Michael Jordan’s son Marcus was recently in the news after a few interesting pictures of him surfaced online. In them, the 33-year-old was seen snorting a white substance while vacationing in the south of France. Fans on social media mocked and chastised the father-son duo for the indecent act. Gilbert Arenas also joined in on criticizing the six-time NBA champion, but it wasn’t because of his son’s shenanigans.
During a live stream with Brandon Jennings on the Arenasphere YouTube channel, the former Wizards star called out Jordan for not using a PR team or the legal apparatus at his disposal to stop the images and stories about it from circulating online.
He compared it to Lakers guard Bronny James’ indiscretion in 2020. Arenas claimed that his father LeBron James managed to get the videos of the incident scraped off the internet and the story buried. He argued that Jordan should’ve done the same, saying,
“After the Olympics, I got LeBron James as the GOAT. Not because of the Olympics itself, the game. I mean, because Michael Jordan’s son got in trouble and Michael Jordan didn’t get that scrubbed off the internet…While LeBron was on the road, little Bronny got caught up in some sh*t and you can’t find none of that no more.”
The incident involving Bronny that Arenas referred to happened when James was locked inside the NBA Bubble. The young guard, who was 16 at the time, posted an astonishing clip on Instagram of him smoking marijuana. While cannabis is legal in California, James’ son using recreational drugs was the antithesis of the image that the four-time MVP and his team have carefully crafted over two decades.
While the video went viral at the time, the story has seemingly been long forgotten. According to Arenas, fans no longer talk about the incident because James managed to get it scrubbed off social media. The retired star claimed Jordan could’ve done the same with pictures of Marcus allegedly using an illegal substance, but didn’t bother to.
There’s no evidence backing Arenas’ claim about James using his influence to bury the video of Bronny smoking marijuana. Most fans joked about it before dismissing it as nothing more than a teenager trying a legal recreational drug.
On the contrary, the allegations against Marcus are a bit more serious and cannot be swept under a rug. Hence, the father-son duo received a lot more flak than Bronny and the four-time MVP did, and not due to James’ influence.