In the summer of 2010, Gilbert Arenas was a free agent and had been out of the NBA for over three years. After being released from prison in 2009, he found himself with no job and $20 million in debt. He needed to rebuild his reputation and his career.
Gilbert Arenas was a former NBA player who had a late-night encounter with Kobe Bryant. The encounter may have been exactly what he needed to build up his $20 million net worth. Read more in detail here: kobe bryant net worth 2021.
Gilbert Arenas has faded from the basketball landscape in recent years. Agent Zero, on the other hand, proved to be one of the cleanest scorers in the 2000s. That fact, as you would imagine, enabled the guard earn more than $163 million in compensation and amass a net worth of $20 million.
Despite having lots of natural skill, Arenas got a significant boost ahead of his sixth professional season. The guard’s bank account might have looked a lot different if it hadn’t been for a phone call and a late-night meeting with Kobe Bryant.
Gilbert Arenas has a net worth of $20 million because to his attacking prowess.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLFT2KsU 7E
While it’s a cliché to say that defense wins championships, every successful basketball team need someone who can carry the scoring burden. Few players were better at that crucial talent than Arenas during his tenure on the NBA floor.
The guard attended Arizona University and immediately established himself as a strong offensive player. During his two seasons with the Wildcats, he averaged 15.8 points per game, leading the team to the NCAA championship game in 2001 before entering the NBA draft that year.
Arenas fell to the 31st pick on the draft board, but he didn’t skip a beat with the Warriors. Agent Zero improved from 10.9 points per game as a rookie to 18.3 points per game as a sophomore, winning him the 2003 Most Improved Player award. When he became a free agent, the guard was rewarded for his development with a $51 million contract with the Washington Wizards.
Arenas erupted in the nation’s capital. The guard continued to improve and, at his best, averaged 29.3 points per game during the 2005-06 regular season and 34.0 points per game in the playoffs. He seemed to be one of the game’s cleanest scorers, and he was rewarded with a $111 million contract extension.
While things went downhill after that — Arenas notoriously carried firearms into the Wizards locker room and began to suffer from injuries — the guard still made a good living as a professional basketball player. Over the years, he has earned more than $160 million in raw pay and, according to Celebrity Net Worth, is worth an estimated $20 million.
Gilbert Arenas owes at least a portion of his fortune to Kobe Bryant.
During an NBA game, Kobe Bryant and Gilbert Arenas stand together. | G Fiume/Getty Images
To be fair to Agent Zero, he had a great deal of raw ability and could have easily made a decent living without any help. However, a meeting with Kobe Bryant seems to have aided the guard in taking things to the next level.
Arenas, Darius Miles, and Quentin Richardson addressed the lack of a step-by-step roadmap to NBA excellence during an interview on the Knuckleheads podcast. It seems that if you want to be the greatest, you must seek out veterans and learn their techniques of the art.
Arenas said, “I received a call, ‘Hey, what is Kobe doing over there,” without revealing who was on the other end of the line. “Oh yes, he gets up at three a.m., you know, to go to the gym at three a.m.’ ‘No, he isn’t.’ ‘He is,’ says the narrator. I’m going to get a taxi. Let’s get started. Let me have a look. I’m sitting there thinking, ‘Oh, he’s here.’ ‘Oh, he’s really here.’
Agent Zero wasn’t the only one who saw Kobe working out in the early hours of the morning. He saw that the Lakers’ star was drenched in perspiration and pushed himself as though the NBA title was at stake. Everything came together at that point.
“So, I’m writing this down, trying to figure out, ‘Alright, I must put this in because that’s what he’s doing,’” says the author. Arenas went on. “This is what the superstars, the all-stars, are up to. As I enter my fifth year, I have a better understanding of what elite players are doing. They’re working additional hours. They’re really pushing themselves since everything is so game-like that it becomes simple when it comes to the game. That’s what I discovered, but it took me a long time to realize that making just one phone call was simply being nosy.”
Arenas’ career-high scoring statistics came in his fifth season, for reference. To be blunt, if it hadn’t been for that offensive explosion, the guard would never have gotten his $111 million contract extension. While correlation does not imply causation, it’s worth noting that Agent Zero improved his game after seeing Kobe’s work ethic firsthand.
Many athletes learned what it meant to be a pro from Kobe Bryant.
Even if Agent Zero didn’t directly cause Gilbert Arenas’ offensive explosion as a result of his meeting with the Black Mamba, it’s fair to say he learned a thing or two from watching Kobe operate. Bryant, on the other hand, was no stranger to instructing players on what it meant to be a professional.
Take Julius Randle, for example. The big guy made his first professional trip to Dallas during his second season. While he thought this meant he’d be able to enjoy a night out, Bryant had other plans and drove him to the gym.
While the change of plans was upsetting, Kobe’s intervention taught Kentucky’s product a vital lesson.
“Of course, Kobe was aware that we were in my hometown. Of course he was aware. But it wasn’t like he was a terrible guy or anything,” Randle said. “It was more like — he was attempting to teach me a lesson via the circumstance. The lesson here is that you can’t go to the next level in this league by just putting in that amount of effort part of the time. It must be all of the time. There is no such thing as a sacrifice that isn’t accompanied by a sacrifice.”
In his own Players’ Tribune article, Allen Iverson recounted a similar experience. During his rookie season, the 76ers’ star arrived in Los Angeles with the intention of having a good time. The Black Mamba, on the other hand, intended to go to the gym rather than the club.
A.I. stated, “You’re possibly the only guy in the history of the game whose mystery wasn’t overblown.” “The Mamba wasn’t a legend, dude. It didn’t even come close to doing you justice. We knew where you were at one, two, and three a.m.”
It was difficult to find a greater role model than Kobe Bryant if you wanted to learn from him.
Basketball-Reference provided the statistics. Spotrac provided the financial data.
As a young NBA player, Kobe Bryant would “sit alone” on team planes and “watch Michael Jordan interviews.”
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