“You Don’t Have A Great Show”: Gilbert Arenas Goes at Dwyane Wade and Tracy McGrady’s ‘Docile’ Personalities

The basketball media landscape has become a competitive place with more and more current and former athletes getting involved in recent years. The space is littered with guys like Draymond Green, Tony Allen, Udonis Haslem, Gilbert Arenas, and Dwyane Wade, each with their own podcast to break down whatever’s happening in and around the NBA.

With so many competing voices, it pays to stand out, and Arenas certainly does that. Agent Zero is not shy with his hot takes. And, regardless of whether he’s right or wrong, he gets people talking every time a new episode of Gil’s Arena drops.

Arenas appeared on the Playback podcast this week, where he spoke about how important it is to differentiate oneself in the basketball content space. He gave some examples from his show, including the occasion when he said Nikola Jokic was the worst three-time MVP in the last 40 years. The take was meant to get people riled up.

But then, it actually isn’t very controversial once you realize that the other players on that list are Michael Jordan, LeBron James, Larry Bird, and Magic Johnson. Controversy sells, and Arenas knows it. That’s why he said he used the word “worst” instead of “fifth-best,” because he knew it would get people upset.

Arenas is even willing to go after his fellow former players who are in the media game to drive business. On the Playback episode, he called out Dwyane Wade and Tracy McGrady for not being entertaining enough.

“You don’t have a great show. Not because they’re not good, but because they’re not entertaining for what the audience wants. They’re all docile personalities,” said Arenas.

The former guard is unapologetically confrontational because he knows it would work. When people get mad, they get engaged, and that only helps him and his show.

Does Arenas have a point?

There are some who are not fans of hot-take artists like Arenas who throw a lot of things to the wall and hope something sticks. The measured intelligence of someone like Wade would be appealing to them. The feeling is that Arenas says things to get clicks, whether he believes it or not.

But it’s obvious that Arenas’ strategy works. His podcast is one of the most talked-about out there, and it’s largely because of his wild takes. If the goal is to get noticed, he’s doing a great job of that.

At the end of the day, there’s room in the media space for all kinds of personalities. Guys like Arenas can thrive by being outlandish and controversial, but there are enough people out there who prefer a different flavor of media personality.