Gilbert Arenas is a Jealous NBA Hater
Whether they’re on ESPN or on podcasts, sport shows need bad guys, jerks with impossibly bad takes on virtually every situation. And Skip Bayless can’t be everywhere, not that anyone cares about that clown since Uncle Shannon wisely forged his own path.
No, I’m talking about Gilbert Arenas, a former NBA player who has popped up on people’s radars with some truly terrible takes on the modern league. Even if sports coverage needs bad guys, it has to do better than an out-of-touch never-was like Arenas.
Who is Gilbert Arenas?
If you don’t remember Gilbert Arenas, you can certainly be forgiven for that. He was almost notable in his era but was quickly lost to NBA history. I’ve been watching for years and I had to Google the guy to figure out why anyone has been entertaining his opinions. Honestly, I’m still not sure.
Arenas was a second round draft pick for the Golden State Warriors back in 2001. He would spend 12 years in the NBA with the Warriors, the Wizards, the Magic, and the Grizzlies. Gilbert finished his professional career off in China where he spent one season with the Shanghai Sharks.
He spent the bulk of his NBA career with the Washington Wizards, and was a three-time All-Star from 2005 to 2007. That’s actually pretty impressive, when you stop and think about it. Arenas must have been playing really well those seasons to make the All-Star team three times in a row.
Keeping that in mind, Arenas didn’t exactly have a huge career, either. No Conferences Titles or NBA Championships. He wasn’t a household name. There’s nothing wrong with that. Nothing changes the fact that he spent 12 years in the NBA, which is more than most can say.
Gil Likes to Talk
Like many former players, Arenas has stayed in the mix via broadcasting. He hosts a daily sports show on YouTube for Complex News and hosts “The No Chill Podcast.” Why? Because everyone has a podcast at this point, even if they have nothing to say and no one is listening.
The reality is that no one is actually listening to Arenas. At all. This mediocre player turned mediocre broadcaster fails to draw a crowd everywhere he goes. As such, he turned to the tried and true tactic of saying things so oblivious and stupid people have to talk about him.
Arenas actually called for the NBA to get rid of all Europeans players. He doesn’t like the way the game is played today, and blames Europeans for it. If you think his logic is ill-informed and dumb as hell, you’d be right. Arenas complains Europeans don’t play defense, despite seven of the NBA’s 25 top defensive players being European.
More recently, Arenas trashed the Boston Celtics, claiming they have been irrelevant for the last 30 years and utterly dismissed their old school dynasty. In the last 30 years, the Celtics have made the playoffs 20 times, won three Conference Titles, and won one NBA Championship. If they can get past Jokić, they might win a 2024 title. That’s not an irrelevant franchise.
Check Yo’ Self, Fool
Gilbert Arenas, on the other hand, saw the playoffs five times in 12 seasons with no titles of any kind to show for it. That puts his success rate at making the playoffs under 50% while the Celtics organization is hovering around 66% in the last 30 years. There’s a level of irony to Gilbert Arenas calling anyone else irrelevant given the success his career didn’t produce.
The narrative when it comes to Arenas and his idiotic opinions about European players is also rooted in jealousy. He’s not the first American-born player to complain, but it’s not the top tier American talent who are upset. It’s always forgettable mid players like Arenas who have a problem. For some reason, so do Kevin Hart and Cedric the Entertainer.
The real issue with Arenas and guys like him is that they know in their hearts they couldn’t hang with Europeans like Dončić, Jokić, and Antetokounmpo. Even at his absolute peak, Arenas didn’t belong on the same court as these guys. And he never played for a team that wouldn’t have gotten absolutely dominated by the current Celtics roster.
Jealousy and envy are at the core of Gilbert’s opinions. Instead of hyping the game, he’s become an old man on the front porch, complaining about kids and waxing poetically about what it was like back in his day. The only problem is that he wasn’t much in his day, either. Stop trying to bury Jokić and go watch the one highlight from your career on repeat.
