The Right Time with Bomani Jones - Gilbert Arenas on the Jimmy Butler vs Miami Situation, NBA Cities, and Amen Thompson's Ceiling | 1.29

Episode Date: January 29, 2025

On today’s episode, former NBA player and host of Gil's Arena, Gilbert Arenas joins Bomani Jones to mainly discuss the Jimmy Butler saga. The show begins with Gilbert talking about his son's progression through high school basketball and why a lot of current stars come from AAU or European leagues. (0:36) Next, they move onto the main topic which is Jimmy Butler being suspended by Pat Riley and the Miami Heat. Gil states why Jimmy has the leverage and Pat needs a "software update." (7:26) Then, Gilbert talks about why NBA cities like Atlanta and Miami aren't necessarily a destination for players and what selling points teams should emphasize when courting free agents. (19:18) They round out the Jimmy Butler conversation by discussing "Heat culture" and if Jimmy would be a good fit in Phoenix? (41:57) The show wraps with Gil sharing stories about playing for Stan Van Gundy and Amen Thompson becoming a superstar. (47:05) . . . Subscribe to The Right Time with Bomani Jones on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcasts and follow the show on Instagram, Twitter, and Tik Tok for all the best moments from the show. Download Full Podcast Here: Spotify:  https://open.spotify.com/show/6N7fDvgNz2EPDIOm49aj7M?si=FCb5EzTyTYuIy9-fWs4rQA&nd=1&utm_source=hoobe&utm_medium=social Apple:  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-right-time-with-bomani-jones/id982639043?utm_source=hoobe&utm_medium=social Follow The Right Time with Bomani Jones on Social Media:  http://lnk.to/therighttime Subscribe to Supercast for Ad-Free Episodes: https://righttime.supercast.com/ Support the Show:  PrizePicks: Daily Fantasy Made Easy! Visit PrizePicks.com/BOMANI and use code BOMANI for a first deposit match up to $100! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the right time, a wave sports and entertainment original presented by prize picks. My name is Beaumani Jones. Thanks for listening wherever you get your podcast. Thanks for watching us on YouTube. Subscribe, like, rate us, review us, give us five stars. You only give us four stars. I'm inclined to believe you are a hater. It is that time of week, but we have a guest joined us coming to us live from sunny Southern California.

Check them out on Gills Arena with Underdog Fantasy. Gilbert Arena's what's going on, man? What's up? Thank you for having me. Yeah, so something, I want to just touch on this right fast as I've been watching different clips of your son playing. And I have to say, part of what I find interesting, it's kind of unfair for the rest of the kids. But it feels like your son is actually playing high school basketball as opposed to high school kids playing some form of professional basketball. Yeah, yeah.

He's a great kid, you know, learn, study. He understands that money is not the goal, you know, when you're trying to get to the next level. And you're trying to be the best. It's about, you know, just the crap itself. So, you know, it's, it's, treat each level like it's a level, right? This is high school basketball, and you have to move like a high school kid. When you get to college, move like a college kid. When you get to the pros, move like a pro.

Now, right now. You think he would move that way if his daddy didn't have that big ass house? I mean that sincerely, because it's an interesting position to be in for like the kids, the kids of former pros are playing a different game when it comes to this money that they could easily get other ways. That's hard to say. you know, we have it. Right?

And, you know, right now a lot of kids are moving like, you know, it's a money grab. And I always told them, you know, when we first started, you know, and this NIL came and I said, you know, that's just another bump in the road for, you know, players, right? But if your goal is to be an NBA player, then you can't look at the side hustles. You know, don't treat your game like a side hustle, right? You have a goal is the NBA. Every time you stop here, pick an NBA. an NIO bag up or pick a collective bag and start doing this, you ain't moving forward.

You know, so, you know, every situation we've been in, every decision we've made has been talent-based, not money-based. Yeah, my thought had always been, and it's a whole different game now, so you can't use this. But like, take it 15 years ago, the first time somebody changed schools just to play basketball and it's like the day they actually turn pro. Like when you crack your ass up and go to the middle of nowhere in Virginia to go play basketball, Well, those are the kids that were always trying to get out of college as soon as possible because it had already become like an actual pro game.

Yeah, no. You're trying to put yourself in a situation where you're going to maximize your talent, right? So, you know, teaming up, you know, at a big UCLA school, right? You know, some of those one and done kids are like, nah, just go somewhere where I'm the man. I'm going to have some TV games and, you know, I got six months here and then I'm out. But for you with your son, right, wasn't being the. man, part of why you got him in school, where he is, like to deal with a zillion people swarming the ball and all of that? Yeah, I actually did the research on, you know,

super teaming in high school. What were those players at? There was enough research for me to research it. So I looked at the Sierra Canyon kids, Mount Vernon kids, right? And I realized when you're teaming up in that developmental stage, you're not going to be very aggressive. when you get to the pros, you're going to be like a great role player because you're so used to just being docile and deferring to other players that you're creating,

I call it five-star role players. And I started looking back at the Zions, the Jaws, and look at where they came from and all the real lions are coming from schools where they're the guys, right? During that developmental age where it's really about your, development versus trying to win a bunch of team awards that you average six on this championship team, you're not getting recruited. You're going to be at a division two. You're going to be at a

Juco or low-level Division I school. So this is the age where you're supposed to be selfish and try to figure out what your game is. Yeah. My high take has been the reason that this country don't seem to produce megastars like it used to. Like all the biggest stars as players now seem to be cats from Europe. And it is, as AAU influence got to everything else and you got all these dudes on the same squad, how do you learn to be that dude? Like with Zaiyan, it was interesting because he was playing against all them little bitty white boys over there in South Carolina. But then he got to Duke and he was like, oh, I like the taste of blood. He can't stay healthy. He got all his problems, but he liked being a dominant player. And I feel like you can't become that guy

unless you get that taste of it early. Yeah, no, that's exactly what it is. You're not going to be average in 10 and then go into the league and average 35. Like you just not built for it if you've never done it. Like, you know, the kids is complaining. The parents pass the ball. Like you, that goes through your mental ninth, 10th, 11, 12th grade. So when you do team up and it's time to take over the game, you already have it instilled in you, right?

It's like building a super warrior, right? You're just putting on this selfish pad, this scoring pad. You know, you're just putting on all this. team up, you know what to drop to help the team out. But if you've never, ever been selfish when it's time for you to be selfish, you got a heart.

And your boy putting up shots. I don't watch them clips. He put enough shots. I'd be screaming, come on, just pass the ball just a little bit. I got I got to hear these parents. Yeah, I got to be hearing the parents in the back. Just one or two times. I just feed it up

with just a little bit, right? But, you know, he can pass the ball, but, you know, it's really, you know, half a star players. He's going to public school and, you know, it's the kids from the area. So, you know, most of them won't play basketball after high school. You know, if so, it would be a junior college type of deal. So he's managing, right? He's starting to understand that, you know, you still got to feed those players, keep them in the game so they can do their job.

You think it's different, though, once you go to college? And I hadn't planned to talk about this this. much big guy interested to me. Because, like, I think about that team that you played for at Arizona, y'all were loaded. Like, that starting five is as good as starting five as we have seen. And that is the opposite approach as to what we're talking about for high school. No, but my high school was the same, right? I had to do everything.

Power forward on defense, right, point guard on offense, got to break the press, got a rebound, got to defend. Once I got the college, I knew what I didn't need anymore. Okay, they just need me to run a court, slag. play off the ball. Cool, I can do that. But if I never had done it, I would have class with Jason Gardner, right? I'm the point guard. You're the point. Like, you know what I mean? But because I had all these other tools, it was easy for me to, you know, adapt to Arizona become a starter because I already had all their abilities from when I played in high school. I got you. Now, I'm going to switch

gears. I told you I want to talk about first. And we're taping this on Tuesday. People will see this on Wednesday. So it's entirely possible that they would have been a trade at some point. but what do you think about Pat Riley versus Jimmy Butler? I'll just start with the top line question and go from there. I thought Pat interfered with the leader's comment, right? You know, that's where it started, where Jimmy made the comment at the end of last season. Like, if I was healthy, you know, we would have took this series, right? It's a normal comment for a top player, right?

You know, you're lost, but you still try to show your dominance over the other player, Like, y'all beat us, but because I wasn't there. And, you know, when he told him basically, shut up if you're not playing, that probably rubbed him the wrong way. And, you know, trying to get an extension. You know, Pat's public in making like, yeah, you know, you only playing 60-something games. I don't know.

Like, that was, you know, you can't undermine your star player in the media. That's what, you know, behind closed doors. It's like yelling at him in front of the, in front of his teammates. Yeah. You can't. You can't whip your boy in front of his teammates unless you've already pre-proc-like, yeah, I'm going to yell at you today to get everybody else in line.

You've got to do that to a star player. I'm going to yell at you, but don't take offense to it. You know, just take it so I can yell at the person I really want to yell at. That's what coaches and general managers do for your star player. So I thought publicly it was the wrong approach. And Jimmy being Jimmy fed right at it. right into it. Right.

You know, it's like, well, if you're going to, if you're looking for your contract, then you need to come out here like Colbert, MJ in his prime, James Hardin, right? You taking 30, 40 shots. Forget wins. You got to, you know, but he started off slow. Like, he didn't care. And it kind of just, let's, all right, this is the game we're going to play. And from there, just went down a rabbit hole.

man, this is, I think one interesting thing about this is Pat Riley has proven he'll let anybody go. The only guy he ever wanted to keep, by the way, is the dude who never planned to stay, right? Like, he really wanted LeBron to stay and it hurt his feelings when LeBron left. And I think the story is he went out there to Vegas to do the meeting and he realized that wasn't mad, but none of the other cats there for the meeting. It was just him of LeBron. And he was like, damn, I just came here for no reason. But everybody else has wanted to stay.

and Pat Alonzo morning, Dwayne Wade, you go up and down the line and Pat has just ultimately been like, eh, nah, it's cool, we'll deal with that later. They all come back later, right? Like everybody comes back and becomes part of the team, which has a tiny bit of cult to it, just a faint whiff of culture's behavior.

They do all of that and they all come back. And I think Pat had gotten so used to that and he thought that he could make this smooth and go through the year, where it's like, come on, man, you know who you were dealing with, that if you weren't going to give him an extension, and Jimmy clearly thought that they could get an extension there, right?

Because once it became clear they couldn't get an extension, everything went off to rails, right? All beef and all times. And Pat had the nerve, well, I guess Eric Sposier did it, but it's hard to separate he and Pat to have Haywood Highsmith and his latest thing starting over Jimmy. And that's just like, come on, man, you knew what time that was going to be. Yeah.

So I think Pat hasn't updated his software. I think he think this is still the 1980s and 1990s, where the money controls the players, right? When you're talking about 80s and you, oh, you need this, you need this $1 million. You're going to do what I say. And same thing with those Knicks teams. Over the years, right, you lost more control.

So Pat, once Jimmy signs that $90 million on his first rookie did, than $230 million. There's no negotiation with money, right? Money is a non-factor at this point. It's the little things, right? Kauai proved it, right? Where he was like, well, you don't want, Derek, I mean, you don't want Paul George?

Well, I'm out, right? Turns down 40 extra million. He already has a bag. He don't care anymore. So once a guy signs for that big max, negotiations after that, it's all on principle. And I don't think Pat really considered that the money wasn't going to control Jimmy, right? You know the mentality. You know he don't negotiate, right?

We've seen this pattern. So once you got into the tick-tack of playing mind games, for the most part, Jimmy had all the, the leverage, right? Because he's verbally said, I don't want to be here. They can't do anything, which now all other teams, if they're smart, like, you're going to take all these nice pieces off the table and say, well, he don't want to be there, so you're going to have to trade him. So I don't need to give you this. I can give you this C minus player. And just like an organization, they go after his habits, knowing what he normally does, and we're going to penalize him when he does it now, right? Usually Jimmy takes his own flight sometimes. Okay. When he does it,

suspension, missed the flight. Right. Oh, when he gets here, he likes to stay in his own hotel or Airbnb. And when he does that, team policy, strike his ass, right? So that's all they were going to do until they can suspend him, take back some of that money until they get indefinite. And that's exactly what they did. So I blame Jimmy at this point for not being smart enough to know what they're after. Yeah, see, the thing I thought that was interesting, especially with the indefinite, when it was like, okay, you let the list rack up, right? It's like those stores that if you work there and you boost and they catch you boosting that first time, they let you keep going.

It's like, oh, okay, so you got out of here with just a couple things out the front. Okay, cool. Oh, oh, did somebody take a CD player? All right, we got to look at that. Oh, you're feeling good now. You think you're going to get this laptop out of here. Now you're looking at a felony. And that's when they wait to go get you.

When I was like, okay, so my man did all these things to get up to a seven-gauge suspension, but at no point was there a one-gay suspension before that. And the thing that set them off that I thought was interesting was that press conference where he sounded more like his feelings was hurt than anything else. And they were like, oh, you're up there sounded kind of sad, buddy. How do you like to sit down for seven games? No, and that's exactly, that's exactly. Same thing with the Ben Simmons, right?

It's, I don't want you to sit home, right, and get this money. I don't want you to play because, you're not going to be playing to our standard. So the only thing I can do is suspend you and take your money. So once he got the seven games, right, being late, which is only a $10,000 fine, right? That's the max that you can go. So basically the rule is you miss a flight or you're late,

they'll take off $10,000 fine, get your own flight there, right? That's the rule. There's no suspension. You've early research this, I see. I was part of it. You know, that's that's all it is is because by the time they get there at 3 o'clock you can catch you get on a flight

and then you're there. There's no suspension for missing a flight because you got time to make the game. Right? The game ain't the flight, right? The game is the game. So, you know, you, so that's like, you know, first warning, you know, probably a $5,000 out of five,

10,000 out of five, right? It's just knick-knack stuff, right? But here, they can suspend him. He'll probably get his money back. but they got seven games out of them. And then the two games was, what was the two games for? The two games was for missing the flight. What was the seven games for?

The seven games was after he sat up there and said he couldn't find his joy. And then they hit him with the seven. And then they two for missing the flight. And now this new one is the five or more because he walked out of the shoot around because they said the Haywood Highsmith would be starting over him. By the way, I didn't know we were still making Haywoods. I was totally unaware. That's like finding out, like, you tell me,

Heywood drive a Ford Taurus. I'd be like, damn, we still making four Tours to do, huh? I had no idea. Yeah, okay, yeah, so the two games for the flight, which shouldn't be, shouldn't have been nothing. Detriments of the team comments, that's not a real thing. And then detrimental here. So I have always said,

even when a John Moran thing, detrimental to the team is the worst. That's like for the black community, that's like resistant arrest, right? Like, it's a real thing, but not how they use it. Like, resist the arrest means you are being arrested for a crime and then you're like running, right? Not like, yeah, you know, I pulled them over for, you know,

speed and ticket or seatbelt and then I shot him. Right, yeah. He resisted, like, no, you got to have a crime. in front of resisting, right? So it's like this little loophole. That's what this is. It's a loophole where detrimental. What does that mean?

Yeah, the team ain't functioned well with him. It's more mental. So we want to get rid of them until we evaluate this situation. That's all that is. Because if it's a punishment, that punishment has a required penalty to it. Like John Morant gun, right? That's three games, seven at the max.

like, oh, that's not enough. So detrimental, he's mentally not capable of being around the team. And that's what they're going to do until they figure out how to trade them. I'm imagining Jimmy acted up and Pat Riley just screaming out. Stop resisting. Stop resisting. I told him. Like, what am I resist this? Stop resist.

Oh, shit. He's about to do it. Oh, no. You know, the other thing, you had mentioned something interesting on your show. And I think this is, and I'm curious to talk to you a little bit. bit more about this. So there are two, I guess maybe three organizations that I really think of in terms of culture, right? Where we think about the team and the team has a culture. One of them that's kind of sort of is the Spurs, but they've been so sorry for so long that I don't even

know it wasn't a culture or was it Tim Duncan. Like I can't exactly tell. Another is Oklahoma City. And it makes perfect sense because what they do is they get young boys that don't know no better and don't mind living there and they just hang out with each other and play video games. games and it's like an extension of college and then they get like my mother's from Oklahoma City like I ain't no shade to the place I like it come on man we know what time it is right and they did and they you know or you get like a Russell Westbrook a dude who don't care who's like I do what I'm supposed to do all the time and then we go the other one is Miami obviously and after LeBron left they branded it right it became heat lifers and heat culture and everything but I've heard you talk about the fact that

your selling point for this organization is South Beach and now you do everything you can to make the like as little like South Beach as possible. Like what thing people don't know is that arena is right there on Biscayne Bay. And they have giant windows for the practice facility to overlook the bay. It's the kind of thing an architect does to sell you on the project. And they bought it. And Pat Riley covered them things up immediately because ain't nothing supposed to be fun about playing basketball there. So like what do you when you see what is going on with Jimmy and how guys have left.

And then juxtapose that against the fact that look, the two most fun cities, in the NBA for a lot of people on Miami and Atlanta and don't nobody ever want to go play there. And that's the weird part, right? It's, you have this selling point. Like, L.A., your selling point is Hollywood, right? Whatever money you're going to lose, you can make it up in endorsements, right? That's the selling point of L.A. and the Clippers. You lose $20 million here?

Well, we got movie, we got actors. You can make it back in endorsements, right? Miami Beach has the beach, the weather, the women, right? You can't sell that to 19 to 30-year-olds? Are you kidding me? Right? It's like you have all of this. And then it feels like soon as you get off the plane,

you're handcuffed. Like you tricked me, right? You're doing a five to ten. You're doing a bid here. Put your handcuffs on. Fuck the beach. Oh, I just fooled you. Like, you know, like, Loki, like I created this vision, you know,

when I was talking to you on the phone and then when you get there, ah, this is prison. And like when we ask players about the city and about the team, they tell us, right? Your prisoners tell the story of Miami. Hence why you can't get anyone there. You're telling me a free. You can't beat out, right? Milwaukee, Minnesota, Memphis, Utah, shit of.

Chicago's cold. Sacramento. You're telling me, DeMarre wouldn't want to come there here rather live in Sacramento. Like you think Clay would rather go. Clay is a, Clay loves his boat. You're telling me, you couldn't get Clay Thompson from Dallas to there. No, because no one wants to do that prison stuff. Like, it's easy to draft that player and get them there because that's all they know, right?

Like from college to Miami, that's all you know. Once you started tasting other organizations and then you hear about what Miami does, like, nah, I'm good. No, like I've tasted filet mignon over here and this is how I get it. you're telling me hamburger helper and what I got to do to get that, yeah, I'm good. Now, the wildest thing about the NBA is you got teams in D.C., Atlanta, and Miami

and a league full of Afro-Americans and for my whole life, ain't nobody really wanted to go. Now, Miami's had its times where people did want to go there. But like, D.C. and Atlanta, I mean, I see the look on your face. You had a ball. You had a ball.

But I mean, but I'm 44. years old and they won 50 games in my life. You know what it is? The way the contracts are designed, it is designed for you to stay, right? It's really like you're going to have to have like someone saying, we don't want you anymore and you got to go find a place to play or you got to be LeBron and say, I'm going to team up and this is where I'm going or turn down some money, right? You got to, or Kauai, I'm just turning it down.

Usually that doesn't happen, right? The way is, you know, you're talking about $250 here, 175 here. It's, you know, it's a big gap to the point where you can't leave or you don't want to leave. So if your organization is not smart enough to make great trades, no one is, no one is really leaving. So the advantages is always going to be like the New York's, the L.A.'s, kind of San Francisco now. That's going to be up and coming. Boston maybe. right but you know but for the most part them young boys just want to stay home or get to one of those

big cities but miami is a big city and i'm i'm i'm just be honest if i'm pat riley i'm selling whatever south beach got to offer yeah like it's funny i made that face about boston but it feels like more cats have been inclined to go to boston with free agent money than they had been to Miami like new york is a place i feel like you got to have a certain sophistication for you to understand why this is a place that you want to be right like if you're from the wrong place that you too young and they tell you it's cold and you just see all these buildings you know you got to be here so you know what I'm saying like you got to be here and be like oh okay no this this is anything I want in the world is here there's people from women from countries I didn't even know existed

and they hear right then you get a place like Houston that everybody could understand Houston Houston is the one where every athlete of every stripe in every race is like nah I think I want to go get some of that right no no that's facts and it's I just don't think that that every organization is not smart businessmen, right? And that's kind of funny just hearing it, right? Because this is a big business. But all of them are not very smart businessman when it comes to just selling the product

and selling the American dream, right? Pat Riley, you are the godfather of Miami and you're not using Miami for your team. I'm going to be doing deals with Prime 112, right, where every player on this team, free bill, they don't pay for nothing, right? You don't pay for nothing at Prime 112. All these hotels, this hotel right here for family and friends, free, right?

All players here is free? I don't care if it's $1,000 a night, they don't want to pay it. You tell them these are the amenities that you get, just coming to this organization. Strip Club open 24-7 for you, sir. All the women. Discount for you, 50% off.

Like, I'm going to sell you. You're 21 years old? Oh, I'm going to sell you like you're a 21-year-old. I'm going to have some of the finest girls walking up. Oh, my God, aren't you? You're the guy from TV, right? Oh, I'm such a big fan. What are you doing tonight?

I'm pulling out all the college stops. I'm sorry. This is big business here. I'm praying, I'm praying on the young minds and how they think, and I'm using all of this to my advantage. I'm not losing no free agent. I've seen how Golden State was recruiting me. This is 03.

When I pulled up there to, it was my last visit. I got a private jet from L.A. to there. Torell Owens was in there like, oh shit, that's the, that's the dude, right? So that's where I met Troll. That's where we became friends. You know, he's talking about the city with me. When I got there, there was a frari, Lamborghini, Viper, out front, just nights. Like, oh, man, there's some rich people here, right?

And then we go and talk and they say, hey, just to let you know, those three cars, four cars down there, those are yours. I didn't hear nothing else they said. All I'm thinking is I got an escalade. I got, that's my Monday car, that's a Tuesday car. Oh my God, I'm about to fall out. The girls all about the, and that's all up for the next two hours. I'm only thinking about the car. I didn't hear shit they had going on.

Right? I had to wait until they live and it's like, what do you think about the deal? What deal? And it was like, I told you. He was thinking about them cars. So basically it was like, come back for $4.9 million. And then we have a seven-year, $79 million deal waiting for you. That's right, because they could only offer, they could only offer you the mid-level

exception. They had to change the rule after that. So that was like that right there. And it was like, yo, wait, hold on. Focus. Focus on this numbers. And then they gave me the numbers there. And then they gave me the numbers with Washington offer.

It was smarter for the Washington deal. Because by the time the money added up, I would have been out of my Washington deal signed a new deal. And then the next time recruited me was that when I was a free agent, Baron Davis left signed to Clippers. So I got when they hit me and said, hey, listen, we have Maxis for you as five-year one-on-one.

And I saw, oh, man, I just bought a house. Oh, no, we got a $5.5 million house already paid for, ready for you, and it comes with a helicopter, and you got a helicopter, right? Like, are y'all not getting these? Like, Pat Ryder, you're not doing this for these guys? Listen, if you don't know how to sell Miami, hit me up.

Sign me. All I, listen, all you need to do is be the mouthpiece for you and just give me free range to sell whatever Miami has to offer. And you will have any player you won't. And you, and you earlier hit him with the magic words that when you get older, no normally means some bullshit. But it rang out when you young. But for you, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da. But for you, my friend, everything is different. I mean, just, you're like, you let you.

Jimmy Butler do what he wants to do, like take your own flight, be in the air and be and be. So you give rope, right? But, you know, your job is to get him there first. Get them there. You don't even trick nobody to get him there. And that's the problem, right? I think sometimes teams, when they don't have use for you anymore, they devalue you, right? They tell all your bad secrets, which the rest of the players is looking at it. Like, if this is, think about it, This is what you're doing, a D-Wade? Oh, now we're good. Nah.

But that's actually how the players look at organizations. How do you treat your superstars? So if that's how you're going to treat DeWain, Wade, or LeBron, shit, I'm nobody to you then. You didn't draft me. I haven't won nothing for you. So I know you're not going to treat me better than him. And if that's how you're talking about him, I'm good. Well, look, let's put a pit in that.

We're going to wrap right quick and come back because that was a point I wanted to get to that I think something that kind of gets lost in the Jimmy story as it relates to the heat. We'll come back in just a second with Gilwood Arenas. The NBA is in full swing and the big game is right around the corner, which means you could turn $10 into $1,000 in a single game watching your favorite teams only on prize picks. You can make a prize picks line up between the NFL and the NBA

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How did picks been going for you? You know, Bo, I'm getting a little backlash from the audience who haven't been making as much on prize picks from my picks. But look, I'm going to be back in this month of February because not only with the NBA and NFL, I can make picks between both leagues. with the flex play, I can still cash out if my lineup isn't perfect. And as always, make sure you stick around for the end of each show to hear my upcoming picks. And if you know me, I'm always picking more. And if you were smart, maybe you'd fade

them and take less sometimes. That's right. They got choices. So make sure you go to priespicks.com slash Beaumani and use code Beaumonti for a first deposit matchup to $100. That's priespix.com slash Beaumani. Prizepicks. Daily Fantasy Sports Made Easy. All right. We are back with Gilbert Arenas. But the last time I did your show, I made a point where you were like, you know, I hadn't really thought about this. And it was why did Kauai Leonard go play in the Olympics? And I was like, oh, it's simple. Because if you ask Kauai Leonard, why is Kevin Durant better than him? How do you explain that? Like he views himself as be any and he's got the resume, two finals MVP's, two defensive players of the years, all of these things.

He's got those, but we don't think about him that way, right? We don't, in our minds, we don't put him there. But I see why he would see himself that way. I feel like with Jimmy, there's something similar in the sense where, number one, I got a buddy named Joel who comes on my show and he just hate Jimmy Butler like nobody's business. And I'm like, dude, Jimmy's a Hall of Famer. And he's like, he's a borderline Hall of Fame. I'm like, no, the best player on every player who's been the best player on a team that went to the NBA finals is in the Hall of Fame. He took the heat to the finals two times and was one missed three-pointer away from doing it a third time, which is to say he's the third best player in the history of that franchise.

is Dwayne Way, LeBron James, and then Jimmy Butler. Like the other guys you're talking about are like Zoe Tim Hardaway, but they don't have the receipts of going, you know, going two times. They don't have, Jimmy has that. And I look at that with the heat in line with what you were just saying about how you treat your superstars. Like, hey, the definition of superstar in this league is a little bit different than it used to because you've got all these super high tier guys

who often feel like they're the same. But Jimmy's done all the superstar stuff. Even if you don't think he's a superstar for the league, He is superstar for that team. That's a guy whose jersey you retire. We don't think about it that way, but he's been there six years. Like, he's that dude. And Pat is like, yep, we could do without you like we do without everybody else.

And you do have to wonder how long that continues to play. Yeah, man, this was a bad, it was just a bad chess move by Miami. Because these are the three best players in history, right? You said, Duane Wade, LeBron, right? They played together, right? Right. So they helped each other, right? DeWain had Shaq to get his first one.

Jimmy didn't even have 20% of the talent. Duane had or Duane and LeBron had. And he did go to the finals two times. Like, when you're talking about the person who cooked the best meal with the least amount of ingredients, it is Jimmy Butler, right? Hands down, like that AAU team, YMCA team he took there, like all the players left and none of them are good, right?

Around the lead, they all went somewhere, none are actually productive right now, right? You haven't heard nothing about none of them. And that's what he took to the finals two times. I think you didn't value him, and I think that's where this real fight is. He knows what is around him. He knows if he had a shack. He won championship. If he had a LeBron, of course he'll win a championship.

But he almost won with nothing, really. You know, Bam is cool. He was a decent player, but they know Shaquille O'Neill. They don't know Lonzo Morning. There's no Bosch, no LeBron. If he had any of that, he probably could have pulled it out. So he has been one of those guys that's done a lot for the organization. And I don't think they valued it because they was thinking about the rings they got.

Yeah. And all they're in their culture. But it's not a culture. It's not, right? What is the culture, right? We only win championships when we have the unicorn players, right? You know, you had Magic and Kareem, you won, right? You got inherited that.

You didn't win with Patrick Hugh and him, right? The offense you had in L.A. wasn't what you was playing in New York. New York looks more like Miami, right? But then you get Shaquille O'Neal. Whatever he coacher was, that didn't apply to Shaq. Right? If you heard anything about them Shaq's Shack stories,

if it was Shaquille O'Neal, Posey, um, Antoine, Walker, Gary Payton. You know that was no heat coached at. Jason Williams. Jason Williams, that was their culture. Whatever they said went. Because there was too many of them, right? You're talking about the strip club crew, right?

They built barbershops in the strip club because they were in there so goddamn long, right? So you won a championship of that crew. That's not your culture. When they got hurt, that shit before LeBron got there, that's he culture, right? You use your championships, to whip these players.

Oh, this is what you got to do. This is the champions there. When LeBron got there, it was LeBron's culture. Right? You went two championships. You and LeBron buck over whose culture this is. When he leaves, that's heat culture. Yeah.

We've got two championships over here, boys. Do this, do that, do this. That's heat culture. Right? Your championships is coming from unicorn players, not from heat culture itself. You're using heat culture as if it's actually done something. If Jimmy Butler would have won those two championships, that's heat culture.

A bunch of mediocre players and boom, hard work pays off. But you bring in top five players in history. You're winning with top five players in history. Magic, Kareem, LeBron, Shaquille O'Neal. Look at the players that, you're winning. you have, right? You're going to need a Yonis, you're going to need a Yonis, a Wembe, a Yolkich,

right? You're going to need one of them to win your next one. Right? And history says it for you. Well, I thought it was, as I think about this now, as you talk about, it's interesting to look back on that series against the Nuggets because the most amazing fact to it in the NBA remains that Nicola Yokic has never played with an All-Star. And so that team had, like Michael Porter is really talented. he has a terrible back, right? Jamal Murray really talented, you know, physically.

We've seen what's happened with him. But that roster is built along the cultural ideals similar to the heat, except the heat had two, you know, Jimmy Butler's, and he's not an Olympic, was not on an Olympic team, but he's an Olympic team caliber player. Bam, out of bio is an Olympic team player, obviously. And the Nuggets walk them. Like, that was not even close because they got that dude.

Yeah. Yeah, Yokic was the X factor. As much as Jimmy was doing in the playoffs, he couldn't, he couldn't, he couldn't equal out. He couldn't equal out Yokic, right? It was just, you know, Yokic, his totals was sitting at 48 to 55. You know, Jimmy, you're 22, 5 and 5. That ain't going to cut it. He's, he's alone taking you and bam.

You know, it reminded me of. what LeBron James was doing, where he's taking out two stars. So when they got Kevin Dorent, it's like, yeah, you're not going to be able to do that anymore. You and Kevin Dorent is going to cancel each other out. And Steph and Clay, they're going to win their matchups. And, you know, so when these two matched up, it was like, uh, it.

Right. Now, let me ask this, because the future, Jimmy Butler's future is probably in Phoenix. One thing I find interesting about it in Phoenix is, they needed to make it so that Brad Beale wanted to wave his no trade clause and leave. And so they started a Haywood Highsmith over him sort of situation in Phoenix, except the difference, of course, is that Beale wasn't working out very well for them while he was actually playing. But Jimmy's an interesting juxtaposition because when you don't have a situation like Beal has,

you got to act up to make a team want to trade you, except if you are like Beal and having no trade clause, they going to make you want to leave. Yeah, no facts, right? they're in both, they're in two different situations, but listen, there still becomes being a professional, right? Your legacy is going to be talked about, not Miami Heat. Nobody's going to give two sheds. The organization moves on through history, right?

We can't remember any player that ever done this, you know, within the last 10, 15 years because Thai moves on, right? it's hurting you, Jimmy, right? If you want to go get traded, just play. It doesn't matter, right? You being disgrunt or you're averaging 30. If you don't want to be there, you don't want to be there. Like, yo, I don't want to be here, but I'm going to go out here and just average 30

year away to hit my game winners. It don't matter, right? Because this is more about my brand. Me winning games for you is irrelevant. Me going out there playing hard every night. while I'm unhappy, that stamps me. So me doing all of this, other franchises also is like, I mean, this is the third time he's undid this.

I don't really know. I mean, what happens when we do the same thing? Yeah, or if you're going to do it, you got to be like James Hardin, you got to go all the way. He don't waste no time. When James decide he done, this is not going to be a developing bad situation. He's like, no, this shit is bad right now. And what James is, that's really the first time he ever spoke up and ain't done it since, right?

Yeah. Right? So it's like one of those one-offs. Well, what Jimmy? I don't know. I don't know. He made Oklahoma City trade him, right? Like, he did enough when nobody was looking there to hurry up and get them out of there to get to Houston.

And he acted bad in Houston. He had them done dudes ready to snuff him on site. And then they had to get him out of there. And then he had to get himself out of Brooklyn. When James decides it's, hold on all, he got himself out of Brooklyn. Though I understood that situation. He felt like he was in crazy town and he was the only person that was going to call it

what it was in Brooklyn? He was like what are you talking about? This is nuts. It did when he went to China and was like, watch this. Watch this. But just like that, you see how I forgot it? I forgot about all of that.

You did. He pulled it too. Right? But, you know, I've been on there. I've been when I've been disgruntled And the first thought that comes to buying is, man, I'm not going to win for them no more. And that's the bad thought.

Right. Right? Because it's your legacy. It's your money. Everything you do that goes against this organization, the other organizations are doing the same thing. Like, think about what, when we're talking to a girl and, you know, she says, you know, we're like, why are you single?

Well, my last man cheated on me. He didn't give me the time. And you're saying it like, shit, I do the same thing. Right? And it's like, well, if I date you, are you going to be doing the same thing, what you're doing to him to me?

And that's always why when you date someone who's cheating on their men, you never take them because I know what you're capable of when you're not happy. And at some point, my behavior is going to make you unhappy, and I don't want you to do that to me. Now, let me ask you this. What do you think about Jimmy and Phoenix?

Because they seem, that don't seem like the happiest place on earth either. right now. And they have an owner that, who, he's missed the quick fix, right? If there's any quick fix that you can come out there, the quick fix was Kevin Durant. They, like, they, they done that. They get Jimmy. I'm assuming they have to get Nerkich out of there after he basically said, I don't even know who the coach is no more. But I'm not sure, as much as we've talked about the clippers as being like underachievers over the years, and I'm not sure how fair that is. With the sons, you got Devon Booker Kevin Durant and you get Jimmy Butler, you should be a

championship contender if you do that, but they're not going. to be. I don't know. Really? Because just like when Jimmy was with Minnesota, when Jimmy went to Phoenix, I mean, Philadelphia, and when he went to Miami, he is the Scotty Pippin type, right? He does all the tangible things to get the win, right? He understands every quarter is this different quarter. And when you have two guys that can just focus on being great,

I can do everything else, right? But if I have to be great and do my job, it's a lot more wearing terror on me. But you two score and whatever, I'll make sure everything else is lining up. And I really believe when he, if he gets, to Phoenix, him himself and how he controls situation, let Kevin do what Kevin do, let Booker do with it.

And he's sitting there just moving pieces around, moving a quarter round, dictating the game. I think they're going to be dangerous. It's a different, like, Bill is no different than Kevin Durant. He's very quiet, right? He just goes, does the job. They need the Jimmy. Just like Kevin need the Draymond Green.

He needs the Jimmy to keep. everything lined up. They need to be good enough to overcome being outcoached in the playoffs because championship notwithstanding. We have seen Bootin' Holesers movies before. And he gets cooked because he does not change. He's on the, we did, this always works, so we just going to keep on doing it. And you know the funny part is it's coaches really got two motherfucking jobs. Great practice. That's your coaching. Practice. right? You want to seem smart? Practice. How does, I judge your, your, I judge you as a coach on the practice layout. Does it have a flow to it, right? Or is it one of these? We, we start off shooting,

then we go to 5 on 0, then we go to 5 on 0, then we go to 5 on 5, then we go back to 5.0. Like, you start doing that, I know you can't coach. If it starts off as 5-0, 5-0, do the shell, drill, boom, and then ramps up to full plan. But this, stop and go method, I can tell your erratic type of coach, and you're not going to be very great in the game. And then you have the practice part of it. And then in the game, your job is to manage your subs, your timeouts, your out of bounds, your after free throws, play calling.

That's your job. Knowing a sub, not this right here, not this. thing where you're sitting there, got the blue piece of paper in your hand, and you're sitting there and looking, sub. And then you subbing the guy out. He's sitting there like, what the, like, that means he just hit eight in a row and you ain't paying attention. You ain't paying attention to the flow of the game knowing when to sub somebody out,

when to put him in, right? And that's the part of coaching, right? That play where you remember Charlotte, La Mello Ball, the coach didn't put him back at the end of the game. Bad coaching. No matter what he was doing in the fourth, everything erases for a superstar in the last two minutes. It's like the game just started again.

Don't miss that. Don't miss that. The rest of the game is irrelevant, even if somebody's hot, right? You still got to put the star player in just to do what start players do. So the coach is bad, but he don't have to be great.

He just got to understand when the sub and when to call a great play. Other than that, you let your stars do all the dictating on the court. A coach that's calling the plate every time down, he's a control freak. Yeah, Rick Carlisle. That is the grand example of that. Yeah. Damn, I was there. I was like

Stan was coaching you and Dwight at the same time. I was on parole in a sense. That is true. That is true. So I'm just sitting there. I ain't got shit to say. I look back on you in Orlando time, and I remember watching it.

You was chilling. You were definitely moving with self-awareness. Yeah, I had three, two years of probation. I'm not messing up for nobody. I'm not yelling at a coach. I'm not getting no argument. on the court. I don't know how you mess this up. I don't know what all

and goes into messing up your probation, but I don't want none of it. I'm not going to drink my water too fast. None of this. I love staying as a person. Like I really do. He's a great guy that seems like no fun to play for. No. If the game,

he is, like he is, I consider like a bipolar type of mentality where if it's not practice or a game day fun and funny, right? Like he's one of those, he has like 99 on the clock, right?

So practice, 99 on the clock before practice starts. You can talk to stand, laughing, joking. When that horn hit, burn, oh my lord. You're in the middle of a conversation and it goes burnt, that conversation ended. What the fuck are you doing standing in front of me still? Like, what happens? And then from there, oh, my God, he's a whole different person.

Like during practice and during games, I don't even want to be around that dude. When it's over, funniest dude in the world. Yeah. Now, last thing I want to ask you, it's in part for me. I'd watch this end of this Boston-Huston game on Monday night. and on one level, what's going on with Boston is interesting because it's the year after you win a championship. They're still really good, but they're also like six games out of the top of the east. Like this happens where you just wonder if they've just like, hey, we ain't got to push it like this right now.

On the other side, though, the Rockets are coming. And Sean are big, I am from Houston, but he's the big Rockets fan. And he just wants to hear you talk about Ahmed Thompson. You know, I was watching the game last night on playback. He is a superstar. He reminds me of Jimmy Butler's a style, right, where you don't know what type of player he is going to be, but you know he's going to be it, right?

If you're telling him, we need you to average 20, he's going to do that. I need you to play the five and duck in and do that. He's going to do that. Do you play some defense? Once he gets a jump shot, it's going to be very scary, right? When I first made the comment about, you know, him and his brother age,

kind of being a little older and you have to be good now. You don't have room for development. When you're coming in at 21, turn in 20, you don't have room for development because your age has already done made the all-star and the all-NBA. So you're behind the eight ball on that. I think he's right on pace to where he is, right? you know, Jalen Green is the same age. Paulo Ben Chiro's the same age.

Antman is one year older. Sungun is the same age. And I think he's just impactful with that age group. So he's above his age group. The other one, he's still trying to find his way. So I did not realize that those boys were that old. That is interesting. What I also find interesting about them is

I was highly critical of the idea that the best way to develop yourself to go to the NBA is to go play at a literal highlight factory, which is what he and his brother did when they went to play at overtime and lead. I don't know what exactly went on there, but that worked out better

than I would have thought that it would have worked out. I think it hurt them. Really? Yeah. Here, if you look at their demeanor, right? those two kids are like that Kobe Westbrook mentality right that I'm downed in this is about basketball we have a goal our goals to make it to the NBA we're going to train 365 days a year two times a day

that's what those two kids was on well unfortunately the situations they're in those kids are not on that those kids is about having fun money time so you got two professionals spending a year around high school mentalities, guys who just want to hang around. So they're not being pushed in a way that they needed to be. So I think that year kind of set them back. Right? Yeah, they're going to go drag.

Like, if they would have went overseas and got the going, I think they both would have been at a very different place. But they were playing against high school kids, playing with high school kids. You can see that it was two different levels. of play style, and it's like, these kids are just, for the most part, I'm pretty sure they're looking at why we're here type of, type of deal. So, but one is fast-tracking.

Other one is still, you know, trying to find his way. But, you know, I think about age. Like, you're a rookie, and then that next year, where are you compared to everybody in your class? Not your rookie class, because I can't compare 23 with 20. two different ages. Well, that's the thing. And for people who don't know,

two things I did not realize about these boys until now. One, I was talking about their age, January 30th, they turned 22. Yeah. Which is to say, in a couple of days, they turned 22, which I did not realize.

The other thing I did not realize... They turned 22 or 23. 22. I got them as January 30th, 2003. But I also did not realize that these boys, Middles named, both of them, their middle name is excellence spelled I bullshit you not

X LNC that's that's they middle name they apps dog they they they they got that is the name of an app X LNC excellence I thought it would be excellence C but nope just excellence didn't know that did you no we're

all learning so much. On another day, we can talk about my thing when Overtime Elite was like, if I'm going to be in school, I'm going to be at a school with some girls or at the very least some accent. If I'm going to be the best basketball player, anybody has seen around these parts. I'm going to need some girls to tell me how dope I am. I just ain't trying to be around all these dudes making highlights. Yeah, well, so funny is my son went there. And, you know, my son wants to practice and train. So my son was there at, he was on a visit, just trying to see what it was. And he was there about 1 o'clock in the morning. those two are there.

And they said to him, don't come here. You're not going to be challenged with the rest of the guys, right? Just stay in high school. And when he came back, I'm like, how was it? And so I met the twins. I was like, oh, what did they say? And he was like, they told me don't go here. I was like, why?

And then he broke it down. And I was like, well, that makes sense. No, no, no, no, when the locals tell you, no matter where you are, no matter what it is, if the locals tell you, just listen i mean i understood what they're coming from you know yeah there's babies these kids are trying to have fun they they came here for money they didn't come here to be great and that was the problem these who are trying to be great these kids their parents sent them to get checks two different minds right game theory with bobadi joles at hbo we talked about that go check the archives

that is gilbert arena check them out on gills arena check out the podcast check them out on youtube My brother, you're doing an excellent job, man. I appreciate you joining us. Thank you for having me. Appreciate it. All right, ladies and gentlemen, thanks so much for joining us here on The Right Time. We do this three times a week.

That's Sean, you handling everything behind the scenes. Thank you, sir. Remember, follow the right time. Subscribe, like, rate us, review us. Give us five stars. You only give us four stars. I'm inclined to believe you are a hater. And we'll talk to you guys in a couple of days.

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