Celebrity Byte

In the NFL whenever Madden comes out everybody wants to check their ratings. What's it like in the NBA when NBA Live comes out?

I think they check out their ratings. For some reason, EA Sports never have me dunking. I don't want to be a 98 in dunking, but I don't want to be a 65, you know? I know how to dunk, I just choose not to.

Covenant House California's Youth Awards Dinner Gala Honoring Charlize Theron and Sharon Osbourne.

Is that one of the benefits of being the cover athlete? Do you get to tell EA Sports to bump up your player ratings?

Yeah, you know, I'm alright in the new game and they've done a good job, but they can always improve my ratings just a little bit. Or they can give me a special copy of the game so that when I go online I can play as myself and I'm automatic when I shoot.

Can you talk about online competition? How do you stand up against online gamers?

I'm pretty good. When I first went online I was getting killed. I was a street legend and a home legend, but when you get online you're going up against players that sit there all day and they glitch the game and they know every little detail of the game. They taught me a whole bunch of stuff. It's so much fun because you can think you're really good and you can play against somebody who just blows you away. I played against a guy who scored 96 against me with Kobe Bryant and he had fatigue on.

When I first went online I was getting killed. I was a street legend and a home legend, but when you get online you're going up against players that sit there all day and they glitch the game.

Do you ever tell them whom they're playing against?

They know who they're playing against. My Gamertag name is AgentArenas so they know who they're playing against. Most of the time I'm playing against a lot of Kobe fans or a lot of my fans.

When you're not playing the NBA game, what do you like to play?

Halo.

Have you played the Halo 3?

Yeah. I thought it was amazing.

Is there anything that you liked specifically about the leap to next gen with Halo?

It looks more real. I was looking at little things like the way you snipe a guy and get a headshot you can hear their head cracking. And when you throw a bomb it actually sounds like a bomb. It looks fresher and more realistic.

Nick Young and Gilbert Arenas celebrate against the Portland Trailblazers.

Do you get Halo tips from your professional Halo team--Final Boss?

Yeah. They give me tips and I use them and I'm pretty good. To my friends, I'm a god at Halo. When I play online I think I'm the best and then I get destroyed. I took a group of what I thought were the best players online and we played against Final Boss and we played up to 100 kills and we got three. And I didn't even get one kill.