Ben Small

[Clemente Almanza @CAlmanza1007]

Probably the best moment from what Sam Presti said today. Went scorched earth on all of the SGA narratives that have been bubbling up over the years:

Of all the things that I've talked to Shai about, this is actually one I've never talked to him about. He's probably going to kill me for talking about this, truthfully.

First of all, let me just start with the opposing coaches for one second. The post-game press conference has turned into the bully pulpit to create competitive advantage. I mean, we know what that is. It used to be you'd get up there, you'd talk about your own team. Now everyone gets up there and they talk about the officials and they discredit the other team. Again, like they're great competitors, so we know why that's happening, and I don't fault them because I think they may think it works.

So the question is why are they continuing to do it? Because there's financial incentives not to do it. But everyone's competing. Let's also recognize that it's the bully pulpit for competitive advantage, and that's what it's kind of turned into, which is part of competing. We all get that.

Relative to Shai and the narrative on that, he's playing against six people. He's got five defenders, and the sixth defender is social media. That's a reality. He's not going to be the last player that the machine decides to target, but no one's going to handle it as gracefully because, when they turn it on somebody else, they're not going to step up there every night and not acknowledge it.

A couple things more just on the whole topic. We think all the time or we hear all the time about things that people don't like about the NBA, which are inaccurate, but they're narratives that exist on the alternate reality.

One, players don't play defense. Shai's a two-end player. Now, he plays with four or five All-NBA defensive players, so sometimes his defensive ability gets undersold, but he plays two ends.

Second, all NBA players do is complain, bitch and moan and try to intimidate the officials with bad behavior in the games to give foul calls. He's gotten three technical fouls this year. None for complaining. One for waving a towel in support of someone that hit a shot that doesn't play very often. Okay. So he's not doing that.

The other thing is load management. Nobody plays. They take all these games off. Shai plays every night. He missed a bunch of games this year for an oblique strain, and we might give him a night off two or three times a year, maybe. But he plays back-to-backs. He plays heavy minutes. He plays against good teams. He plays against teams that are bad teams. He plays every night. His consistency is well documented. So you can't get him on that.

The next one is all you do is shoot 3s. NBA players, all they do is shoot 3s. Okay. Well, he's brought the mid-range back to an art form. He's transcendent for any generation, any player. That's why like older players love his game.

It's also one of the reasons he gets fouled a lot. Because he plays in the mid-range because we don't call the landing space fouls in the mid-range the way we do at the 3-point line, right, because he's avoiding that oftentimes because there's too many bodies in there. With the 3-point shot, you can see it easily, and I think a lot of times he's trying to avoid that. So he's not a guy that's just launching 3s. So we can check that off the box.

The other one is like these guys are just totally inaccessible. They're in their own world. Well, the guy signs 400 autographs before every game. Before the Western Conference Finals Game 7, he's signing autographs.

So we've got a litany of things that generally the narrative is about NBA players that they do wrong. Well, based on those narratives, I don't agree with them, but he would be doing them right. And he doesn't really complain about any of it. So if we're just talking about trying to draw fouls, well, every other great player in the NBA, that's part of the game is drawing fouls.

He drew 415 fouls this year; 11 were challenged. 11. Four of those were overturned. So that's like 2 1/2 percent of the foul calls were actually challenged. Again, that's part of the bully pulpit part of this thing, which I get and it's part of competing.

As far as those fouls, I think in the fouls drawn -- I had this written down here -- he's tied with Embiid for 8 and 9 in terms of number of fouls drawn in the season. 6 and 7 are Jaylen Brown and Wembanyama. So that's kind of the group of players that he's in.

But I understand, if you listen to the narrative, you'd think he's 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. He drew a lot more fouls before we got much better, and when we got better, obviously people pay much more attention to him.

We'll have to see where that goes, you know what I mean? We don't know. He'll never say anything about it. And the only thing I'm pointing out is I don't think he's being unfairly handled, I just think, instead of talking about something that we are looking to find as a negative, can we please also acknowledge that he also does a lot of positive things for the game, most of which are the things that people are very unhappy -- not unhappy, but they don't like on social media. And I know that a lot of us live on social media. I would think they would love him for that reason.

This is like the world we live in today. There's a lot of financial incentive to create these things, career ambitions, like I said before. The best thing we can do when those things happen is stay above it.

Now I'm pointing it out now at the end of the season, but we're going to have to stay above it because it's probably not going to change. But he does a lot of good things too.

[biggz cares if don’t nobody else care. @Biggz_91]

When OKC come back next season and whoop they ass like they stole sum off they lawn >>>>>>>>

[CameronWilliamsToOKc @rameshdataya]

if russ was on the OKC roster, he'd get into carter bryant's face after bulldozing SGA. and chet will be hearing from him all series. our team was just too soft TBH. if we are able to open enough roster spots this summer, bringing russ back is more than just a sentimental move.

[SVPod @_SVPod]

"You can't be better in a loss than Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was on Saturday night... can't play better, can't be a better example, can't lead better... Shai acted like a grown ass man before during and after."

@notthefakeSVP on SGA's performance in game 7 and actions afterward

[Russell Westbrook @russwest44]

1 more!!!!!!!!!! #thunderup

[Legion Hoops @LegionHoops]

Draymond Green:

“Shai, you've reached a new level of greatness my man... you got sports media coming out and talking about what they don't like about your greatness, as if SGA is running up and down the court with the whistle in his mouth calling a foul for himself... you all think the NBA is that easy to where this guy just flops and goes to the free throw line and he becomes the back to back MVP? We really gonna dumb the NBA down to that?”

(via @DraymondShow)

[Sam Humphreys @SamHumphreys34]

Spurs fans yelling “FLOPPER” at Shai in a game where he’s getting mugged by Castle every possession and still hasn’t shot a free throw halfway through the 3rd Quarter.

It’s comical how brainwashed people are by an agenda driven Twitter narrative.

[Jaylenbrownfan @SarksDaddy]

Another uncalled goaltend by Wemby. He’s allowed to do that , have unlimited 3 seconds in the lane , unlimited time to shoot FTs , jump over ppls backs & it’s called 20% of the time

[Underdog NBA @UnderdogNBA]

SGA's MVP season:

1st in clutch PPG
1st in clutch PTS
1st in 20-point games
1st in plus-minus
2nd in PTS
2nd in PPG
2nd in 30-point games
3rd in 40-point games
Clutch Player of the Year
Consecutive 60-win seasons

Joins Curry, Nash, Jordan, Magic as only guards to win B2B MVPs.

[Basketball Forever @bballforever_]

Chet Holmgren & Isaiah Hartenstein have the HIGHEST WIN percentage by a starter in NBA history 🤯🔥

🔸.753 — Holmgren
🔸.745 — Hartenstein
🔸.731 — Magic Johnson
🔸.723 — Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

*(min. 200 GP, including playoffs)

[Daig Muse⚡️ @DaigMuse]

@barstoolsports

[Mike Ray @mikeray]

@abditmr Not just the last 5 seasons… but the last [any number you choose] seasons. Through the entire history of the NBA.

They’re +1941 since 2019-20. No other team is +1000 & only 9 are even +500.

They’re +69,430 all-time while only 11 teams are +10,000.

Multi-generational whistle.

[𝙖𝙧𝙠𝙖𝙖 @arkaavs]

He’s getting the toughest coverages *ever*

[Nerd Sesh @Nerd_Sesh]

SGA discourse has nothing to do with reality

[Underdog @Underdog]

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander in the 4th quarter/overtime across his last 13 games played:

50 points
92.9 FG%
96.6 TS%

[BMS | ib @Chez_ib]

SGA est probablement le joueurs le plus sous-estimés et propagandé de l’histoire de la NBA

– 4 saisons de suite à +30 pts à +50% (seulement lui et Michael Jordan)
– Guard qui perd le moins de ballons en scorant +30 pts de l’histoire (devant Jordan)
– Constance absurde, aucune mauvaise semaine en 2 saisons
– La saison la plus clutch de l’histoire
– Jeu qui translate parfaitement en playoffs
- Bonne défense
– 0 saison dans le top 10 LF/match de l’histoire pour un guard ( oui ton guard préféré en a tiré + que lui à un moment )
– Saison la plus efficace d’un guard all Time (devant Stephen Curry 2016 et Jordan prime)
– Top 3 en points par possession, mais même pas top 30 en possessions gâchées ( du jamais vu )

9 LF/match pour un joueur qui attaque autant le cercle et marque +30 points? C’est limite la moyenne basse , ils étaient tous à 8-12 LF / match

Regardez juste un match svp svp et n’écoutez pas Twitter

[Carson Breber @Carsobi]

Shai is just the second player in NBA history to score 40+ points on 83% FG in the playoffs.

That's while he's seeing aggressive help/doubles all night and had eight assists.

The game looks as easy for him this year as any player ever. Might be the best scorer not named MJ.

[Gur Singh @HoopFocusX]

Shai was just 4 votes away from winning Clutch Player of the Year unanimously

[HeroOfTheDay @Hero_OfThe_Day]

“Defense is 50% of the game” -Victor Wembanyama

By his own logic, Chet Holmgren is a better defender. One could argue that 50% of defense today is played on the perimeter. Victor is a great help defender, but he’s a TERRIBLE one-on-one defender.

1-on-1 (ISO) defense this season:

Victor Wembanyama- BOTTOM 7% of the NBA 🤯🤯 (Allows 1.25 ppp with an opponent FG% of 55.0)

Chet Holmgren- Top 38% of the NBA— AMAZING for a center (Allows 0.87 ppp with an opponent FG% of 40.6)

Everything about Defense in today’s NBA media is based on lies, stereotypes, and fake narratives.

Victor Wembanyama is overrated!! 👀🔥🔥