Gilbert Arenas: No one will give LeBron credit for future rings if he’s at 15 PPG

Around a quarter into the Los Angeles Lakers’ 2025-26 regular season, one can argue that star forward LeBron James hasn’t even served as a top-two scoring option for the team. He’s accustomed to putting the ball through the net at a high level, as he’s averaged 27.0 points per game for his NBA career, yet he’s averaging a career-low 16.5 thus far in his 23rd pro campaign.

Former Washington Wizards star Gilbert Arenas thinks that if James isn’t carrying a big part of the scoring load, folks won’t give him credit if he goes on to win more rings in the future. Arenas seems to think that a scoring average around 15 points per game wouldn’t be enough.

He did specify, however, that if James were to win one now while averaging around 20 points per game, that would be a different story.

“You gotta really be a No. 1 or No. 2 option,” Arenas said. “That’s why I said when people chase it at the end, have they not noticed? No one actually gives you credit for it. There’s people who got championships that you didn’t even know they had ’em ’cause they got one just sitting on somebody bench at the end of they career.”

Arenas then spoke about James.

“Listen, no, if he wins one right now averaging 20-something, he’s still the second option,” he said. “But if he just — if he waits two more years and then he averaging 15, 16 and then he wins two more, ain’t nobody gonna give him credit for that. It’d just be himself.”

Even if James isn’t scoring the ball at the level he’s accustomed to this season, he’s still impacting the game at a high level in other ways. He’s averaging 7.6 assists and 6.0 rebounds per game across eight contests played thus far.

Plus, with all of the scoring the Lakers have gotten from their starting backcourt of Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves, the NBA’s oldest player hasn’t had to put up points like he did in the past. Doncic is leading the league in scoring at 35.0 points per game, and Reaves has been one of the biggest breakout players in the NBA this season, averaging a career-high 27.8 points per contest.

James might not have to be an offensive threat that’s capable of scoring 30-plus points every night for the Lakers to compete for a title in 2026. After all, despite the limited scoring production Los Angeles has gotten from him (at least by his standards), the team has one of the best records in the West at 17-7 and sits just one game back of the No. 2 seed.

If the Lakers win a title in 2026, whether James would get any outside credit for the accomplishment probably wouldn’t matter much to him. Regardless of what anyone were to say, he would be a five-time NBA champion, and that would be an indisputable fact.