Former NBA Star Shares Harsh Truth for LeBron James and Lakers

This former NBA star believes the Los Angeles Lakers are in trouble

The Los Angeles Lakers have two of the best players in basketball, but their production outside of LeBron James and Anthony Davis can be very inconsistent. During a recent episode of Gil’s Arena, former NBA star and Memphis Grizzlies guard Gilbert Arenas shared a harsh reality for James and the Lakers, saying teams can take them out simply by cutting off their best player.

“If you’re cutting out the perimeter, Jokic just goes down low. If you try to double, everyone knows how to cut… With the Lakers, and a lot of teams, if you cut off LeBron, no one knows how to do anything else… If [Anthony Davis] was like Jokic, ‘I’m gonna play down low, and then I start eating here.’ Eventually they’re like, ‘Oh sh-t. Now I’m gonna double.’ Now it’s, ‘Here Rui, here Prince, ya’ll get open shots.’ There’s these different types of games they can play, and Jokic is showing you all of it in the same game. Different quarters he is doing something different.”

“If you’re cutting out the perimeter, Jokic just goes down low…With the Lakers, if you cut off LeBron, no one knows how to do anything else. Because there’s no “in-out” game…”Gilbert Arenas on why the Lakers offense isn’t built for the playoffs pic.twitter.com/Y2EL0SfAji

— Gilbert Arenas (@GilsArenaShow) April 22, 2024

For Arenas, he believes Jokic and the Nuggets are simply on a different level than the Lakers right now. This was the case in last year’s Western Conference Finals despite Los Angeles hanging around in all four of those games, and could very well be the case again in this year’s rematch.