Gilbert Arenas was Better Than Karl Anthony Towns
A very important argument I'm settling
Gilbert Arenas incurred a lot of scorn for a podcast clip where he says that Karl Anthony Towns is “built like a whole fucking bitch.”
Some of the articles emphasize the “bitch,” others focus in on how Arenas said that the Knicks big man is “built like a WNBA player.” I’ll admit that I laughed but please don’t tell anybody. I’ve got a media reputation to uphold.
I might just discuss this topic, along with KAT’s NBA “zesty” reputation, with Big Wos on Friday’s Random Offense (4 pm EST). But I’d like to address a side issue, one that came up as NBA luminaries were digging deep to express scorn towards Arenas.
Gilbert Arenas is insane and played the main role in the destruction of his career. He was also, for three seasons, better than Karl-Anthony Towns ever was, and likely ever will be. This is a pretty low stakes argument, but I’m making it due to a pet peeve: In general, I dislike when we downgrade what someone does well because we’re mad at something they said. I also sometimes feel as though some people on NBA Twitter didn’t watch basketball before there was NBA Twitter. I don’t apply that characterization to screenshotted writer Andy Bailey because he’s tweeted nice things about House of Strauss articles and thus must contain an abundance of basketball wisdom. I do happen to disagree with him on this, though.
The first number to know is 53.7 percent. That’s the worst true shooting mark of any team last season, and it was registered by the Charlotte Hornets. Why am I telling you this? Because in 2005-2006, that horrific 2025 number would have qualified as just better than league average. It was in that NBA, the one with worse space, less pace, and absent sense of how to optimize, that Gil was averaging 29.3 points on 58.1 true shooting. That’s a better scoring efficiency mark than Kobe Bryant ever claimed across his entire career. To go along with that, Arenas was averaging a better assist mark than Bryant ever did. I’m not trying to slight the deceased legend, but instead offer a point of greatness comparison to help younger fans understand the absolute monster Gil was in his day.
The Wizards of that era were a middling playoff team, but I wouldn’t fault Gil for their shortcomings. Washington’s offense was excellent, and Arenas wasn’t the reason their defense was terrible. Look at the rosters from that time. Arenas was a flawed guy, but there’s no dragging the likes of Antawn Jamison and Larry Hughes into June. Agent Zero was, to an absurd degree, the main reason those Wizards teams reached relevance.
Karl-Anthony Towns is an excellent offensive player in his own right. He’s also a maddening problem for the Knicks to manage because his offensive value is most potent at the center spot, but when he’s a center, he wrecks your defensive integrity. For all his talent, KAT has never been, in my opinion at least, the best player on a better than lottery team. He has flashes of brilliance, but has proven not to be a franchise level guy.
Gilbert Arenas was not only a franchise guy, but also a phenomenon at the peak of his DC run. He pioneered a scoring point guard role that’s now common place, while unleashing 30 foot bombs before that sort of shot was accepted as a real offensive play. It all ended rather infamously, but for a three year stretch, Arenas was a superstar tier force. Back then, his skill level might have been matched by Kobe Bryant and Steve Nash, but I’m not sure it was surpassed.
The madness that ultimately sunk Gil appears to have been indivisible from that skill. Everyone who knew him from that era speaks to a monomaniacal worth ethic. Arenas loved being in the gym, endlessly refining his game, and had little bandwidth for taking anything else seriously. The end result was greatness that quickly ended.
None of this is to say that Gil’s NBA opinions are smart, well founded or tasteful. It is to say that, in this specific case, Gilbert Arenas happens to have been the better player than the guy he’s mocking.
As a friend and admirer of Ethan, and as someone who has covered and gotten to know KAT very well throughout his career, I feel compelled to chime in.
Maybe we have to better define the premise of the piece, in terms of what you mean by the better player. If we're measuring by the absolute peak of their powers, Arenas could be the choice. The numbers he put up were very impressive and his individual skill level cannot be argued. But c'mon. Kobe? Nash? I know you're not arguing that Gil was the better player among those three because of true shooting percentage in a short window.
But if you want to, let's do it. Those 3 great Arenas years on mediocre teams were .565, .581, .565. Excellent.
KAT's TS for his CAREER: .624. He has never been BELOW .590 in his entire career. Yes, a higher percentage of Gil's shots came from 3, but KAT is a much better 3-point shooter.
What defines a great player, in my opinion, is the ability to do it over and over and over again. Gil did it for three years. For the Wizards. Arguing that he was a true "face of the franchise" when the "franchise" is the Wizards is preposterous. They won 45, 42 and 41 games in those three seasons and one (1) playoff series.
Sure, some of the reason he didn't do it longer was injury. But he was also such a wild card that he likely would have played himself out of the league even if healthy.
Now let's look at KAT. One of your arguments for Gil is he pioneered the scoring point guard. Fair. But KAT was on the forefront of the Stretch 5 revolution, which deserves as much recognition, in my opinion, when it comes to influencing the game. KAT also very much was the best player on the 2022 Wolves team that made the playoffs, when he "dragged the likes" of D'Angelo Russell, Jarred Vanderbilt and Malik Beasley to the playoffs. In the West.
He also was one of the biggest, literally and figuratively, reasons the Wolves beat the Suns in the first round last year and the Nuggets in the second round. Yes, Ant was the best player on that team and Gobert was also impactful defensively, but KAT's play on both ends was the biggest driver of those playoff victories. Arenas NEVER came close to being as impactful as the playoffs as KAT was last season, or this season.
Towns certainly has his faults, especially defensively and fouling. But he has long been one of the very best rebounders in the league. One of the very best 3-point shooting big men in the league. For his CAREER: 23.1p, 11.1r 52/40/84. Those numbers TROUNCE Arenas.
Was KAT a problem defensively against the Pacers? Absolutely. But he also put up 25 and 12 per game in the series and was the most consistent and reliable offensive player on the Knicks.
KAT has been a very, very good player in this league for 10 years. He has made the playoffs with all different iterations of teams, including teams that had D'Angelo Russell and Rudy Gobert playing prominent roles. He has changed his role on teams and changed positions on the floor to accommodate teammates, both in Minnesota and New York. Did Gil ever do anything even close to that?
Were Arenas's scoring numbers better in those three seasons than KAT at his peak? Sure. But if we're talking who has been the better basketball player? To me, it's not an argument. KAT has better overall numbers and has won so much more than Arenas ever came close to doing.
I'm probably biased. Unlike most people, I genuinely like KAT. Yes, he went to my daughter's soccer game. Maybe I'm playing the big brother role here, so take it all with a grain of salt. I just had to get that off my chest.
I don't care to deep dive in Gilbert Arenas' stats - I'd just say he's a troll. LOL
KAT for all his talent is a limited player. The way the NBA salary cap is structured, KAT is getting paid like the best player on his team when he's not. And that's a structural problem for the Knicks and for how teams all across the league are not supposed to construct their teams.
Also, comparing KAT to Gilbert Arenas as players is an odd comparison as they play two different positions. Some might say comparing MJ to Hakeem must be odd too, since they play two different positions. And to that I say - MJ is the GOAT and Hakeem is TOP-10 all time!
MJ and Hakeem are transcendent players that both won multiple titles. Put prime MJ or Prime Hakeem on this current Knicks roster, and they would be in the Finals right now!
But, I don't see how Gilbert Arenas at his prime would be necessarily additive to this Knicks team. Even if they were, if you replace KAT with "Prime Gilbert", the Knicks would be a really weirdly constructed team that would most likely under-achieve.
So even if Gilbert Arenas is a better player than KAT, neither of them are good enough for it to be relevant enough to think of them as a Center-Piece of a Championship Team. And that's kind of where this argument falls apart a little bit.