Gilbert Arenas, who expressed his displeasure with the Boston Celtics on his “Gil’s Arena” podcast, gave another outrageous opinion: that Nikola Jokic, the Denver Nuggets’ two-time MVP, was the “worst MVP in the last 40 years” when he won the award for the first time.
“Their teams were first and second place,” Arenas said of prior MVP winners (via Mediaite). “The MVP winners’ teams placed first and second. When [Michael Jordan] won it, they ranked seventh in the NBA. That year, he averaged 35 points, six assists, five rebounds, and three thefts while also being named All-Star MVP, Defensive Player of the Year, scoring champion, and steals leader. That was the MVP.
“What was the historic aspect of Jokic’s 2021 MVP victory? There was no historical โ “Oh, the big nearly had a triple-double!” Let us give it to him. That was the narrative. A big man almost โ not did โ almost [averaged] a triple-double and delivered it to him when his team’s record was like that.”
For months, Arenas has been mindlessly flinging inaccurate daggers at NBA institutions over farm engagements. Before he went after the best player in the world, he went after the winningest franchise east of the Mississippi River — we’ll give it to the Los Angeles Lakers since they have as many rings as any other team in modern history — the Celtics, for not being significant in the last three decades.
“Those AAU championships (in the 1960s and 1970s) were really less than the Mickey Mouse (2020 Lakers) one,” Arenas stated (source: Boston.com). “They won all of their championships while on an eight-team roster, dog. In the last 30 years, Boston has been unimportant in basketball history.”
When it comes to the Celtics, Arenas lost a lot of credibility before the 2023-24 season when he incorrectly predicted what the best Celtics lineup would be, claiming that starting a Jrue Holiday-Derrick White-Jaylen Brown-Jason Tatum-Kristaps Porzingis lineup would be no different than starting Marcus Smart-White-Brown-Tatum-Al Horford in 2022-23.
“That’s your five,” Arenas said of Jrue Holiday, Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum, Horford, and Kristaps Porzingis (h/t Basketball Network). “You start doing this minor sh**, and now you’re smaller at guard and four, and when you come in, you can sub in Unicorn and old a** Horford. What is the difference from previous year?”
Yeah. So much for it.
If Arenas continues to be incorrect, the Celtics’ postseason chances and Jokic’s future prospects look promising. Those were smart bets in the first place, and Arenas has now blessed them with his opposing viewpoint.
