Former #2 Pick Defends Shai Gilgeous-Alexander Amid Foul-Baiting NBA Twitter Discourse

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has an ESPN analyst coming to his defense after his foul-baiting peeves NBA fans following his MVP win.

Former #2 Pick Defends Shai Gilgeous-Alexander Amid Foul-Baiting NBA Twitter Discourse

Shai Gilgeous Alexander has won MVP

The OKC Thunder are in an enviable spot right now, for this season as well as seasons to come. They have an MVP in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander in their ranks, and they’ve won 68 games this season. They lead 2-0 in the Conference Finals and are betting favorites to win it all. What makes their run even more impressive is that they are the youngest current NBA team, and their core players are not at all close to their primes.

On top of that, the team has draft picks galore in the upcoming drafts. In the unlikely event that OKC don’t win a championship this year, they can compensate any team in the NBA for any player they chase. But right now, with the Conference Finals going on, there are more immediate concerns for Thunder fans. Even though they hold a 2-0 series lead, the discourse around officiating has overshadowed their play.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is facing accusations of baiting defenses for fouls. Many point to the soft fouls he continues to get in comparison to how Anthony Edwards is being officiated, among others. Even though the Thunder are winning the real games, they seem to have dug themselves into a PR game deficit. Former #2 overall pick Jay Williams had something to say in defense of SGA ahead of game 3.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is a free throw merchant because he gets fouled in the playoffs while averaging nearly 30 damn points a night? Got it, okay. Let’s actually check the receipts though. 125 free throw attempts in 13 games. Wild, mind-boggling, right? Unless you’re, I don’t know, LeBron in 2009, 188. MJ in ’89, 190. D-Wade in 06, 136. Kobe 140. Larry Legend 138. Magic 134 or, I don’t know, AI, 129. So basically Shai is doing what legends have always done, but now it’s a problem? Cool, then let’s just retroactively label MJ as a fraud!

Irrespective of how Jay Williams views the situation, the reputational damage to Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is almost irreversible at this point. The 2024-25 NBA MVP has been tagged as a foul-baiter for two straight seasons now.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is challenging Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook’s legacies

SGA is having perhaps the greatest season in any OKC Thunder player’s career. The Canadian is the third player representing the team to have won the MVP award, and the first since 2017. The two players before him to win the award were Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook. While Durant and his OKC team lost to eventual champions San Antonio in a six-game WCF series, Westbrook’s 2016-17 team won only one playoff game.

SGA’s team holds a 2-0 lead that they should be able to hold on to for the rest of the series. Many fans believe that the Wolves have passed up their best chance of winning the series after blowing games 1 and 2. The Thunder had a rest disadvantage heading into game 1, getting only one rest day compared to five for Minnesota. However, after a subpar first half, OKC hung 70 points in the second half of game 1 and won.

The team looks fully motivated to return to the NBA Finals for the first time since 2011-12. OKC have an MVP-caliber player, an All-Star in Jalen Williams, two exemplary big men in Chet Holmgren and Isaiah Hartenstein and a bench unit that has outplayed nearly all opposition the team has faced through the course of this year’s regular season as well as the playoffs.

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