Three-time NBA All-Star Gilbert Arenas shared a hilarious take on the Los Angeles Lakers recently.
On the latest episode of his Gil’s Arena podcast, the lifelong Lakers fan jokingly compared the current Lakers roster to a time when Nick Young was among the players for the purple and gold franchise a decade ago.
“I expect to get season tickets for real cheap this year,” Arenas said. “Now, I ain’t going to lie, them tickets about to go down. It’s like when it was like Nick Young and (Robert Sacre).”
Arenas and Young were teammates with the Washington Wizards during their careers. They have a brotherly bond, and Arenas is known for being a troll.
During the 2016-17 season, the Lakers’ starting five were D’Angelo Russell, Nick Young, Luol Deng, Julius Randle and Timofey Mozgov. They won 25 games that season and were one year away from signing LeBron James as a free agent.
It was a wild take from Arenas, who had a more serious answer later in the episode.
Gilbert Arenas’ Serious Los Angeles Lakers Take
A few minutes after making fun of the current Los Angeles Lakers roster, Gilbert Arenas shared a more insightful take on his favorite team growing up.
Arenas compared Luka Doncic to Chris Paul and how tailor-made the roster is to the Slovenian superstar.
“Luka has the same the same thing that Chris Paul has,” Arenas said. “You just need to give them enough, and with the perfect pieces for their game, they can make it work. That’s how Chris Paul was. Like if you ever looked at Chris Paul’s teams, he’s never had championship teams.”
“I mean, Clippers are all right, though,” he added. “Those Clippers, they was all right, but for the most part, he really made those teams look better than they were.”
The Lakers front office overhauled the roster and surrounded Doncic with a seemingly perfect roster fit for him.
Doncic’s teams tend to need a secondary ball-handler and scorer (Jalen Brunson, Kyrie Irving and Austin Reaves), a lob threat center (Daniel Gafford, Dereck Lively II and Walker Kessler) and 3-and-D wings.
Lakers Projected to Win 45 Games
According to ESPN insiders, the Los Angeles Lakers are projected to win just 45 games next season.
That puts them sixth in the West standings behind the San Antonio Spurs, Oklahoma City Thunder, Denver Nuggets, Houston Rockets and Minnesota Timberwolves.
The Lakers finished fourth last season and made it out of the first round of the playoffs despite not having a healthy Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves.
Los Angeles Lakers Compared to Nick Young-Led Team by 3-Time All-Star