LeBron James has a foot on almost every record in the NBA and over the past two decades, he has broken and set several of them. The NBA legend fully deserves acknowledgement and honors for his contribution towards the sport. After the completion of 40k points, Kendrick Perkins said that the Lakers should build a statue of LeBron, but Gilbert Arenas has a different perception of it.
Gilbert Arenas is no stranger to making outlandish comments and this time he has also stepped up to make a bold assessment. But when it comes to LeBron James, the take has to be well thought out or there is a massive chance of it backfiring in real time.
Gilbert Arenas claims LeBron James doesn’t deserve Lakers statue
LeBron James recently crossed the 40,000 points milestone in the second quarter of the game against the Denver Nuggets, standing atop the leading score table which other players cannot reach in the near future.
While the entire NBA community thinks that the Lakers star is a GOAT, the former NBA player feels he does not have enough achievements for the Lakers to build his statue.
During his conversation with Shannon Sharpe on the ‘Nightcap’ podcast, when he was asked about his view regarding the LeBron James’ statue, the 42-year-old boldly said, “He [LeBron James] don’t have enough accolades in the Lakers uniform. The title… he’s only played six years. The closest statue we had to that was Shaq. He had three rings in eight years. That’s the bottom. So it is going to be hard to put him there with six years… 8,000 points, and one championship. That’s not good enough for a statue in Los Angeles.”
Taking nothing away from the massive achievements of the 20-time NBA All-Star, Gilbert pointed out that the 39-year-old has most of his accolades with his former franchises. The Lakers have honored their legends by installing their statues and Shaquille O’Neal’s achievements being the least in Lakers uniform which LeBron still does not have.
LeBron James accomplished something Gilbert Arenas never did
Among the multiple accolades in his storied career, LeBron has one achievement that Gilbert Arenas never achieved. In this case it can be counted as four as in four NBA Championships. In his eleven NBA seasons, the Arenas was honored with the NBA Most Improved Player (2003) title, and he appeared thrice in the NBA All-Star team but unlike the Lakers legend he does not have a Championship title to his name.
During their faceoffs with their former teams, Arenas won 12 regular season games and 3 playoffs while Bron won 7 each in the regular season and the playoffs. Although Arenas managed to win more games, when it comes to individual stats, his averages of 23.4 points, 3.8 rebounds and 5.4 assists are lesser than LeBron’s 29.3 points, 7.3 rebounds and 6.2 assists.
There are speculations going on about the 4-time NBA MVP’s future at Lakers but if he stays and earns more accolades on the way then he might find his statue among the other Lakers greats.
