Gilbert Arenas Refuses to Have Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan on the Same Team

The ‘start, bench, and cut’ questions have gained quite some prominence in the NBA community. In this exercise, one must choose between three players often with similar resumes to start, bench and cut on a hypothetical team. What if now we have to play the game choosing between LeBron James, Michael Jordan, and Kobe Bryant?

Gilbert Arenas delved into that exact scenario on The OGs pod with Mike Miller and Udonis Haslem.

He said that he would start LeBron, bench Jordan, and cut Kobe. The 3x All-Star chose this controversial route despite considering the Mamba his all-time favorite player for a very specific reason.

Agent Zero claimed that there is no way one can start Jordan and bench Bryant or vice-versa. 

“Imma start LeBron, bench Jordan, cut Kobe. Kobe is my favorite player of all time, I can’t have Jordan and Kobe on the same team. If Jordan starts and Kobe is coming off the bench, Jordan ain’t coming out for him. If I start Kobe, he ain’t subbing in Jordan,” Arenas said.

The former Wizards guard believes that the two athletes would never replace each other in a game. Kobe and MJ have always been known to be very competitive. So they may also consider each other rivals even if they are on the same team. That’ll hurt the team’s path to success.

On the other hand, James appears to be a secure option to start as he will not have any qualms about Jordan replacing him on the hardwood. But at the same time, Arenas was confident that if Jordan would start, he wouldn’t let James come in for him.

“So I’m gonna go with a safe pick as a coach. I am gonna start LeBron, Jordan off the bench. You know Bron will come off the bench, you know he play the right way. You switch it up, Jordan in, Bron ain’t never getting in the godda** game, I can tell you that,” Arenas continued.

UD and Miller looked sideways at Arenas after he had initially made his picks. But they understood the former NBA star’s choice after learning the logic behind it.

At any rate, while Arenas is correct about Jordan and Bryant having inflated egos, this narrative may reflect his bias towards LeBron James. He did call Bryant his favorite of all-time, but it is no secret that he considers LBJ as the Greatest of all Time(GOAT).