Gilbert Arenas explains why he declined to send son to elite basketball school

Gilbert Arenas’ son Alijah looks like he is following in his father’s footsteps and on his way to becoming a basketball star. And Gilbert decided to take a somewhat unusual path with his son.

Alijah Arenas attends Chatsworth High School in Chatsworth, Calif. He averaged 30.3 points per game as a freshman and 33.0 points per game this past season as a sophomore. 

He is very clearly a standout player and has established himself as a top recruit for the class of 2026.

While Chatsworth is a fine public school and has produced the likes of former Patriots/Chiefs quarterback Matt Cassel, as well as MLB All-Star Mike Moustakas, it’s far from being a standout when it comes to high school basketball. 

It’s not in the same league as some of the other powerhouse high school basketball programs in the Los Angeles area, such as Sierra Canyon, Notre Dame or Harvard-Westlake, to name a few.

So why did Gilbert send his son there? It’s not like the former NBA player does not have the means to send his son to an expensive private high school. Rather, Gilbert thought it would be better for his son’s development to not be on a team with several star recruits surrounding him.

On his “No Chill Gil” show, Arenas took viewers through his thought process.

“I looked at all high-level players. I went through all the Sierra Canyon kids, all the top-ranked kids and all the grouped-up kids, and where they finished off. I realized all the group kids were role players. Every single one of them,” Arenas said of his research.

“So I’m like, ‘why are they role players?’ You start realizing, they have the best team. All of the guys are five-star, just beating on people. Which means none of them are ever really being tested, none of them are going 100 percent the whole game,” Arenas said. “Put them over there and the other kids are smaller, but he’s being double- and triple-teamed. He never gets to play one-on-one basketball.”

Arenas discussed the benefits of putting his son on a team that didn’t have quite as much star power.

“So that means for the whole game, he has to play hard the whole game. Which means he’s turning into something else. He has to individually try to do everything to keep his team involved. … He can’t take plays off.”