“Beating His A**”: Gilbert Arenas Vehemently Defends LeBron James From Rashad McCant’s ‘Kobe Bryant’ Narrative

Rashad McCants has been on an anti-LeBron James campaign since 2001. However, he has finally found a worthy adversary to debate in Gilbert Arenas. The former Wizards point guard defended the King against McCants’ narrative involving the late, great Kobe Bryant.

On Gil’s Arena, James was the hot topic following his 40th birthday. Agent Zero was sharing his disbelief at Bron’s longevity when McCants tried to undermine his accomplishments. He believed that James wasn’t even the best player in the league until the Black Mamba retired.

“You got to go down to South Beach to have a chance…I [Kobe] beat them dudes that teamed up against me. I beat them by myself,” the 2005 NCAA champion argued.

Arenas clapped back with a simple statistic. He reminded McCants that James has a 16-6 record against Bryant. “And Imma tell you how it started. I [Bron] just got to this team, you [Kobe] beat me three straight games — my rookie year, my sophomore year. That means, from my sophomore year till you stopped playing, you only won three f***ing games against me,” the three-time All-Star said.

In fact, James had three three-year stretches — from January 2006 to January 2009, from December 2009 to March 2012, and from March 2012 to the end of Bryant’s career — where he remained undefeated against the Black Mamba.

Arenas knew this and McCants had no real counter for his argument. Instead, Rashad taunted, “He said Kobe was his favorite player. It don’t sound like it.” Gil, still riled up from the argument, quipped, “Yeah, and I [Bron] am beating his a**.”

While Arenas certainly made the more valid points in this debate, he has frequently been adversarial about Bryant’s spot in the history books, despite being a self-proclaimed fan of the Black Mamba.

Kobe Bryant vs MJ is not even close, Gilbert Arenas claims

Due to the mentee-mentor relationship between Bryant and Michael Jordan, his game, playstyle, and ultimately, his career, often draw comparisons to the Black Cat’s. They both shared a penchant for mid-range scoring, a footwork-oriented post-game, and of course, for vicious slam dunks.

However, Arenas believes that the comparisons between the two should end right there. “Kobe was nothing like Mike. The only things Kobe resembled from Mike was Mike’s second three-peat,” Agent Zero said during a previous episode of Gil’s Arena.

“Kobe was not even capable to compare ’84 Mike, ’85 Mike, ’86, ’87,” Arenas listed all the way until 1992. “That Jordan was not even capable of being reached…You think about putting him [Bryant] against the ’80s Michael Jordan, it wouldn’t be no competition.”

According to Gil, Jordan was simply on another level during the first decade of his career. And there is some truth to it too. While Bryant worked hard to improve every season and perfect the various crafts of the game, Mike came into the league as a superstar.

He had the shot-making and defense from the get-go, but what really separated him from all the shooting guards after him, was his unreal athleticism. Kobe Bryant never had the same hops as MJ and as such, could never dominate in the same fashion as a young Jordan.