After Saving Bronny James From Jaylen Brown Scrutiny, Gilbert Arenas Shields No. 2 Draft Pick After 0 Point Disaster

Gilbert Arenas has been the true sympathizer of NBA rookies this Summer League. The 3x All-Star has advocated for cutting some slack to Bronny James on multiple instances now. And more recently, he has come forward in the defense of his former team’s rookie, who also is the 2nd overall pick of 2024 NBA draft.

Washington Wizards’ Alex Sarr had a rather disastrous game against the Portland Trail Blazers in the Summer League. Despite playing 30 minutes in the game, Sarr finished the game with 0 points. He shot 0-for-15 from the field and 0-for-7 from behind the arc, recording 3 assists, 9 rebounds and 3 blocks. However, despite this abysmal shooting, Arenas has found a silver lining in this gameplay. “The fact that you took 15 shots, I like the aggression… I’d rather him go 0 for 15 than 0 for 5,” he said on the podcast. 

The argument behind Gil’s opinion is that most players would get nervous reaching 0 of 5. Kenyon Martin also supported Gil’s opinion by reminding he himself went 4 for 16 in his first two games. Further in the podcast, Arenas argued that the Summer League is just “different waters than what these kids are used to.” He stated no matter how good these players were in college, they need time to adjust.

And there have been multiple players who, despite a sub par start to their career, later turned around the tables for them. As stated earlier, this is not the first instance that Gilbert Arenas has taken a stand for a rookie in the Summer League. The 3x All-Star even used Jaylen Brown’s stats as an example days after the Celtics star stated he does not think “Bronny is a pro.” Gil pointed out Brown, in his summer league’s first three games, was  5-26 from the field, while Bronny is 6-26. “No one bashed him (Brown) and he was the third pick in the draft,” Gil said.

However, things have been much worse for Sarr recently. In his last two games, the Wizards rookie is 1-of-21 from the field and 0-for-7 from beyond the arc. But, is the no. 2 draft pick as terrible as he lately seems?

Alex Sarr may still have hope despite the blunder against Blazers

Before his selection in the NBA, Sarr played season 2023-24 with Perth Wildcats in Australia’s National Basketball League (NBL). Playing 24 games in the season, he averaged 9.7 points with 52.0 field goal percentage. Apart from this, he averaged 4.4 rebounds, 1.3 blocks per game.

Prior to NBL, Sarr had also played two seasons in the Overtime Elite Program as well. In season 2022-23, he averaged 11.1 points with 47.8 field goal shooting percentage and 30.0 three-point shooting percentage. Additionally, he managed to stack 6.4 rebounds and 1.1 blocks per game in the season. The above stats may not be exceptional, but are enough to reflect that Alex can be trusted with time to grow, as stated by Gilbert Arenas.

And the Wizards’ rookie had displayed this promising potential with his debut game of the summer league. He scored 12 points,7 rebounds, 4 assists, and 4 blocks in the game, showing proficiency on both ends. Doing so, he shot 4-for-12 from the field and 2-for-5 from the three-point line. Now it’s to be seen if Sarr can revisit the level of his debut game and grow upon that.