Gilbert Arenas: Lute Olson said I was better than Mike Bibby entering the NBA

Gilbert Arenas can be brash.

The former NBA star and Arizona Wildcats guard isn’t afraid to hold back personal feelings or share insight and stories on particular subjects — especially when talking to his basketball peers.

Just over the last year on Instagram live with Richard Jefferson, Arenas has blamed UA’s 2001 national championship game loss to Duke —  the "Dukies" and "snobs," as he calls them —  on Jefferson’s defense against Mike Dunleavy Jr., and said Tommy Lloyd “doesn’t have the credentials” to be the current head coach of the Wildcats, “because you're an assistant coach. OK? You assist.” 

Arenas' latest eye-opening comments have to do with Lute Olson and Mike Bibby. While on the Showtime podcast, “All the Smoke,” Arenas broke down what happened when he finished up his sophomore season at Arizona and was deciding between returning for his junior season or declaring for the NBA draft.

Jefferson said he saw a news headline that highlighted his highly-anticipated decision after Jefferson, Michael Wright and Loren Woods all decided to leave school early for the NBA. 

Then-UA head coach Lute Olson gave Arenas a confidence booster for his life-changing decision, according to “Agent Zero.” 

“‘Go,'" Arenas said, recalling his conversation with Olson. "He told me before the season, ‘I don’t expect you to be here after this year.’ He said, ‘Right now, you’re better than Mike Bibby.’ I’m like, ‘Mike Bibby from his freshman year?’ He said, ‘No, you’re better than Mike Bibby right now as an NBA player.’” 

Added Arenas: “I was leaning towards going, but if they would’ve said, ‘All right, we’re going to stay and go for it,’ I would’ve stayed, because at that point, I wasn’t playing to be an NBA player.” 

In 2001, Arenas was a First Team All-Pac-10 selection and averaged 16.2 points, 3.6 rebounds and 2.3 assists per game, while Bibby was posting 15.9 points and 8.4 assists per contest as the starting point guard for the Sacramento Kings.

After a two-year stint with the Golden State Warriors, Arenas broke out as an NBA star with the Washington Wizards; between 2004-07, he averaged 25-plus points per game and was a three-time All-Star. 

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Arenas talked on the podcast about the first time he met Olson, during an in-home visit in Los Angeles. 

“Lute came into the house and said, ‘Listen, I’ve never seen you play until I got on the plane. You have the type of style that I like. If you want to come, it’s whoever decides first between you, Kevin Gaines and Jimmy Hayward, and I was like, ‘OK?’” Arenas said. 

“I went to take a trip (to the UA) and they had some little scrimmage there with Michael Dickerson and them — and I was balling. I was like, ‘Oh, yeah. I’m coming here.’” 

Co-host Stephen Jackson then interrupted Arenas.

“You didn’t get the pancakes from Mrs. Olson?” Jackson, a one-time Arizona commit, asked Arenas. “She makes them for everybody.” 

Olson’s wife, Bobbi Olson, was famously known for making apple-cinnamon pancakes for recruits on their visits.

“That’s the best thing about the trip,” Jackson added.

Arenas said he appreciated the fact that Olson never gave up on him despite some off-court struggles.

“I hope I’m a coach like him, because you have to remember, I’m immature. I was ‘Dennis the Menace.’ First of all, I should’ve been kicked out of school or benched, and he never punished me on that basketball court," Arenas said.

 "He never let what I was doing outside affect my playing time. If I was going to get benched, it was for something that I did in practice. If I didn’t go to class, he'd would be like, ‘Alright, you don’t want to go to class? (Run) five miles at 6 a.m. under 30 minutes.’ I was like, ‘Alright.’ I looked at it as ‘I’m just getting in shape.’

"But he never punished me for what I was doing and I have to respect that, because (if it were) any other coach, I’d be deep sitting on the bench.”