“I Got So Depressed from the Dunk”: Former NBA Player Gilbert Arenas Recalls His First Encounter with Vince Carter

Gilbert Arenas is one of the most underrated NBA players in history. Throughout his 11 year-long career, Arenas was a three-time NBA All-Star and won the most improved player award in 2004. The point guard finished his career with 11,000 points.

There was a time Arenas didn’t think he belonged in the NBA. On his ‘No Chill’ Podcast, Arenas described the first time he played against an All-Star like Vince Carter, with the Golden State Warriors. He said, “I’m not even going to lie to bruh. My first game we played against Vince Carter… I’m in there cocky. ‘He’s trash man, the TV makes these players look better than they really are.’ He missed like two straight shots, so I’m already like ‘I knew he was trash.’“

Arenas then revealed that the trash talk did not sit well with Carter and said, “Then he got mad, and got into the post – spin move and cocked it – BOOM. I jumped out of my seat like ‘Yo MY GOD’. I’m on the court like ‘YO DID Y’ALL SEE THAT’. Then I had to realize I was in the NBA – ‘Oh, my bad.’…. It was the best thing I’d ever seen.”

Gilbert Arenas loses his confidence

After the excitement of the dunk, Arenas started to introspect on his abilities. He said, “But what ended up happening was, reality kicked in and I’m like ‘he just did that to Jason Richardson… and I’m ’I can’t even play in this league bruh’. And I got so depressed from the dunk realizing I don’t have this type of athleticism. So I spent probably the first part of the season thinking ‘I can’t do this’.”

It was when someone told Arenas to focus on his strength that he found his mojo. He said, “I was doing that to myself, and then someone said, ‘why you keep looking at them for what you can’t do? Why don’t you start looking at what they can’t do? You have speed, you can shoot, you can score. Now, look at the game like that. Now, look at the position you play. Can those players stop what you do?’ So then I had to refocus from the stars and start going to the two.”

Arenas credits his success to his change in mindset and claimed, “My whole perspective changed because I looked at it different. Then once I got there, I took off. Then when those same two-guards that I was afraid of got in front of me, ‘you guys are trash’…. From there I just took off. But it is the way you look at the game. We tend to look at what we can’t do because someone else can do it. Instead of looking at what we can do and they can’t do.”

Gilbert Arenas played for many teams across his career. After leaving Golden State, he played for the Washington Wizards, Orlando Magic, and the Memphis Grizzlies. He retired from basketball in 2012 after a stint in the Chinese Basketball League.