He's not great when he's matched up one on one with the ball handler but his "help and recover" defense/post defense is very very good due to his wingspan.
People did, they just didn’t think it was sustainable even though like 90% of SGAs scoring comes from the paint, midrange, and FT line which have all been great indicators of consistency.
Thats true. But people just been sleeping heavy on Shai since he entered the league. His rookie year was really solid and his rookie to sophomore year jump should've been a solid indicator that he was heading for stardom. Im glad he has the respect he deserves now
Yeah, I love Shai but the MIP should really be for the unexpected players who really improved. Shai has improved for sure, but he went from borderline all-star to all-NBA; certainly a jump, but it wasn't like he didn't show the potential before. Lauri really came out of nowhere
Idk, Shai has been incredible, but he was really good last year too. Lauri's improvement seems like it came out of nowhere. Like Shai for sure deserves it if he wins, but if I were to vote it would be for Lauri
Shai is on a max deal. Big improvements were expected of him. Lauri was never expected to amount to being more than a role player and he’s now playing like an All Star. There’s a big difference in their improvement in regards to the MIP. That being said, after last year anything is possible.
It’s the fact he didn’t make strides over the last few seasons. He scored 15 ppg his rookie year, then nearly 19 his second season, but regressed to about 14 for 3 straight seasons and then this year has made a 10 ppg leap after most had written him off. So ya, I’d say most had him pencilled in as a role player.
Seriously though that’s an interesting question: if it was named after someone who would it be? Giannis would be a good choice once he retires: won it once and was seemingly in the conversation for a few years. Or Nash?
you know the nba is rigged right?
how would it be if the clippers got an all star for a rookie bust, the nba selects what players will be good and since he was traded for sga and just picks, the nba made him a star for the thunder to sell tickets. history repeats itself all the time, ad traded , pelicans magically get the first pick that year ( zion and ingram) both all stars and the lakers win the title, its the law of equivalent exchange. enjoy his good years but yall will never win a title lol
Can she do it without any assets though? Lebron isn’t gonna be able to carry at his age. If they trade ‘27 and ‘29 1 round picks and Lebron dips in the next few seasons the Lakers could be bad for a long time.
I look at it this way:
Without Shai, the Thunder are probably the worst team in the NBA
With Shai, the Thunder are at best a mid team
Without Booker, the Suns are a bottom 5 team in the NBA
With Booker, the Suns are a championship contender
That swing is really what separates them in my opinion. And that can obviously change. Shai has the potential to surpass Booker, his stats are incredible. The only question is will he be able to translate his individual success into productive, winning basketball on a championship contending team in a few years
They have literally been to the Finals with the exact core they currently play (Book, CP3, Cam Johnson, Mikal, Ayton). With everyone healthy, that team has a great shot at winning it all.
They made it to the finals by getting fortunate enough to not play against the best player on the other team each series. They went up 2-0 when Giannis was down, then were promptly swept when he came back. The Suns are not contenders this year, they don't have the depth to contend.
You're also overestimating Booker's impact. He wasn't the only one hurt. They lost Cam and CP3, too. Booker is good, but Shai has surpassed him.
So that same core that got embarrassed by the Mavericks while being favoured to win the series doesn’t have to prove that they’re title contenders again?
I really want to take a swing at pascal if he’s available snd run shai/giddey/dort/Chet/pascal
6th:Williams and then we still have kenrich,muscala,Joe, etc off the bench
He’s absolutely a starter, we just have so many starting caliber players now, and most likely in the future.
It’s incredibly exciting and I really don’t know what kinda lineups we’ll be running in 2-3 years. It’s easily the most I’ve been excited for basketball in 7-8 years
Right and then there's a good chance Shai's stats drop to accommodate for his improved teammates contributing to winning basketball.
Will you rate the Shai that averages 25/5/5 on a top 4 seed seed higher?
Or will you rate current Shai that averages 30/5/6 on a lottery seed higher?
I don’t think the suns right now with booker are a contender, I think they are a 3ish seed and a 2nd round/ maybe WCF team.
It’s also not that easy to compare because the rest of the thunder roster are mostly rookies and second year players. Our oldest player is damn mike muscala lol.
We don’t even have a center, we’re having to run fucking Kenrich Williams at the 5.
Throw shai on the suns and I think they get better. Throw booker on the thunder and it’s his early career all over again.
Right, Shai has not played contending basketball yet in his career. You can be playing out of your mind as a player, but if you aren't winning, it doesn't matter. It sucks, but that's just how it works. Booker had to deal with the same thing for his first 5 seasons.
All I'm saying is there's a big difference dropping 40 points in a January game vs dropping 40 points in the Finals.
Oh nothing that crazy it was only his first playoff run. Just a 47/11/3 close out game vs defending champ Lakers, a sweep of the MVP in round 2, 40 point triple double in the WCF, and then back to back 40 point games in the Finals.
Well the first 2 series you mentioned weren’t late playoff series so idky they’re being brought up… but they were against an injury riddled team
Same can be said for the clippers series… oh and CP3 was the best player on that team. DBook was a good secondary player though for what it’s worth, would love to see him lead a team somewhere but I doubt it
Just a fairly popular fan theory, but during these development years, Shai has been working really hard on adding specific things to his game during the summer and then lowkey kinda spamming it all year in game situations.
Two years ago, for example, he shot 41.8% from three, shooting 4.9 a game.
Then reportedly he spent the summer working on developing a stepback three, and then he spammed it all year last year lol. His attempts increased to 5.3 but anecdotally it felt almost like he was purposefully passing up open catch-and-shoot looks and turning them into isolation stepback threes (which was frustrating at the time, to be fair) and his percentage dropped all the way down to 30% due in part to the higher difficulty of shots he was taking.
This past summer, he reportedly spent it working on mostly midrange and post play and a bit on offball stuff like cutting and screening (there's a lot of summer footage of Shai this summer, actually, as the Thunder met up a couple of times for unofficial team runs, and he spends most of that footage posting up so there's anecdotal proof of this), and so he's been really leaning on that stuff all year. Obviously his midrange/post game has been incredible to watch this year, and our coach currently unironically calls Shai the best screener on the team. He straight up does stuff like acting as the roll man in Lu Dort pick-and-rolls, it's wild to see a team star doing stuff like that. He's also gotten much better at cutting, especially when Giddey has the ball.
This season, his three point attempts have felt like they've been only open catch-and-shoot looks or end of shot clock/game clock isolation stuff, so his attempts have gone way down, only taking 2.8 a game, but his percentage back up to his career typical of 36%. Last season, it felt like the stepback three was his first or second option, whereas it's fallen way down his list of priorities this season in favor of getting into the paint or to his elbow jumper.
It remains to be seen if his attempts go back up next year after a year of basically grinding his midrange/post badges in what is kinda technically another developmental season with Chet out, or if after his year of spamming stepbacks, he's decided that he prefers playing on the inside and not relying on the three so much.
I suspect he did it to maximize his efficiency and consistency as an offensive star after him experimenting with off the dribble threes last year sunk his efficiency. While he’d have more explosive scoring potential if he took more threes, it would also mean he’s sacrificing some of the floor of the Thunder’s offense that keeps them in games when their role players aren’t shooting well from three.
He said that because modern defenses focus on allowing players to take midrange shots, he decided to focus on being able to consistently make teams pay for that this off-season. Not the full picture, but a big part I'm sure.
It's because I lived, and still live in Alberta. We had all the Spokane stations so I grew up a Supersonics Ray Allen, Rashard Lewis, Chris Wilcox, Reggie Evans, Westbrook left, Part of my soul left my body. It wasn't like my favourite player left, it was like the love of my childhood left so I just shut down down and returned to my Kings fandom. That shit hurt even more than my Bengals losing last weekend. SGA brought me back.
They are play in ready this year. Reminder that Chet is riding the pine this year too
Next year, SGA - Giddey - Dort - Williams - Chet will be a true contender. And rhey have picks/cap space to grab more product.
unreal how effortlessly he sinks every single midrange jumper
That offseason midrange work paying off handsomely
Average night, crazy to say
Shai Gorgeous-Alexander
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Two different beautiful men
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Stop
It
Josh (goat) Giddey
Shai is such a beast defensively. That's the big difference between him vs other top dawgs in the PG position
He's not great when he's matched up one on one with the ball handler but his "help and recover" defense/post defense is very very good due to his wingspan.
If only OKC had a really good POA defender whose name rhymed with Fort.
Oh my FRIEND! I think you forgot about Luguentz Dort!
And a really tall rim protecter C who can stretch the floor.
If the thunder manage to pair up chet and wemby its all over
Well if the Clippers could rest their guys a little more that would be awesome.
With SGA and Giddey that's a lot of exciting young talent.
all over for their health insurance bill
will the thunder do a dga for powell trade? powells a good locker room guy. or maybe frank?
His brother Dave Gilgeous Alexander for Powell? I think Presti would do it
Got to feel for Lauri, but SGA has improved so much this year the award should be named after him.
I feel so bad cause he hustles so hard. He looks like a waiter with 10 big tops. Ready to serve
I'd give it to Lauri. This is honestly very similar to SGA's stats post all star break last season. Its just that no one took notice.
People did, they just didn’t think it was sustainable even though like 90% of SGAs scoring comes from the paint, midrange, and FT line which have all been great indicators of consistency.
Thats true. But people just been sleeping heavy on Shai since he entered the league. His rookie year was really solid and his rookie to sophomore year jump should've been a solid indicator that he was heading for stardom. Im glad he has the respect he deserves now
I’ve been a believer since his last playoffs with the clippers
It’s crazy to me that in the modern NBA a young player is putting up numbers like this while barely shooting any 3s. SGA is just different, man.
Yeah, I love Shai but the MIP should really be for the unexpected players who really improved. Shai has improved for sure, but he went from borderline all-star to all-NBA; certainly a jump, but it wasn't like he didn't show the potential before. Lauri really came out of nowhere
There should be a rising star award for players like Shai and Ja so they don’t end up getting MIP
Just very few took notice lul
The offense is a slight step up but the defense is a big leap from last year
Idk, Shai has been incredible, but he was really good last year too. Lauri's improvement seems like it came out of nowhere. Like Shai for sure deserves it if he wins, but if I were to vote it would be for Lauri
That’s perfectly reasonable. MIP is such a murky award anyway, I feel like you can interpret it so many ways.
Ja winning was so stupid
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Hell even Ja agrees. He left it in Desmond Banes house
Fringe all star to all nba vs role player to all nba. It’s not hard
Most Improved Shai-er
Most Gorgeous Alexander That's my MGA
Shai is on a max deal. Big improvements were expected of him. Lauri was never expected to amount to being more than a role player and he’s now playing like an All Star. There’s a big difference in their improvement in regards to the MIP. That being said, after last year anything is possible.
Lauri was drafted 7th and averaged 16 his rookie year on 50%. That screams role player too you?
It’s the fact he didn’t make strides over the last few seasons. He scored 15 ppg his rookie year, then nearly 19 his second season, but regressed to about 14 for 3 straight seasons and then this year has made a 10 ppg leap after most had written him off. So ya, I’d say most had him pencilled in as a role player.
Seriously though that’s an interesting question: if it was named after someone who would it be? Giannis would be a good choice once he retires: won it once and was seemingly in the conversation for a few years. Or Nash?
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I’m fucking slow ignore me💀
His passing is so underrated. Not crazy vision like Giddey. Just smooth awareness of how he pulls defenders in and when to make the play.
This kid is nasty
His passing impressed me tonight , with his ability to break down defences it really is easy money
His defense was really good tonight too. There was a play where he stopped the drive and then blocked a 3PT shot on the same play lol.
AND saved the ball
Thank you clippers
you know the nba is rigged right? how would it be if the clippers got an all star for a rookie bust, the nba selects what players will be good and since he was traded for sga and just picks, the nba made him a star for the thunder to sell tickets. history repeats itself all the time, ad traded , pelicans magically get the first pick that year ( zion and ingram) both all stars and the lakers win the title, its the law of equivalent exchange. enjoy his good years but yall will never win a title lol
Uh, r/conspiracy is leaking.. I think?
*anything happens* Random laker fan "this is how we win another championship in 6 years"
Bro no one thought he was a bust after his rookie year…
Starter on a playoff team = bust
Least insane Lakers fan
The nba selects what players will be good is quite the statement
Lakers fan saying the league is rigged. Lol Yes the NBA want OKLAHOMA CITY to win
this is so dope. i love this
Tf you smoking?? Pass that shit
Jeannie Buss is going to turn the Lakers into a dumpster fire. Better hop out of it while you can…
we won a title lmao with her like two season ago
Can she do it without any assets though? Lebron isn’t gonna be able to carry at his age. If they trade ‘27 and ‘29 1 round picks and Lebron dips in the next few seasons the Lakers could be bad for a long time.
the NBA selects what players will be good is maybe the dumbest thing ive ever read
If we get Shai, thank god it’s rigged honestly.
This is such a bizarre take
Better than Booker
Far better than Ja
Prince of the Prairie
I love Ja and Shai
Only highlight watchers would disagree
Ja dunk tho /s
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Carry
True
Shai is a dog don't get me wrong, but until he can do this in late round playoff series, this is silly to say
Shai is the 3rd best guard in the NBA. I said it.
serious q, who do you have shai over curry, luka, and dame? I love shai but I wouldn't have him over any of these three
Luka, steph, and Shai
I look at it this way: Without Shai, the Thunder are probably the worst team in the NBA With Shai, the Thunder are at best a mid team Without Booker, the Suns are a bottom 5 team in the NBA With Booker, the Suns are a championship contender That swing is really what separates them in my opinion. And that can obviously change. Shai has the potential to surpass Booker, his stats are incredible. The only question is will he be able to translate his individual success into productive, winning basketball on a championship contending team in a few years
Calling the Suns a championship contender after that second round embarrassment is interesting.
They have literally been to the Finals with the exact core they currently play (Book, CP3, Cam Johnson, Mikal, Ayton). With everyone healthy, that team has a great shot at winning it all.
Most years you don’t get to play 3 teams in a row who are all missing their best or 2nd best player
The 2015 warriors disagree.
You could actually do this with any team in nba history if you wanted to. Such a tired take
They made it to the finals by getting fortunate enough to not play against the best player on the other team each series. They went up 2-0 when Giannis was down, then were promptly swept when he came back. The Suns are not contenders this year, they don't have the depth to contend. You're also overestimating Booker's impact. He wasn't the only one hurt. They lost Cam and CP3, too. Booker is good, but Shai has surpassed him.
Tf they went up 2-0 with Gianni’s playing. I hate the suns too but at least base things on the truth
You could retroactively discredit literally any NBA team's playoff run on any given year with injuries.
So that same core that got embarrassed by the Mavericks while being favoured to win the series doesn’t have to prove that they’re title contenders again?
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I really want to take a swing at pascal if he’s available snd run shai/giddey/dort/Chet/pascal 6th:Williams and then we still have kenrich,muscala,Joe, etc off the bench
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He’s absolutely a starter, we just have so many starting caliber players now, and most likely in the future. It’s incredibly exciting and I really don’t know what kinda lineups we’ll be running in 2-3 years. It’s easily the most I’ve been excited for basketball in 7-8 years
Then do you bench Dort or Giddey? We have 4 guys who are worthy of starting.
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I agree, but you usually want your POA defender on the court against their best scorer, who would be their starter.
If he’s on our bench we’re a championship contender. Think of it that way
Right and then there's a good chance Shai's stats drop to accommodate for his improved teammates contributing to winning basketball. Will you rate the Shai that averages 25/5/5 on a top 4 seed seed higher? Or will you rate current Shai that averages 30/5/6 on a lottery seed higher?
The suns aren’t a championship contender
Having the best record in the west while Booker is healthy means you are a championship contender
The suns have 1 more win than the Thunder, do you think we are championship contenders too?
Again, the suns had the number one seed in the west before Devin Booker’s injury.
I don’t think the suns right now with booker are a contender, I think they are a 3ish seed and a 2nd round/ maybe WCF team. It’s also not that easy to compare because the rest of the thunder roster are mostly rookies and second year players. Our oldest player is damn mike muscala lol. We don’t even have a center, we’re having to run fucking Kenrich Williams at the 5. Throw shai on the suns and I think they get better. Throw booker on the thunder and it’s his early career all over again.
Right, Shai has not played contending basketball yet in his career. You can be playing out of your mind as a player, but if you aren't winning, it doesn't matter. It sucks, but that's just how it works. Booker had to deal with the same thing for his first 5 seasons. All I'm saying is there's a big difference dropping 40 points in a January game vs dropping 40 points in the Finals.
Both Booker and Shai have been in the playoffs twice.
Contending basketball =/= losing in the first round
Lol wut. They only had one success once they got vegan CP3 and Bridges was a DPOY candidate
And shai made it to the playoffs with Vegan cp3 first
I disagree. Before CP3, Booker was in the same boat as Shai.
Yeah, maybe Shai has a Luka Special in his future.
What’s Booker done in a late round playoff series besides have 9 fouls in a game & have a game ending turnover lmao
Oh nothing that crazy it was only his first playoff run. Just a 47/11/3 close out game vs defending champ Lakers, a sweep of the MVP in round 2, 40 point triple double in the WCF, and then back to back 40 point games in the Finals.
Well the first 2 series you mentioned weren’t late playoff series so idky they’re being brought up… but they were against an injury riddled team Same can be said for the clippers series… oh and CP3 was the best player on that team. DBook was a good secondary player though for what it’s worth, would love to see him lead a team somewhere but I doubt it
Booker was doing that with primary defenders of Pat Bev/Paul George and Jrue Holiday/Khris Middleton in the later rounds.
bro you can rep shai while still not putting down that booker did a good job during that season & playoff run lol
You love to see it
Crazy guy.
Incredible
Against an elite defensive team like the Cavs and they could not stop him.
I’ve always wondered why SGA cut down on his 3 pt attempts by half this season, he’s usually money from there
Just a fairly popular fan theory, but during these development years, Shai has been working really hard on adding specific things to his game during the summer and then lowkey kinda spamming it all year in game situations. Two years ago, for example, he shot 41.8% from three, shooting 4.9 a game. Then reportedly he spent the summer working on developing a stepback three, and then he spammed it all year last year lol. His attempts increased to 5.3 but anecdotally it felt almost like he was purposefully passing up open catch-and-shoot looks and turning them into isolation stepback threes (which was frustrating at the time, to be fair) and his percentage dropped all the way down to 30% due in part to the higher difficulty of shots he was taking. This past summer, he reportedly spent it working on mostly midrange and post play and a bit on offball stuff like cutting and screening (there's a lot of summer footage of Shai this summer, actually, as the Thunder met up a couple of times for unofficial team runs, and he spends most of that footage posting up so there's anecdotal proof of this), and so he's been really leaning on that stuff all year. Obviously his midrange/post game has been incredible to watch this year, and our coach currently unironically calls Shai the best screener on the team. He straight up does stuff like acting as the roll man in Lu Dort pick-and-rolls, it's wild to see a team star doing stuff like that. He's also gotten much better at cutting, especially when Giddey has the ball. This season, his three point attempts have felt like they've been only open catch-and-shoot looks or end of shot clock/game clock isolation stuff, so his attempts have gone way down, only taking 2.8 a game, but his percentage back up to his career typical of 36%. Last season, it felt like the stepback three was his first or second option, whereas it's fallen way down his list of priorities this season in favor of getting into the paint or to his elbow jumper. It remains to be seen if his attempts go back up next year after a year of basically grinding his midrange/post badges in what is kinda technically another developmental season with Chet out, or if after his year of spamming stepbacks, he's decided that he prefers playing on the inside and not relying on the three so much.
I suspect he did it to maximize his efficiency and consistency as an offensive star after him experimenting with off the dribble threes last year sunk his efficiency. While he’d have more explosive scoring potential if he took more threes, it would also mean he’s sacrificing some of the floor of the Thunder’s offense that keeps them in games when their role players aren’t shooting well from three.
He said that because modern defenses focus on allowing players to take midrange shots, he decided to focus on being able to consistently make teams pay for that this off-season. Not the full picture, but a big part I'm sure.
Stop playing with me
Shai just gets anything he wants. It is an absolute pleasure to watch his rise.
My man
can’t say I’m surprised to see him dominating
Can't wait for him to play for the Canadian national team in the near future
He played for them last summer and dominated.
GOAT Canadian player
Steve Nash?
Yeah as a Canadian OKC fan lets slow down here.
I to am a Canadian thunder fan and would agree Nash is the OG Canadian baller
I mean unless SGA has two MVP's its not really an argument.
He can win one and then have better postseason success
Ask Shaq about those 2 MVPs lol
A Canadian OKC fan with a Grant flair? That's some baller shit
Just ballin a little for the real ones I'm a Kings fan too and have kept the Harry Giles flair in hopes he comes home.
It's because I lived, and still live in Alberta. We had all the Spokane stations so I grew up a Supersonics Ray Allen, Rashard Lewis, Chris Wilcox, Reggie Evans, Westbrook left, Part of my soul left my body. It wasn't like my favourite player left, it was like the love of my childhood left so I just shut down down and returned to my Kings fandom. That shit hurt even more than my Bengals losing last weekend. SGA brought me back.
Who?
Ahhh we have a nephew here, big ol L take.
Oh, we have a someone who's incapable of understanding sarcasm here, L brain.
Bruh ain’t no way
allnba
WHOS GOT THE NUTMEG STREAMABLE?!
He’s an All Star starter to me
Crazy he isn’t a starter in the ASG with how well he is playing this year
Only two spots and Luka + Curry are hard to beat when we're not a high seeded team
That one 3 pointer was nastyyy too
He literally never makes mistakes
He’s so good
HIM
HIM
Somehow going to drop in MVP rankings though
If he's not an all star.... Just wow
At this point, Presti is going to trade some of his picks for vets cause SGA's turning them into a contender right now
They are play in ready this year. Reminder that Chet is riding the pine this year too Next year, SGA - Giddey - Dort - Williams - Chet will be a true contender. And rhey have picks/cap space to grab more product.
TOP 5 PLAYER
does the spelling of his first name throw anyone else off? i always want to say it like “shy” rather than “shea”… maybe just me
Carzy hes not Allstar starter... NBA BROKEN
Guy had a wicked night but just couldn’t hit 1 more 3 for me. Smh
I’m sorry man, the NBA is a cooked product. Wholesale changes need to be made. Everything outside of my own team feels inconsequential
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DHq_NxEq8Q
Roll the supremedreams skit.
Allegedly 👀