Michael Jordan’s $163million replacement charged room service to teammates after blowing salary gambling

Gilbert Arenas once declared himself the GOAT after making $62 million for playing just 17 games.

The three-time NBA All-Star was never short of confidence and once convinced kids to chant, ‘MJ sucks, Gilbert’s better’ at Air Jordan’s own basketball camp despite being a teenager at the time.

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The hooper went to the Golden State Warriors in the second round of the 2001 draft and his career took off two years later when he dropped 41 points on MJ’s Washington Wizards just as he was about to become a free agent.

He wound up signing a six-year, $60 million deal with Washington as a 21-year-old and took Jordan’s old locker.

Arenas has admitted to “stealing” the icon’s gear, including his orthotics, which he shaved to fit his own foot arches and wore in games.

The Orlando Magic gave him a 6-year, $111 million contract in 2011, but he became the first played to be waived under the new amnesty clause after the lockout and was paid the remaining $62 million to stay home.

“It was funny to me when the media was laughing at me ‘cause I got amnestied,” he later revealed. “I’m like, ‘Do you know they’re gonna cut me and give me all my money?’ So, therefore, I’m gonna get all my money without actually doing anything. And you’re laughing at me why?

“$62 million to sit on the couch? Sounds amazing to me.”

A brief 17-game stint for the Memphis Grizzlies in 2012 was his last stop in The Association after a career which earned him in the region of $163 million.

Not that he kept all lot of it.

“I didn’t know I could order room service and charge it to the room,” he said on The OGs about an incident early in his career. “And then I realized I had to pay for that.

“So I started charging it to other people’s rooms. ‘This is Larry Hughes, I’m in this room, can I get two hamburgers?’

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“I lost my per diem gambling. Trying to double up. I had $120 and needed it to last the whole trip.

“Other than that I was waiting for people to push their plates out into the hallway. Walking the halls at 11, 12 at night looking for leftover room service. Taking all the fruit and vegetables off the trays. I had to survive. I didn’t have any money.”

Arenas has since launched a successful career in media and teamed up with Underdog on Gil’s Arena — a podcast with over a million YouTube subscribers.

He was noticeably absent in the run-up to the NBA Finals, however, with Skip Bayless in the chair off the back of burying the hatchet with Stephen A. Smith to appear on First Take.

Arenas later posted a clip on social media hinting that he could quit his own show.

“I’m not sure they like me anymore. I just, I don’t know,” he said. “I’m just going to let you all know.

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“No different than NBA. Just remember this, chat, words are powerful, just like in the NBA. When people start writing the team is better without them, that player reads it, that player believes it, that player starts acting like it.

“If you all saying this show is better without me and the producers say, ‘hey, fans, they don’t care if he’s here or not.’

“But I’m on vacation, so I don’t need to be at work. I’m Finals. I think I’m on Finals duty, not this one.”

Arenas sold sold 50 percent of his show to Underdog in order to leverage the platform to ramp up production.

“I did fifty-fifty ownerships to get the foundation because I had no idea what it took to run shows,” he said. “Now I understand how to run shows. So I don’t need to do fifty-fifties no more. It’s called growth.”

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The channel has since been rebranded to The Arena.

Arenas appeared in a personal studio to clear things up.

“I think I said this like a couple of months ago that my contract is up this year, and then after my contract’s up, I will own the name of my show,” Arenas said. “I thought I said that, and I think they purposely nobody wanted to listen.”

Arenas’ brand was central to the show’s success and it looks like his is going it alone.

By keeping all the profits, he will be able to order all the room service he wants.

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