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Former NBA star Gilbert Arenas' son, Alijah Arenas, expressed his gratitude after G League player Amari Bailey gave him a shoutout by showing off his signed trading card on Instagram.
In response, Alijah reshared the post with a heartfelt thank-you message.
"Thank you brother 🤞🏾⭐," he wrote.
A five-star prospect, Alijah Arenas, currently has one of the top NIL valuations in high school basketball. One of the NIL deals he did was with the Panini Trading Cards company, which is known for producing sports trading cards. As part of the deal, the company produces Alijah's trading cards, one of which is the Panini draft cards displayed by Amari Bailey.
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Alijah Arenas, who reclassified up to the 2025 class, is on the verge of ending his high school basketball career. His latest on-court performance was in the McDonald's All-American Game, where he put up 11 points for the Boys West Team.
"I wanna get to that level and even surpass it": Alijah Arenas on wanting to surpass his dad's legacy.
Ahead of Tuesday's McDonald's All-American Game, Alijah Arenas and his father, three-time NBA All-Star Gilbert Arenas, sat down for a quick interview with popular basketball content creator Trey Phills.
In the interview, which Phills shared on his official Instagram page on Saturday, Alijah opened up about his ambition to surpass his dad's legacy:
"Chip on my shoulder but it's like I wanna get to that level and even surpass it. And I feel like that's my dad's dream too, just to be better than him, knowing I could be able to get to that level and just being like, just a generational thing happen. For me that's like really special, just like knowing I have that."
Alijah also touched on some of the similarities he shares with his father:
"Our personalities are a little the same. Our competitiveness is the same, like any arguments inside the house, the car, we take that outside… My dad is a kind of person that likes to work out. Like he just lives in the gym. I'm trying to build that right now too. You as long as I put in the work, stay humble, keep my heads up and then just grins. I feel like I will really just like separate myself from everybody else."
Speaking on their similarities, Gilbert Arenas said:
"You know we both ask questions. We both wanna know the end result, we wanna know the calculations of things. When it comes to like the work ethic, I'm trying to teach him that. Like you might have to face someone like me one day."
Alijah Arenas will join the USC Trojans at the college level next season. He will be joined by four-star guards Jerry Easter and Elsie Harrington, who also committed to the program.
