Gilbert Arenas Dropped A Truth Bomb When It Comes To Jeremy Lin
One of the things I love about Gilbert Arenas is he tells it like it is. Sure some of the shit he says is outrageous, but he’s a guy who certainly doesn’t hold back and is one of these retired players whose insight I actually put stock into. Younger stoolies may not remember, but Gilbert Arenas could fucking hoop. So when the topic of Jeremy Lin came up given he’s hot in the streets right now, Arenas had a pretty interesting explanation for why everything in his career went down the way it did.
It’s basically all Melo’s fault.
That may seem like a stretch, but if you go back in history there was plenty of evidence that Melo certainly didn’t love Linsanity like the rest of us did. There was smoke everywhere back then
“It was there, it’s real,” said D’Antoni, who was recently hired as the Rockets’ new head coach. “The problem that we had was that for Jeremy to be really good, which he was, he had to play a certain way. It was hard for him to adapt.
“Amar’e, Melo, whatever, kinda had their way they had to play a certain way to be really, really good. So there was that inherent conflict of: What’s better for the team? What isn’t? Can they co-exist? Can they not? And again, they could co-exist if Melo went to the 4, which he really didn’t want to, and if Amar’e came to the backup [center], like the Tyson [Chandler], which he didn’t want to.”
It became clearer and clearer that things weren’t all butterflies and rainbows during that run
“Everyone wasn’t a fan of [Lin] being the new star,” Stoudemire told the media Sunday prior to the Heat’s 98-81 road win over the Knicks, via ESPN. “So he didn’t stay long. But Jeremy was a great, great guy. Great teammate. He worked hard. He put the work in and we’re proud of him to have his moment. A lot of times you gotta enjoy someone’s success. And that wasn’t the case for us during that stretch.
Anthony’s frustration spilled into the public realm when he called the three-year, $25.1 million deal the Rockets offered Lin the summer after Linsanity a “ridiculous contract.” While Anthony later clarified his comments, the damage was done. The Knicks never matched that contract and signed Raymond Felton to replace Lin.
So it’s not all that crazy to think that situation of Lin vs Melo may have fucked things up for Jeremy Lin in terms of how he approached his game at each of his future stops. Arenas went on to talk about the Lakers and how he had a similar situation with Kobe
Man those 2014 Lakers were something.
It’s a pretty interesting take that does make some sense though. Who knows what would have happened had Linsanity truly been embraced by Melo and the Knicks and they weren’t forced to choose between the two. Obviously we all know Lin had a pretty awesome career anyway, but I do think how that all went down had an impact on how Lin approached playing years later. Again, Gilbert Arenas can say some wild shit for attention from time to time, but after listening to his reasoning there’s definitely some merit to what he’s saying.