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That FT when the game was on the line though. Bron got in his headdeneem4 wrote:He’s in the bracket with tmac for me...maybe a bit above as a wizards fan
But he was one of few players who can go toe to toe with ANYBODY on the court and still have a chance of winning, not jus stat padding but literally keeping his team in the game while challenging opposing teams to stop him
cycl0nus wrote:arenas was a flash in the pan, maybe one good yr and a half
shangrila wrote:Kukoc-Lauri wrote:Yes, today with social media he wants to be recognized as better than Kobe. In reality he was more in Lavine,Monta Ellis, Lou Williams mode. His Wizards and Warriors never did anything important.
He was as good a scorer as I'd ever seen in that brief stretch before he got injured. It's not absurd to put him in the conversation with guys like Kobe or Iverson during that period, at least in terms of scoring.
But yeah, he made plenty of stupid decisions that ultimately killed his career. The injuries capped his ceiling but the gun stuff just ended him outright. Though given the guy he got into it with, Crittendon, IIRC actually went and killed someone and is now in jail...well, that team had issues.
jason bourne wrote:Compared to Westbrook, Arenas is overrated. He was only an All-Star while young. However, he blew out his knee so it wasn't his fault. I don't think he slacked off in his workouts and such. The NBA is a hard game.
Kilroy wrote:Oh god yes... Dude had a 2 or 3 season peak in a career where he could barely stay on the floor... And even the peak wasn't super impressive... He basically had a handful of world beating scoring games and rode the hype from that basically out of the league...
He talked like he was better than Kobe, and really only had 1 game where he might've had an argument.
OdomFan wrote:I feel like some of yall throw the word overrated around just because.
NPZ wrote:cycl0nus wrote:arenas was a flash in the pan, maybe one good yr and a half
No gun references towards Arenas, haha. Flash in the pan = the frison pan of an old flintlock pistol/blunderbuss/musket, etc. The phrase meaning that the flint was able to throw enough spark to light the powder in the pan, but for whatever reason, the powder didn't "shoot the ball". His flint was sharp and his pan was primed and he wanted to shoot the ball, but there was something wrong w/ his mechanics. Besides, he was more of a Glock man than a flintlock man.
slicedbread2 wrote:Crittenton oddly enough joined the crips b/c he was robbed during his rookie year in LA and made the fatal mistake of leaving Georgia Tech a year too early when his shooting splits of 45/35/78 in college suggested that he should've stayed another year and being drafted by the Lakers was not good for him. Going to a team with lower expectations could've helped him and after the robbery, he started carrying guns and was out of the league and failed in China and the G-League. Sadly he killed a 22 year old mother of 4 while going after a dude from the bloods who robbed him. While out on bond, he was arrested with 13 other people for smuggling cocaine and marijuana and plead guilty to the murder charges and won't be released from prison till Dec. 2036.
Kilroy wrote:OdomFan wrote:I feel like some of yall throw the word overrated around just because.
You just described him with the words 'all time great'... I think we're good.
NPZ wrote:slicedbread2 wrote:Crittenton oddly enough joined the crips b/c he was robbed during his rookie year in LA and made the fatal mistake of leaving Georgia Tech a year too early when his shooting splits of 45/35/78 in college suggested that he should've stayed another year and being drafted by the Lakers was not good for him. Going to a team with lower expectations could've helped him and after the robbery, he started carrying guns and was out of the league and failed in China and the G-League. Sadly he killed a 22 year old mother of 4 while going after a dude from the bloods who robbed him. While out on bond, he was arrested with 13 other people for smuggling cocaine and marijuana and plead guilty to the murder charges and won't be released from prison till Dec. 2036.
The LAKERS ORG...was a solid place for him to start off with, a non-dysfunctional team. And they didn't have a whole lot of expectations when Critt was actually getting minutes (at the start of the season). In early 07/08, the Lakers weren't expected to do much and Kobe was matter-fact pissed at the quality of teammates he had. Getting Pau on Feb 1st up'd the urgency, but by then Critt wasn't playing anyway. Phil did that every year to new guys. He played them during Winter and the great majority of the time gave up on just about any non-core piece that he didn't like by January(!) at the earliest. If he could've done that to GLEN RICE(!), he would have, trust. Rice was still too good to get that doghouse treatment. He played current Laker assistant coach Mike Penberthy and JR Rider at the start of the 00/01 season and by the playoffs, both were left off the PO roster. Rider reportedly cried and pleaded to be put on, but nope.
The Lakers weren't the problem. LOS ANGELES was the problem. Critt stupidly got into the Colors game and it drew him into a space he wasn't made for or meant for. Similar to Tupac who was gonna be shot to death at one point or another for stomping on some Crip in Las Vegas. Don't mix w/ gangbangers, kids.
I've been recapping some 07/08 Laker gms on my Youtube channel recently and he was in one or two (briefly). He actually had some pretty nice street game stuff, but the 8 ball was against him w/ Phil as his coach. Phil liked Phil players, meaning fools like Walton, Madsen, Fisher, Fox. Slow, plodders who performed well in the tri or facilitated it well. He passed on attempts to pick up young, athletic players who had yet to reach their promise, dudes like DerMarr Johnson and Qyntel Woods. Wasn't interested.
slicedbread2 wrote:Yes I should've fixed that. The Lakers were a nice spot, but LA was a terrible place for him to go to as temptations got to him and being robbed sadly set him off to go down a path where he threw away his career and someone sadly died in the process. I think if he were to have played in a smaller market that didn't have the distractions LA has, maybe it'd be a different story. I remembered seeing him play a few games and thought "man this dude could've used another year of college".
NPZ wrote:slicedbread2 wrote:Yes I should've fixed that. The Lakers were a nice spot, but LA was a terrible place for him to go to as temptations got to him and being robbed sadly set him off to go down a path where he threw away his career and someone sadly died in the process. I think if he were to have played in a smaller market that didn't have the distractions LA has, maybe it'd be a different story. I remembered seeing him play a few games and thought "man this dude could've used another year of college".
Where was he robbed, in LA? I remember Sedale Threatt and Jerry West both getting robbed in LA in the early 90s. Sedale was at a gas station in the wee hours. Not advisable in a nice whip at that time of night. However, West got robbed in the parking lot of The Forum one day during business hours. Can't recall, either when he got out of his car in the AM or went to lunch or left at 5pm, but they obviously waited for him to get out of his car. Unfortunatel, my man Sedale also got his B robbed by Dr. Dre who's still with him since 93ish.
Being rich in LA or Inglewood (site of Forum; Inglewood is always up to no good) has its drawbacks. There was the current player who bungled a burglary (hopefully that's all it was), because the guy saw him and ran. Name escapes me for some reason. Anyway, the perp reportedly targeted Kylie Jenner's house. She's lucky because the scum might've added a rape in there had he got the addy right. Lovely Kendall, her sister, also had some schizo get into her gate as she pulled up and closed it and he had a gun and she balled up in fear in her locked car as he screamed at her. Stalker. An actress in LA named Rebecca Schaeffer got killed in 1988 by a stalker who shot her thru her glass door. That was a big story. Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman...OJ still out to find the real killers cough. I think that was a 2 man job, btw. OJ and an unnamed buddy.