The Miami Heat recently announced that Dwyane Wade will be getting a statue outside the Kayesa Center in Miami as a mark of honor for everything he did for the franchise.
This honor got Gilbert Arenas, Brandon Jennings, Kenyon Martin, and Josiah Johnson discussing whether Kevin Durant will receive a similar honor for the Golden State Warriors when he retires. This led to Arenas making a joke about Draymond Green choking Durant’s statue.
(Starts at 46:09)
Brandon Jennings: “(On Durant deserving a statue) Hell yeah! Yes, in Golden State. We gotta stop this.”
Gilbert Arenas: “No. What does a statue say?”
Brandon Jennings: “I’m him and I was impactful…”
Gilbert Arenas: “I came, I saw, I conquered… Pippen have how many championships over there (Chicago Bulls)? Does he got a statue? Does Rodman got a statue?”
Brandon Jennings: “Derek Fisher should get one then! Those are f**king role players. No f**king role player deserves a f**king statue.”
Gilbert Arenas: “He played just two years. You can’t be giving statues to people that played less than 3 years.”
Arenas started accepting the possibility of Durant getting a statue before bursting into a joke about Draymond Green.
“Draymond gonna choke the sh*t out that statue… And that statue should be in Oakland and not in San Francisco.”
Jennings and Arenas both agreed that players like Klay Thompson don’t need statues outside the Warriors arena. Even though Thompson is integral to their championship core, he was never the No. 1 option for the team and the one bringing fans into the stands.
This is an interesting conversation to have, but the chances KD gets a statue anywhere are slim to none. Durant might not even get a jersey retirement for his brief stint with the Warriors. In my opinion, he deserves to have his jersey in their rafters because he made the Warriors’ winning titles in 2017 and 2018 a foregone conclusion.
Which Active Players Deserve Statues?
Fadeaway World recently analyzed which players on active NBA rosters have contributed enough to get a statue outside their home arenas. While it is a small list of eligible players, there are players around the NBA who have contributed enough to one franchise to get the ultimate mark of honor with a statue.
LeBron James and Stephen Curry are the two names that indisputably will get statues from the teams that drafted them. The Cavaliers owe all of their 21st century success to LeBron-led teams, while Curry brought four titles as a Warriors lifer. James might even receive a second statue from the Miami Heat for his four-year stint with two titles.
Giannis Antetokounmpo and Nikola Jokic look well on their way to securing statues from the Bucks and Nuggets respectively. Both franchises don’t have any player statues outside their arenas, so these two could be prime candidates depending on how they finish out their careers.
It’s far too early to tell if the likes of Luka Doncic, Devin Booker, Jayson Tatum, and even Shai Gilgeous-Alexander could one day elevate to this level. If they lead their franchises to titles and spend 15 years on their franchise, it might be possible, but it’s far too early to say one way or the other.
