Former NBA All-Star Gilbert Arenas has always been unfiltered when giving his opinion on any subject, especially when it comes to basketball players.
The former Washington Wizards star gave the difference between a dominant player and a dominant-looking player on the stats sheet.
He then went on to explain that the Duke Blue Devils star usually gets his points through fast breaks and assists from his teammates, but he can’t create points off his own shots.
“OK, how about this: We see 27 and 14, but how did you actually get that? Did you post somebody up in college? Did you sit here with the left hand grab it, turn and face, get them in and dunk it? No? You got 12 points on fast break,” Arenas said. “You got 12 points sitting here [standing on the wing], you know, waiting for another player to do something and then you come in with the tomahawk. So when I say you dominated, your stats are dominating, but are you? At 6-6 power forward, which, you’re undersized, you’re 285. Sounds amazing, sounds great. But in reality, if I say well, he’s Westbrook’s height but he’s Shaq’s rookie weight, everybody’s like ooh, that’s not, ooh. Because that’s what he is. 6-6 285, you haven’t posted up at all. You didn’t post up in high school, it’s the lazy post up [simulates a lazy post up]. You know, you’re sitting here, because before all you would just have to do is just jump high, drop step and try to dunk on everybody. So you never learned the skill of backing down, two dribbles, none of it. When you go to the next level, what position do you play?
“So you have this great phenom player that has no true skill,” Arenas said. “And that’s what I said: You can dominate but not dominate. Because you’re going to go to another level where they’re going to make you a three. Do you know how to come off of pin-downs? Do you know how to run baseline curls? Do you pick and roll, pick and pop? No? You’re just Blake Griffining it. You know, you’re Blake Griffining it, waiting for track and field and you run in and dunk it. When I look at stuff like that it’s like, he’s going to train that kid one day and he’s going to sit there scratching his head, like, you’re going to be the No. 1 pick and I’m struggling with how you can’t do a majority of the stuff that other players can.”
That is a strong assessment.
