “I think he’ll go in the Lottery, and I think I’m going against public opinion right now,” Vaccaro said. “Brandon Jennings played the mental game and won.”

DeMarcus Cousins of Mobile, Ala., lists Memphis as his top college choice.

The 2009 McDonald’s All-American boys basketball were recently named and of the 24 names in the West and East rosters, two stood out because of what it said under the last column – undecided.

Lance Stephenson of Lincoln High School from Brooklyn, N.Y., and DeMarcus Cousins of LeFlore High School from Mobile, Ala., have yet to sign with a college team next season, and all three have a boat-load of teams they are considering.

Cousins, a 6-11 versatile center who could potentially turn out to be the best player of this year’s high school class, has mentioned Memphis, Kentucky, Kansas State and Washington as his top three, but Memphis is the front-runner. Stephenson has about six or seven schools aching to land the best prep prospect to come out of New York City since Sebastian Telfair.

The complete rosters for the McDonald’s All-American Game in Miami:

EAST TEAM

13 Kenny Boynton, Jr. G 6-3 190 American Heritage School, FL (Pompano Beach, FL) Florida

32 Dominic Cheek G 6-6 185 St. Anthony High School, NJ (Jersey City, NJ) Villanova

15 DeMarcus Cousins C 6-11 265 LeFlore Magnet High School, AL (Mobile, AL) Undecided

34 Derrick Favors F 6-9 235 South Atlanta High School, GA (Atlanta, GA) Georgia Tech

24 Milton Jennings F 6-9 215 Pinewood Preparatory School, SC (Cottageville, SC) Clemson

4 Ryan Kelly F 6-10 217 Ravenscroft School, NC (Raleigh, NC) Duke

33 Alex Oriakhi C 6-9 240 Tilton School, NH (Lowell, MA) Connecticut

30 Peyton Siva G 6-0 175 Franklin High School, WA (Seattle, WA) Louisville

1 Lance Stephenson F 6-6 220 Abraham Lincoln High School, NY (Brooklyn, NY) Undecided

7 Dexter Strickland G 6-3 180 St. Patrick High School, NJ (Rahway, NJ) North Carolina

11 Dante Taylor F 6-9 230 National Christian Academy, MD (West Chester, NY) Pittsburgh

2 Maalik Wayns G 6-1 185 Roman Catholic High School, PA (Philadelphia, PA) Villanova

WEST TEAM

1 Avery Bradley, Jr. G 6-3 180 Findlay College Prep, NV (Puyallup, WA) Texas

3 Abdul Gaddy, Jr. G 6-3 183 Bellarmine Preparatory School, WA (Tacoma, WA) Washington

31 Keith Gallon C 6-9 293 Oak Hill Academy, VA (Huffman, TX) Oklahoma

13 Xavier Henry G 6-6 225 Putnam City High School, OK (Oklahoma City, OK) Memphis

22 John Henson F 6-10 200 Sickles High School, FL (Odessa, FL) North Carolina

33 Wally Judge F 6-9 230 Arlington Country Day School, FL (Landover, MD) Kansas State

5 Tommy Mason-Griffin G 5-11 192 James Madison High School, TX (Houston, TX) Oklahoma

32 Mason Plumlee F 6-11 220 Christ School, NC (Winona Lake, IN) Duke

1 Renardo Sidney, Jr. C 6-10 250 Fairfax High School, CA (Los Angeles, CA) USC

21 Michael Snaer G 6-5 200 Rancho Verde High School, CA (Moreno Valley, CA) Florida State

12 David Wear F 6-10 225 Mater Dei High School, CA (Huntington Beach, CA) North Carolina

24 Travis Wear F 6-10 230 Mater Dei High School, CA (Huntington Beach, CA) North Carolina