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.
Excellent comment, and I'd just add that what KAT did at the end of Pistons series game 4 and Pacers series game 3 is the stuff of playoff legends. If it was anyone but KAT, I think people would have appreciated it much more. Many stars havent had one moment like that in their playoff career, and KAT did it twice on just this run. That alone has to elevate him above a lot of players with similar numbers. Think how the media would have treated Giannis if he put together 2 fourth quarters like that, dragging his team to undeserved wins on the road in the playoffs!
He banged one on one with Jokic in last year's playoffs as well as anyone defensively. Only 2024 wolves and nuggets fans, diehards and gambling addicts will ever know that.
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.
I commented Ethan to slow his roll w blasphemous Arenas talk. I was educated to observe that as behavior opposite a sycophant. Perhaps you can edumacate me otherwise...
You can't though, thus I challenge as a penalty: Name 3 points you made in your original post
That's fine. You don't appear to be pushing back on being called a troll (not very much at least), and maybe sycophant is the wrong use of words.
But -
Your profile byline on Substack does say
"Ethan Strauss delivered me here".
That does come across a bit "fan-boyish", not gonna lie.
As for what I initially wrote, here are my 3 points:
1- Comparing Arenas to Towns is not apt, as
a- they play two very different positions
&
b- neither one of them are transcendent players on the basketball court.
2- If you swapped out Towns on this Knicks team for a prime Gilbert Arenas, the Knicks would have been less successful this season, as they would have been badly lacking in size.
3 - While Michael Jordan and Hakeem Olajuwon both played different positions, they both are transcendent players that
-If you added either a Prime MJ or a Prime Dream onto this Knicks squad that just lost to the Pacers in 6, or if you replaced Towns with either one of these legends (in their prime of course)
-That the Knicks would be playing in the Finals right now.
Probably agree overall but, for instance, KAT was absolutely the Wolves’ best player when they made the playoffs in 2022. Counting numbers, advanced both show that and he was third-team all-NBA.
Also, yes, that true shooting percentage was better than Kobe’s best ever (and seeing that type of argument gives me bad flashbacks to Henry Abbott trying to use any stat possible back in the day to denigrate Kobe and his efficiency), but it’s .581 to… .580, for each guy’s career high.
But I agree completely with how annoying it is when what someone says is used in arguments about their careers. You touched on this when Phil Jackson got people mad few years ago on an interview and people would then go “by the way, Pop was better.”
Which I guess you can try and argue since both guys won 5 titles. But Phil was
4-1 against Pop in the playoffs, even though the Spurs had homecourt in three of those series. So I’d still give slight edge to Phil.
Oh, yeah, and then there’s the fact he won six other titles.
Arenas in this era would completely dominate. All time shooter with handles. Havent watched enough KAT to weigh in there. Games I watched this year he was pretty good. Arenas will never stop running his mouth. Pretty dumb take imo although everyone fainting on Twitter deserves to be mocked so carry on. There's not an objectively dominant body type in the NBA like there is for linemen in the NFL. Jokic may end up being the statistical GOAT...Tim Duncan never looked particularly imposing and he had a better career than David Robinson who looked chiseled out of granite.
Ethan I think it's fair to say peak Gilbert was better, but an average KAT year is better than an average Gil year. And forgetting the zestyness nonsense for a second, KAT almost single handedly won a Detroit series game and a Pacers series game for the Knicks with his 4th quarter heroics. Gilbert is hopping on the KAT bashing trend right now because it likely appeals to his audience, but objectively KAT had a very good playoffs (usual faults aside), and acting like he's a scrub all of a sudden is just playing to the peanut gallery.
Arenas doesn't get the credit he deserves for being ahead of the curve with how he played. Also he seemed like the most annoying person on the planet in that Crittenton documentary.
You aren’t settling shit, I don’t think for a moment with your West Coast elitist ass you watched a single Wizards game with Arenas live once. Not once.
Towns annoys me to death. He’s a DORK. But he’s been on some good teams, been a part of meaningful games. Arenas won one playoff series. I lived in dc for all of his “meaningful” years which I put in quotes because not a thing he did mattered. Come on with this nonsense.
Yeah he was really good. Definitely a pioneer of the current lead guard that takes pull up 3s model. If playing today, defenses would be more accustomed to guarding that profile, but as you said he'd have more spacing to work with and (maybe) more of a green light.
Also teams maybe didn't know how to build around that player type back then plus the Wizards are generally kind of dumb, so they didn't maximize his abilities for team success.
Gilbert's biggest contribution to the NBA was the contract rule they made for 2nd rounders.When guns, contracts, and injuries are what words you associate with Gilbert Arenas. Winning is nowhere to be found.
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.
Excellent comment, and I'd just add that what KAT did at the end of Pistons series game 4 and Pacers series game 3 is the stuff of playoff legends. If it was anyone but KAT, I think people would have appreciated it much more. Many stars havent had one moment like that in their playoff career, and KAT did it twice on just this run. That alone has to elevate him above a lot of players with similar numbers. Think how the media would have treated Giannis if he put together 2 fourth quarters like that, dragging his team to undeserved wins on the road in the playoffs!
He banged one on one with Jokic in last year's playoffs as well as anyone defensively. Only 2024 wolves and nuggets fans, diehards and gambling addicts will ever know that.
Jon, this was fantastic and has me feeling dumb for saying I probably agreed Gil was better. Found myself nodding in agreement with each paragraph.
And now I have to reevaluate everything I’ve thought or said about a St. Thomas education.
I have to disagree about 2022. By the time the playoffs rolled around, Ant had surpassed KAT
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.
What is this mish-mash of ideas. Lord have mercy
I didn't know Ethan encouraged Trolls among his sycophants. From what rock have you been hiding under?
I commented Ethan to slow his roll w blasphemous Arenas talk. I was educated to observe that as behavior opposite a sycophant. Perhaps you can edumacate me otherwise...
You can't though, thus I challenge as a penalty: Name 3 points you made in your original post
That's fine. You don't appear to be pushing back on being called a troll (not very much at least), and maybe sycophant is the wrong use of words.
But -
Your profile byline on Substack does say
"Ethan Strauss delivered me here".
That does come across a bit "fan-boyish", not gonna lie.
As for what I initially wrote, here are my 3 points:
1- Comparing Arenas to Towns is not apt, as
a- they play two very different positions
&
b- neither one of them are transcendent players on the basketball court.
2- If you swapped out Towns on this Knicks team for a prime Gilbert Arenas, the Knicks would have been less successful this season, as they would have been badly lacking in size.
3 - While Michael Jordan and Hakeem Olajuwon both played different positions, they both are transcendent players that
-If you added either a Prime MJ or a Prime Dream onto this Knicks squad that just lost to the Pacers in 6, or if you replaced Towns with either one of these legends (in their prime of course)
-That the Knicks would be playing in the Finals right now.
Probably agree overall but, for instance, KAT was absolutely the Wolves’ best player when they made the playoffs in 2022. Counting numbers, advanced both show that and he was third-team all-NBA.
Also, yes, that true shooting percentage was better than Kobe’s best ever (and seeing that type of argument gives me bad flashbacks to Henry Abbott trying to use any stat possible back in the day to denigrate Kobe and his efficiency), but it’s .581 to… .580, for each guy’s career high.
But I agree completely with how annoying it is when what someone says is used in arguments about their careers. You touched on this when Phil Jackson got people mad few years ago on an interview and people would then go “by the way, Pop was better.”
Which I guess you can try and argue since both guys won 5 titles. But Phil was
4-1 against Pop in the playoffs, even though the Spurs had homecourt in three of those series. So I’d still give slight edge to Phil.
Oh, yeah, and then there’s the fact he won six other titles.
Gilbert Arenas never won a playoff game after the first round. Slow your roll
An actual productive basketball post and discussion? What blog am I on?!? I love this.
Arenas in this era would completely dominate. All time shooter with handles. Havent watched enough KAT to weigh in there. Games I watched this year he was pretty good. Arenas will never stop running his mouth. Pretty dumb take imo although everyone fainting on Twitter deserves to be mocked so carry on. There's not an objectively dominant body type in the NBA like there is for linemen in the NFL. Jokic may end up being the statistical GOAT...Tim Duncan never looked particularly imposing and he had a better career than David Robinson who looked chiseled out of granite.
Ethan I think it's fair to say peak Gilbert was better, but an average KAT year is better than an average Gil year. And forgetting the zestyness nonsense for a second, KAT almost single handedly won a Detroit series game and a Pacers series game for the Knicks with his 4th quarter heroics. Gilbert is hopping on the KAT bashing trend right now because it likely appeals to his audience, but objectively KAT had a very good playoffs (usual faults aside), and acting like he's a scrub all of a sudden is just playing to the peanut gallery.
Arenas doesn't get the credit he deserves for being ahead of the curve with how he played. Also he seemed like the most annoying person on the planet in that Crittenton documentary.
Take it easy on Larry Hughes and Antawn Jamison.
As a hardcore Warriors fan who loved all 3, I don't think the other two were so good.
You aren’t settling shit, I don’t think for a moment with your West Coast elitist ass you watched a single Wizards game with Arenas live once. Not once.
Towns annoys me to death. He’s a DORK. But he’s been on some good teams, been a part of meaningful games. Arenas won one playoff series. I lived in dc for all of his “meaningful” years which I put in quotes because not a thing he did mattered. Come on with this nonsense.
Yea Gil put 60 points on Kobe in Staples Center. He was killer — and about 50x more likable than KAT — in his prime. You are correct, sir
Yeah he was really good. Definitely a pioneer of the current lead guard that takes pull up 3s model. If playing today, defenses would be more accustomed to guarding that profile, but as you said he'd have more spacing to work with and (maybe) more of a green light.
Also teams maybe didn't know how to build around that player type back then plus the Wizards are generally kind of dumb, so they didn't maximize his abilities for team success.
Gilbert's biggest contribution to the NBA was the contract rule they made for 2nd rounders.When guns, contracts, and injuries are what words you associate with Gilbert Arenas. Winning is nowhere to be found.
Gil's one of NBA's most overrated players