Self-proclaimed Lakers bandwagoner, Gilbert Arenas, is kinda-sorta back on LakeShow. He had been aggressively excited about Luka Doncic’s physical transformation this summer, putting the West on notice. Until he brought back Gil’s Arena through Polymarket with a new cast, and suddenly, he’s got an iffy forecast. He’s anticipating a steep drop in ticket demand at Crypto.com Arena, casting serious doubt on the Los Angeles Lakers’ ability to avoid the play-in tournament this season.
During a fiery discussion on Gil’s Arena with Brendan Haywood, Iman Shumpert, and Evan Turner, Arenas swung back and forth in his opinion of the Lakers. While he loves what a leaner Luka Doncic is bringing to the table, he feels that without elite star power alongside him, ticket prices ought to resemble the franchise’s lean post-Kobe Bryant rebuilding years. When Johnson asked the panel about their expectations for the Lakers, Arenas immediately took aim at the secondary market value of Crypto.com Arena’s tickets.
“I expect to get season tickets for real cheap this year,” Arenas declared. “Them tickets need to go down. It’s like when, you know, it was like Nick Young, Robert Sacre…”
The comment drew an immediate reaction from former NBA champion Brendan Haywood, who questioned Arenas’ economic logic regarding Southern California sports markets.
“So, why you expect—why you ticket prices to go down? What? Why you expect—I’m saying, why does he expect the ticket prices to go down?” Haywood asked. “Normally when there’s gentrification, prices go up. What you talking about?”
Even Shump and Turner were baffled. Returning host, Josiah Johnson, slightly defended Gil, joking, “This ain’t real estate. I want you to go there. This ain’t real estate. Hey, man. Hey, this ain’t real estate. Yeah. It ain’t enough tattoos up there.”
Former 2010 National Player of the Year Evan Turner chimed in with his own quip about roster construction, adding, “We need a Kawhi on the team. That’s too many Collins. Like, too many exciting whites.”
Even Shump brought the meme going around, calling this team the ‘Snow-Time Lakers.’
Maybe Arenas is not wrong. For the first time in eight seasons, the Lakers aren’t on the marquee opening night of the NBA season for 2026-27, for the first time since 2018. They’ve opened the NBA season alongside whichever reigning champ had their ring ceremony for all eight seasons of LeBron James’ tenure in LA.
Now that he’s gone to Philadelphia, the 76ers won’t just play the Knicks on opening night, but they are scheduled for a franchise-record 34 nationally televised games and are already seeing a massive surge in ticket prices.
LakeShow, meanwhile, is still reeling after Mark Walters raised ticket prices and resold the Lakers to Josh Kushner and Bob Iger within a year. Even Jeanie Buss is locked in a battle for the governorship with her five siblings. With no clear decision-maker in the organization, fans aren’t sure what will happen with infrastructure.
In terms of rotation, though, Lakers fans disagree with Arenas, whom they aren’t very accepting of. The 3x All-Star was a diehard Lakers supporter when Doncic & Co. were on a tear earlier this year.
Because he was not getting the Doncic-LeBron-Austin Reaves team-up he fantasized about, he declared midseason he wasn’t interested in the Lakers and would resume watching them in the playoffs. In the postseason, he cleanly switched to the Knicks. Once he saw Luka’s slimmer look in the Slovenian mini-camp, he was back.
Beyond ticket pricing, Arenas and his new crew debated whether Doncic alone can carry the Lakers directly into the Western Conference playoff bracket. While Haywood stood firm in his belief that Doncic guarantees a baseline level of wins, former NBA champion Iman Shumpert and Evan Turner insisted the team remains bound for the play-in tournament.
“Hold on. Y’all don’t think the Lakers going to make the playoffs?” Haywood asked the panel. Shumpert quickly responded, calling them “the play-in” bound Lakers, while Turner noted they might do well once there.
Haywood pushed back, maintaining his faith in Doncic’s offensive dominance. “In the West, I rock with Luka like that,” Haywood asserted, to which Arenas agreed, “Yes.”
Shump countered by highlighting last season’s struggles, pointing out, “No, they was teetering last year.” When Arenas interjected that “we was never teetering,” Shumpert fired back, “Get the f— off at the end of the season last…” Really, Arenas doesn’t get to debate ‘teteering’ when he opted not to watch the Lakers for that reason.
Arenas still somehow believes the Lakers aren’t worth an exorbitant viewing price while also being confident they’re a playoff team. But the panel made it clear that Luka Doncic’s team faces a razor-thin margin for error in the West.