Gilbert Arenas Is Doubling Down On His Horrific Giannis Take By Being Even More Incorrect
Everyone knows that when you unleash an extremely terrible take, you have a few options. You can throw your hand up and admit that maybe you were a moron for saying it and that you just got carried away. That's what most sensible people do.
Or, you can double down. You can get louder and show no signs of any sort of self awareness. You can be like Gilbert Arenas and try to justify your terrible Giannis take with factually incorrect information. That's the beauty of that IG post. It's legitimately incorrect! A true broken brain if I've ever seen one. Let's just go down the line
Has Giannis' three point shooting gotten any better? Arenas says nope. The data says
In Giannis' first 4 seasons was 27.7%.
In Giannis' last 5 seasons it's 29%. He's been over 30% in 2 of the last 3 seasons
Still bad, but it would be incorrect to say Giannis has not improved his three point shooting. He has.
Has Giannis' midrange gotten any better? Arenas says nope. The data days
2013-14: 18%
2014-15: 40%
2015-16: 33%
2016-17: 33%
2017-18: 33%
2018-19: 34%
2019-20: 38%
2020-21: 36%
2021-22: 41%
Hmm…I'm not a huge math guy but it looks like Giannis has gotten better in the midrange even as his volume has increased. This would make Arenas a clean 0-2.
Has Giannis' FT shooting gotten better? Arenas says nope. The data says
Looks like it's getting better even as his FTA basically doubled. I'll remind you of his 14-15 performance from the line this year against the Celts and his 17-19 performance from the line to win an NBA title. That's something I don't think we see Young Giannis do, which would mean he has improved. 0-3.
Has his back to the basket game gotten any better? Arenas says nope. The data says
In 2015-16 (when NBA.com started tracking) he ranked in the 41st percentile w/ Post ups
In 2021-22 he ranked in the 69th percentile (nice)
He went from averaging 0.8 points per possession and a 40% scoring frequency to 1.01 points per possesison and a 51.8% scoring frequency. By pretty much all accounts, Giannis has improved in this area.
So as you can see, there are some pretty basic flaws in the foundation of Arenas' argument. I could understand if he just came out and said he hates Giannis' play style or something because at least that's something that actually makes sense. But trying to make the claim that Giannis isn't on that rare or elite level and then trying to then back up that claim by using even more correct statements is…..certainly something. I'm not sure this accomplished what Arenas thought he was accomplishing, if anything it just makes him even worse.
He should have simply pretended it never happened and the internet would have moved on. Unfortunately, he chose to double down even harder and now he looks even more foolish. That's tough.
