Gilbert Arenas calls out Lakers fans’ for their double standard with LeBron James: “Before LeBron James got there. Nobody cared”
Arenas does not understand why critics continue to put title expectations on 40-year-old LeBron.
They say with great power comes great responsibility. That holds true for LeBron James, who has been heavily scrutinized since coming to Los Angeles. Critics demand a championship every year.
LeBron delivered once in 2020, but his detractors call it a “Mickey Mouse” title because it was won in the Orlando bubble tournament during the COVID-19-shortened 2019-20 NBA season. In the other years, when he failed to win a chip in L.A., “King James” took the heat from his naysayers.
According to former NBA All-Star guard Gilbert Arenas, this is unfair because when LeBron arrived in L.A., he was already 34 years old. Looking back, it was at that age during the 2012-13 NBA season when Kobe Bryant could no longer lead the Lakers past the first round of the payoffs and missed the postseason in his final three years in the league.
“How about 2013, 14, 15, 16, 17? Where was that spirit then?” asked Gil. “Before LeBron James got there, where was the spirit of the Lakers? Where was this spirit? Kobe was there. Nobody cared. Nothing happened, no one cared. They gave him grace because it was Kobe fu*** Bryant.”
The Lakers went 17-65 in Kobe’s last season
The “Purple and Gold” still had Pau Gasol until 2014 and even added an old Steve Nash and a 27-year-old Dwight Howard during the 2012-13 campaign. During that period, the Lakers also had lottery picks, drafting Julius Randle, No.7 overall in 2014, D’Angelo Russell, No.2 overall in 2015, and Brandon Ingram, No. 2 overall in 2016.
Despite having those players in their lineup, the L.A. squad made the playoffs only once in Kobe’s final four years. However, it’s worth noting that he missed almost the entire 2014 campaign with an Achilles injury. Still, Arenas is correct that in Kobe’s twilight years, nobody was criticizing him for failing to live up to the Lakers’ winning tradition.
In Kobe’s final year in 2015-16, the Lakers went 17-65 and had the worst season in franchise history. Still, there were no negative vibes around the Lakers that year as everyone, including critics, celebrated Bryant’s final season with a farewell tour.
Meanwhile, the four-time MVP still looks far away from retirement, at least not right now. But when King James finally decides to call it quits, Agent Zero says it won’t only be his fans who will miss him.
“If he decides not to play this year, if he retires at the end of this year, there’s gonna be a lot of mother fu**** who lose a lot of money because there’s no more LeBron James to talk bad about, and you won’t be in the algorithm. You hope that he plays for the next five to seven years so you can feed your kids because when he’s gone, there’s no more bad guy,” added Gil.
Nobody has done what James is doing right now at this stage of his career. Yet instead of celebrating him like they did Kobe during his swansong years, even when the Mamba wasn’t as productive, 40-year-old LeBron continues to be called out for the Lakers’ inability to win a championship since 2020.
