Is ring culture a problem when it’s used to determine someone’s legacy? Former Warriors point guard Gilbert Arenas certainly thinks so.
Advertisement
Arenas and Josiah Johnson came together on the No Chill Gil podcast to discuss the business of basketball. Reluctant at first to talk about it, Arenas claimed that this was going to be difficult to understand for the “new Kobe fans.”
Addressing the group, Arenas explained that it was prudent for them to know the real “enemy” as far ring culture was concerned.
“The Bulls won 3 championships and retired in ‘98, right? Michael Jordan, right? 3 rings in a row and then there was one year between that, and the Spurs won that,” Arenas began.
“Phil Jackson comes back, right?” Arenas confirmed with Johnson before continuing. “And then he comes to the Lakers. The next shooting guard to go three-in-a-row was who?” Arenas asked.
The answer, of course, is Kobe Bryant. Arenas believes this is where things got complicated, where people missed something very important about why Kobe was called a sidekick.
According to Arenas, nobody relates Michael Jordan’s return to the league to the rise of the sidekick sentiment. He feels that MJ’s stardom was so elevated that no one wanted to consider an up-and-comer replacing him.
“Michael Jordan was in the NBA still. Those people … NBA Jordan lovers … NBC, all of them. They were not listening to no f****** ‘Kobe is the next Michael Jordan’ when Michael Jordan was f****** playing basketball,” Arenas argued.
Arenas claims that these people didn’t want to listen to reason, so they started the campaign of “Kobe’s a sidekick. This is Shaq’s team.” Arenas says, “That’s who separated. They did it in real time because Michael Jordan was there. They weren’t going to allow you to say, ‘This guy won 3 and he is about to win 4.’ Remember, he’s 22 at the time with 3 rings.”
The former Warriors star asserts that this Lakers team, led by Shaq and Kobe at their peak, was going to collect rings like they were Thanos but were faced with a biased media who started the second-in-command discourse.
“That wasn’t a thing,” asserted Arenas before launching into how much of this is just garbage. “Magic Johnson used to talk about, ‘I’ve got 5 gold rings. I’ve got 2 silvers. You’re not going to take this credit from me. Getting into the finals and losing. You are not in the same planet as me. You didn’t even make it to the finals. You’re laughing at No. 2?’”
According to the 3-time NBA All-Star, this idea that you’re a champion or you’re nothing wasn’t a thing till LeBron started winning. He claims that once LeBron made winning a habit, the conversation turned to dismissing runners-up as losers. “They changed the narratives for both of them,” Arenas noted before asking people how they were being so myopic about this.
“There was never any ring culture till ‘98 … Hence Kareem fans don’t understand how he was never in this conversation. Like never. Where the f*** is Kareem at? Jordan was already the GOAT, and they were like, ‘F*** you and Magic and Bird.’ It’s one guy and then it started,” claimed Arenas.
An animated Arenas reiterated that Kobe’s legacy has been the victim of Jordan’s aura and the media choosing to place all their bets on one winning horse. Perhaps there is truth to it, that it’s the same group of people doing the same thing time and again and changing the rules of how rings matter.
