In the ongoing debate about ring culture and whether championships should define a player’s legacy, Gilbert Arenas has weighed in on his own chances of winning an NBA title. Unlike many players, he offered a fair self-assessment and admitted that it likely wouldn’t have been possible in certain scenarios.
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Arenas has been talking about rings for some time. Recently, he defended Tracy McGrady, who claimed during an interview on First Take that he could have won a ring if he got to play alongside Shaquille O’Neal in place of Kobe Bryant on the early 2000s Lakers. Many took it as a dig at Bryant, but Arenas clarified his words and assured fans that he loved Kobe and never meant to disrespect his name.
Now, he’ll potentially have to start fending off trolls himself, as he theorized which teams he could win a title with. But Arenas, always humble, stated that he could never win a championship with any franchise if he were the No. 1 option.
“This is how honest I was. I said, ‘Me as a No. 1 option, ain’t no rings coming my way. Because the data of what position I played and my dominance, that wasn’t a thing,” he stated, backing it up with facts. He named the only two point guards in NBA history who ran their offense through the point guard position.
“There’s only been two players that ever did it. Isiah Thomas and Curry, and Curry comes in 2014. So the only data that I had at the time was Isiah Thomas,” the ex-Wizards man added.
So, where does Gil think he would have been successful? Obviously, as the No. 2 option. But on a team with a No. 1, he could complement. After thinking it over, there was only one team he believed he could have won a ring with: the San Antonio Spurs.
“Me in 2005, the only people I can replace that I know I am better than as an individual and the No. 1 option I don’t affect would be Tim Duncan,” he claimed.
This means he would replace legendary Spurs guard Tony Parker. However, Gil explained that Parker was in a class all on his own. “Now I can’t say, you replace me with Tony Parker, I win four rings. I can’t say four rings. Two? Yeah. No matter what. The one against LeBron? I can get that *****.”
Arenas was a scoring machine, and playing off someone like Duncan could have boosted his stats across the board. But one key difference is that Gil had a much more brash personality than Tony Parker. Sometimes, stats don’t tell you whether players would have had real chemistry. It’s not to say it couldn’t have worked, just that it might have been a slight negative.
Arenas wasn’t done there either. He pointed out how Parker won his last two rings later in his career, when he was older but playing much smarter. He admitted he doesn’t know how he would have fared at that stage. “Them later ones. The older ones he got when Tony Parker started using his brain, I can’t go cerebral because I don’t know what I would have been like that back then,” he confidently said.
To further prove that he was looking at the bigger picture, he hypothesized about potentially replacing Stephen Curry or Klay Thompson on the Golden State Warriors and whether he would have found success there.
“I can’t replace Curry. He had a different style. No, I can’t replace him. How about Klay? Naw, his defensive intensity and what he brings, I’m bringing 28-29, they would have needed that, but I didn’t bring the defense that he brought,” Gil continued.
Again, Gil’s lack of ego is helping him speak truths. Thompson is one of the game’s most efficient shooters of this generation and also great at pressure defending, and he proved that during the Dubs’ 2022 championship run.
Arenas and McGrady may have created a new fun game for now-retired NBA vets. How would a player have fared on another team in a different system? Could someone like Chris Paul have gotten a ring if he played for a different team when he was in his prime and wasn’t the No. 1 option on the Clippers? We’ll never know. That’s what makes the game fun.
