Nothing funny about Arenas’ joke gone awry

Gilbert Arenas has always seemed like such a likable, fun-loving guy, one who not only loves to play the game of basketball but is pretty darned good at it, too.

But what he was thinking — OK, he obviously wasn’t — when he recently brought a fistful of firearms into the Washington Wizards’ locker room defies all logic.

Maybe it was, as Arena claims, just a practical joke gone terribly wrong. Perhaps he thought he needed them to protect himself from teammate Javaris Crittenton after they got into an argument over a gambling debt.

Whatever his reason, it went far beyond stupid — words like mindless, asinine and idiotic come to mind.

I mean really, come on now. By a show of hands, other than law enforcement, security or military personnel, how many of us have ever felt the need to bring a handgun with us to our workplace?

Yeah, me neither.

Then, after his bizarre “are you kidding me?” locker room confrontation with Crittenton on Christmas Eve, Arenas made matters worse a few days later by playfully pointing his fingers at teammates, pretending to shoot them, during the Wizards’ pregame introductions.

NBA commissioner David Stern was not amused and subsequently suspended Arenas indefinitely.