Swaggy P wasn’t having it! He was quite upset with his former teammate’s comment on Kobe Bryant. Throughout his career with the Lakers, Kobe Bryant won three back-to-back championship titles alongside Shaquille O’Neal in the early 2000s. After O’Neal’s departure, he won two more. However, Gilbert Arenas feels that the basketball legend wasn’t among the top 15 NBA players in the 2000s. Arguing with these claims, Swaggy P made an odd demand.

Going live on Instagram, Nick Young explained his disappointment with Agent Zero’s comment. He also argued that Shaq wouldn’t have been able to lead the Lakers to a championship without Bryant. He said that even with the Orlando Magic, O’Neal had players like Penny Hardaway to support him. 

“No chill motherf—–g Gil. Said out his goddamn mouth. Kobe was probably best 15. Was probably the top 15? He was 15 in 2000. From 2000 to… 15! I can’t name 15 people better than Kobe Bean Bryant from 2000 to 2010. Matter of fact, from ’99 to 2010, Kobe was the number one best player in the league. You could say Shaq, Shaq-Kobe, nah, can’t do that. Shaq didn’t win. It’s obvious. Back in the day, it was the one star team league basically.”

While speaking at the Playback stream of the Knicks vs. Bucks, Young claimed that Bryant was the best player in the 2000s. Arenas was quick to argue and said that this isn’t true since the Lakers legend had averaged 22 points across 66 games in 1999-2000. He said, “Kobe wasn’t even top 15 then… He averaged 22 points, bro. He wasn’t him yet.” 

“Shaq never got it by himself. And it’s hard to agree with… Well, look at my point of view. He says, ‘Shaq was the most dominant,’ the most dominant should be able to win by himself. Shaq by himself never won. He got to that with Penny. By himself he got bounced out first round. I know somebody was a guard, by itself, took his team to the Finals.” Young said.

Following that, he demanded that everyone should get dr-g-tested before the show. He captioned his post, “Everyone go put d-pe under @no.chill.gil post he said Kobe wasn’t top 10 in 2000-01 matter fact he said Kobe was 15 best player in the league at the time .. we need to start dr-g testing on shows.” How did Arenas back up his claims?

To prove his point, he also pulled out the 2000 MVP voting list to show that Kobe was placed 12th. There are several factors in the league that could have placed Bryant in the 12th position, but that doesn’t deny the fact that he was a skilled superstar in the 2000s.

He worked hard to elevate his skills and showed great mettle. His work ethic, witnessed by the people around him, says a lot. And Young, who is aware of it, would know better. He once shared a hilarious story about him and Bryant.

Kobe Bryant assumed Nick Young was faking his pain

Bryant is one of a kind. He is the only one who would use his injury as fuel to motivate himself. When Dwyane Wade accidentally broke Bryant’s nose, he used it as motivation to do better in the next game. He once also accidentally broke his former teammate Young’s thumb. As Young once detailed, Bryant didn’t realize it and thought that he was faking his injury.

“He didn’t believe I was hurt or something that he thought I was trying to sit out practice and stuff,” he said. Everyone knows how Bryant wanted his teammates to practice as hard as he did. There are stories of how he would step into the gym early morning before anyone was there and would leave the last.

Young added, “‘You faking man, you better start practicing’. And the whole practice he was throwing me the ball extra hard to me so hard I was catching it with one hand like c’mon man, damn, I told you my thumb hurt.”

It was only after the trainer had explained about the X-ray results that Bryant believed him. “I will try to sit down and ‘Nah Nick, you got to practice,’ and the trainer had to tell him, ‘His thumb is broken. We just did an X-ray’,” Young explained. However, once Bryant realized it, he apologized.

Watching Bryant’s game so closely, it is understandable why Young disagreed with Arenas’ opinion.