Gilbert Arenas is sick and tired of the double standard some members of the media have in evaluating the impact Luka Doncic and Jayson Tatum have for the Dallas Mavericks and Boston Celtics, their respective teams. Speaking on his Gil’s Arena Podcast, Arenas blasted the media's purported over-exaggeration of Doncic's superstar status, as he doesn't play both ends of the court like Tatum does.
“Jayson Tatum damn near can't be a superstar because a 25 year old can't win a championship. He's a young kid still, he went to the championship at the age of damn near 22, 23, 24. And then you have Luka over here, who's compared to Michael Jordan, and he's James Harden,” Arenas said.
“He's literally James Harden, right, a dude who scored a lot of points, don't play no defense right. But we see what they did to James Harden who didn't play defense, they let the world know he didn't play no defense. They let the world know he was a one-sided player that this is all he does, he's just a stat.”
Indeed, the main criticism over Luka Doncic's game is his lack of defense. But it feels a bit disingenuous to compare the Mavericks star to James Harden and make it seem as if that is a slight. Jayson Tatum also doesn't play as central of a role in the Celtics offense as Doncic does for the Mavs, so it's not like the comparison Gilbert Arenas is making is apples to apples.
Luka Doncic and Jayson Tatum, superstars in their own right
The superstar discourse these days usually involves discrediting one to build up the other. But for Luka Doncic and Jayson Tatum, they are not superstars of the same mold — so it's rather odd that Gilbert Arenas is invoking the Mavericks star's name to defend the Celtics forward.
Doncic, for one, is a heliocentric superstar, a do-it-all ballhandler who is at his best when he stresses defenses either in pick-and-rolls or in isolation. The Mavericks star is as ball-dominant as it gets, playing in the mold of 2018 LeBron James or 2019 James Harden with the way he becomes a one-man wrecking crew from the perimeter.
Meanwhile, Jayson Tatum, unlike Doncic, is not a primary ball-handler. The Celtics star can put up buckets in a hurry when he handles the rock, but his playmaking pales in comparison to that of Doncic's. Tatum has also had plenty of top-caliber teammates flanking him throughout his career, so it's not like he has to commandeer the offense the way Doncic does for the Mavericks.
Tatum has a lighter offensive burden than Doncic, freeing up more energy for him to exert on the defensive end. But Gilbert Arenas is having none of that nuance. He continued to flame Doncic, who is receiving Michael Jordan comparisons (Doncic is racking up stats that put him in rarefied air alongside Jordan, but this doesn't mean that he is being compared to Jordan in terms of playstyle), for being a James Harden clone, which, isn't bad at all. Harden came oh so close to winning a championship as a team's best player back in 2018 after all.
“Luka is considered the next Michael Jordan, the Michael Jordan who played defense and offense. And we’ve had one sided (players), well we know what that looks like, that’s James Harden. Can you say he’s better than James Harden at scoring? Can’t even do that,” Arenas added.
Gilbert Arenas' credibility continues to be in question
One does not have to be nuanced with their takes to make their podcast go viral or to make it entertaining. Gilbert Arenas definitely has his moments of entertainment with the platform he has. But some of his takes are downright baffling at times.
Arenas blamed a purported lack of defense in the NBA on the presence of Europeans in the NBA. Never mind that Victor Wembanyama or Rudy Gobert, just to name a few, are two of the best defenders the league has ever seen. His takes tend to be more on the wild side of things, which is definitely becoming more commonplace in today's media landscape.
No one can blame Gilbert Arenas for defending the Celtics star. Jayson Tatum definitely has a soft spot in Hibachi's heart. But there's no reason for Arenas to, in the process of trying to build Tatum's case for being a bona fide superstar, bring Luka Doncic down. Both Doncic and Tatum are elite players, and perhaps Arenas could police himself too by analyzing the adverse effect these takes of his can have on NBA discussions.
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