Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is making his return against Denver tomorrow night
Injury report just confirmed.
This probably will crush the hopes of alternative MVP candidates discussed in recent weeks
Cason Wallace had him feeling expendable
šššššš I know itās so many people on Reddit thatās very angry right now.
Why?
why?
because cason wallace handed my team a loss
Because SGA is winning back to back MVPs.(see downvotes Lmao I know people donāt want that boy to win another one)
Is he still eligible ?
Why ?
narratives will be pushed
Only 1 way though, SGA took a big shit on the Nuggets last game and it may as well not have happened if you went by how this sub reacted to it
You are tripping. It was open season on Jokic that entire month. That entire game was clipped
https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/1qtlv4x/post_game_thread_the_oklahoma_city_thunder_3911/
Post game thread didn’t even crack 800 upvotes. I’d bet anything if Jokic outplayed SGA by that margin and won, it’d easily crack 2k+
You are delusional lmao. Iām literally the guy that clipped the entire highlight for that game including every play more or less, look at my post history.Ā
The slander on the specific clips and the amount of Jokic lowlights was a lot
I think people like you vicariously live through the players they love and players they hate so they really donāt realize that all the top players will get hate and slander no matter who they are. This media darling narrative doesnāt exist cause the internet loves shitting on whoever.
Thanks. The joker hate has been extreme recently, SGA hate (FTA) had been there for ages. Honestly it’s so annoying I just wanna appreciate 2 of the greatest players of a generation and watch great basketball.
As I wrote in a previous comment somewhere, jokic came back from injury, dropped 32/14/6 but bricked some 3s and people were acting like he was Gabe vincent
Obviously every player gets hate and slander lol I didn’t suggest otherwise? But believing it’s all equal and no one’s favoured is just as delusional.Ā
No matter what you will complain Jokic doesnāt get as much hate as SGA. I recognise your username. You talk about it more than you talk about your own team.
upvotes and comments dont meet anything, there were plenty of indivudal posts about if jokic was no longer the best player in the world and plenty of positive comments about shai( which he deserved). Dont forget all the nuggets are 6-4 without Jokic posts when the thunder without shai have a better record.Props to Luka the lakers are .500 without him though.
at least it wasn’t the Lakers?
Game thread gon get spicy!
You couldn’t fucking pay me to go into a /r/nba Thunder game thread
Always a cesspit of the most insanely low IQ brainrot people
Itās crazy how hated they are
Itās so funny watching the salt though.
You posted this under the Pistons Thunder game thread as well but nothing happened.
Perhaps you, an ex-Thunder fan, could search for spiciness in the Wolves threads? Those get fun as hell lmao
hes gonna outplay jokic like he always does and noone will say anything other than injury excuses for jokic
āLike he always doesā LOL
Itās not an excuse. Denver has had historic injuries this year
Unlike OKC right?
Yes. Every team has injuries. Not all teams have the same amount
The SGA is MVP narrative is already set no matter what he does the rest of the season.
Finally we get to see a SGA/McCain/Joe lineupā¦
Worst day to be a Sixers fan.
A terrible day for rain
Joe was injured in the gane last night. Never played the second half. So I say we temper our expectationsĀ
Joe isnāt on the injury report!
neither is the sexual orca, LFG
It was a booty bruise. He’ll be ok
Demon Back
The Demon of the North
The Demon of the Prairie
Yujiro Hanma?
Out of curiosity, how many more games can he miss before he’s ineligible for post seasons awards?
He’s front runner for mvp imo
Edit: Thanks for the replies
Shai can miss 6 more. Jokic 1
Dang one ankle tweak and MVP is wide open
it’s also helpful to include games remaining – for example sga needs to play 16 of their final 22 games, jokic needs to play 22 of their final 23 games, luka 20⁄25, wemby 19⁄23.
Imagine everyone else gets hurt and Jaylen Brown gets a free MVP to go with his finals MVP
Thatās assuming Cade dies
A tragic figure skating love triangle gone very very wrong.
Cade actually only has 1 more game played than SGA does. Just most of them were in the first month of the season so everyone forgets.
Reed Sheppard only needs to play 7 of the remaining 24!
SheppGOAT
their gonna bump their coconuts and both be out of contention
Shai can miss 6 more, meanwhile Jokic only has 1 game he can miss before heās ineligible, heās treading in thin ice. Theyāre both easily the front runners still unless they become ineligible
I think he can miss 6
6
6, so he would have to miss around 28% of the remaining games
Thank god. Still no Ajay or JDub, but damn will it feel good to have Shai back.
Wild to me that Shai is coming back before Ajay despite suffering the same abdominal injury. Maybe Ajay is much more severe but itās still shocking nonetheless
It’s not just the abdominal strain for Ajay. He has a sprained ankle now too, presumably one he got while trying to ramp back up.
He just plays so damn hard he gets hurt all the time.
Ajay suffered like 2 more injuries in his recovery process apparently
Jesus fuck, it was NOT the same abdominal strain lmao. You and apparently every other poster on r/Thunder seem to think that because the injuries are listed as the same thing on the injury report, that must mean they have suffered the exact same injury.
There are grades/severity of injuries and it was pretty obvious Ajays was worse. The difference between a grade 1 (light sprain) and grade 3 (full rupture) ankle sprain are a world apart, but technically both are “ankle sprains”.
Andddddā¦we finally can put an end to the Cade/Jaylen Brown talks
I mean him coming back doesnāt guarantee heāll hit the games requirement. Itās not like he canāt get injured again
The top 5 players in the league could all realistically miss the cutoff and Cade will be winner by elimination
What would your current MVP rankings be, 1-5?
Shai Joker Wemby Cade Ant feels good to me
Actually my 5 as well. Kinda wanted to put Jaylen Brown in there somehow.
I got brown over ant fuck it. I thought the Celtics would be tanking this year ngl
Same. I think youre right. Kind have to have Brown in there lol
Cade is going to average 42 points, 11 assists, and 7 rebounds a game the rest of the season. He doesnāt need to back into anything. Cade is him.
probably need close to 70 shot to hit that.
I stg this has been some of the stupidest discourse recently. Not to say Cade isn’t an incredible player but come on
It twitched a little ngl
was it because the sexual orca is also off the injury report
why is caruso the sexual orca lmao
because Alex Caruso is an anagram of Sexual Orca, and my waifu is Shylily the orca lmao
OKC will sit their players against every team except Denver lmao. Last year they sat their entire starting lineup before the back to back against Denver.
Itās a sign of respect. I still believe itās the pseudo finals whenever these teams meet in the playoffs.
Thatās because we all know that just like last year, yall are the only real threat lmao. (SA might get there soon though)
The Pacers weren’t a real threat last year?
thunder swept the pacers season series
Okay, and the Pacers took the Thunder to 7 games in the NBA finals, and put up a far bigger fight in their game 7 against the Thunder than the Nuggets did
Yes but the Nuggets were viewed as a threat during the regular season. The Pacers were not.
The OP was just talking about who was a threat, not just who was viewed as a threat
Nuggets got experience playing our roster is my only guess, so not much else to hide. With SA or Detroit, we haven’t had a full series against either yet, so it makes sense to sit. SA made even more sense since that was game #5 just this season and we were already fairly injured by that point.
SGA did the Kevin Nash meme when he saw Jokic and Denver on the schedule
He was actually ready a week ago, but was ducking Jamal Shead and Javonte Green.
This MF canāt wait another game?? š
Respect, he wants the smoke
He aināt no MVP Embiid running from Denver. Good on him.
Coming back to aura farm and beat jokic fairs
Ā beat jokic fairs
Wut?
Youre too unc for this youngin talk
mofo cant even spell.
Coming back to save us from a Cade MVP
Iām confused as to why a Cade MVP is so frowned up?
Cades a great player but itd be the first time since the gamr requirement that a clearly tier 2 player (for now) got the MVP over the tier 1 guys because they missed too many games. Still thats what the rule was meant to do so if it happens so be it Cades had a fucking hell of a year.
Thereās nothing necessarily wrong with him, but heās just obviously not the best player, so him getting it because of injuries would not feel deserving.
This isnāt about whether the rule is valid or not, just on why people arenāt cheering for him.
OKC DYNASTY IS BACK ON THE MENU
Thank god
The anti Embiid
He wants all the smoke lol š
SGA with Joe and McCain gonna be so fun man
And Topic!
Tomorrow gonna be a crazy game then. We gotta look to get our getback after last time. Hopefully Jokic can string together a good shooting night. Good chance we’re without Murray though which sucks.
Hope that Denver takes it personally that OKC punted the Pistons game specifically to be 100% for the Nuggets
The Nuggets have a really bad habit of just treating games like this as ho-hum when they’re gonna get 200% effort from the Thunder
Even if they lose without Murray it’d be nice for this to not be 48 minutes of OKC moving the Nuggets around the court as they please
We’ve seen the team can put in effort on both ends. We persevered through the shitty shooting last night and locked in on defense. I hope we get to see those Nuggets with like… average team shooting, and then we can give them a run for their money. You’re right that effort is gonna be the deciding factor. OKC wants this win, we need to WANT it. If we don’t want it now, when else? Gotta stop the skid and prove we’re not gonna be left in the dust.
I agree wholeheartedly. It would be really nice to see that same intensity on both ends consistently now instead of a one-game posturing when vibes were at DEFCON 1
Iāve never seen a team get hit harder with injuries
Got the hospital squad but god damn will I still believe lol
Iām sad Gordon is going to be out heās a fun watch, and now Murray is also probably out too
Wrap it up, the B2B MVP is back
Shai might steal the scoring title too, only 0.7 points behind
Daddyās home š„°
Embiid would never
..show up in Denver
thank the fucking lord man
At least if hes cooking us i can find happiness watching ESPN crying.
Everytime i hear someone at ESPN talking about Cade or JB mvp i’m losing a part of my soul.
shai about to embarrass jokic
Why do rocket fans love SGA so much? Itās so gross
From what Ive seen, they DEFINITELY donāt. Itās more like they hate Jokic more.
Probably because okc and Houston were bad at the same time while Denver was still really good so itās easier to hate on the team that has been good as opposed to the team that got good recently at the same time as you. Idk thatās just my guess from what Iāve seen on their sub and on this one.
idk why/if rockets fans in general do, if some do it’s probably because they shit on us in the Harden/Capela days and don’t respect or something, but I know that dude in particular you responded to has hated them for a long ass time now for whatever reason. Always see them in Nuggets threads for some weirdo reason
Honestly, is it’s not one of the top 2-3 it would make the award redundant and so much less important. What could we take away from a Jaylen Brown MVP?
NOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Couldnāt he wait just one more day? š
[deleted]
Jokic returned against the clips
Yeah unless he gets unlucky and another injury comes, easy MVP. Or unless he all of a sudden starts playing like Demar Derozan for the rest of the season, but it’s Shai, I think he’ll be good lol.
Shai is gonna break some sort of record for best game back from injury, because he just does shit like that XD
People forget quickly but the month Jokic was out. Shai had like 5 stinkers. And a lot of average games.
He only has a 5 game gap now. They are still pretty close. Jokic been better but OKC’s 1st seed and Shai having 5 more games makes it really close.
To be fair Jokic’s stinkers in the time SGA was out makes the who’s been better on the season argument debatable if not outright swing that case for SGA
SGA had more stinkers before Jokic went out the first time.
Jokic’s stinkers only made the race close.
Player vs Player. Jokic is the MVP but team record and game gap is gonna count heavily in Shai’s favor at the end of the season. Media is also much more favorable of Shai than Jokic so Shai is gonna have the narrative.
It’s gonna be interesting to see the game tomorrow. Jokic could steal the narrative but it’s gonna be tough. Hopefully Murray plays.
Probably downvotes because you aren’t accurately comparing the season the two have had “Player vs Player.”
Games played: Shai 49 (+6) Jokic 43
VORP: Jokic 6.4 (+0.7) Shai 5.7
ESPN’s NBA Net Points: Shai 352 (+95) Jokic 257
Total LEBRON: Jokic 6.83 (+0.58) Shai 6.25
So you have Jokic leading by a hair in VORP and LEBRON on six fewer games played, with Shai completely running away with certain other advanced stats. I don’t see how you could make an argument in favor of Jokic that is backed by any advanced statistics. If anything, it’s been a wash between the two.
EDIT: and these aren’t cherry-picked statistics, they’re the most reputable advanced statistics available. I include them only to illustrate an overarching point that there is not a significant measurable impact gap between the two players this season in Jokic’s favor.
VORP is cumulative. Jokic is leading by a massive margin in VORP. Not “a hair”.
I said it was a close race.
MUST WATCH. Second that game this week after Pistons-Spurs NBA Friday, always so inspirational.
Feels like this season there really hasn’t been anyone play flat out of their mind. Yes SGA is playing at a historically efficient clip and Jokic is well, Jokic. But can anyone tell me when they look back at this year a few years down the road and say either have had historically remarkable seasons ?
Shai was notable bc he was a guard shooting middys at a high efficiency. And Jokic was notable a few years ago for being the first center since Shaq to get the award. But, to your point, neither have had historically great seasons that people talk about like Steph 2016, russ 2017, Bird 1986 etc.
Hell yeah!!
So fucking happy. We desperately need his offensive production back when the game comes to a crawl, that win in Toronto was great, but it was so much uglier than it needed to be
Kinda getting worried about Ajay. Good to see the MVP back!
LETS GO
The league is beyond cooked
Yes. Iāve genuinely missed glazing him after every game instead of seeing us build double digit leads every game just to see us go cold for 12 minutes and fall behind double digits, only to come back an try to win at the end.
About time!
Thank You Adam Silver
A MVP confirmation race.
I don’t think it seals the MVP. It was one thing when he had 14 more games played than all his competitors, but playing 5 or 6 games more is a much easier gap to overcome. Especially if he starts slow when he comes back.
I don’t think Jokic stays eligible, but I do think Wemby still has a solid shot
OH HELL YEAH
Hell ya, should be a great game!
Don’t like š š
Gawd damnit, I just wanted to nibble on the 1st seed for just a minute, we’re so close xD
save us from Wemby /Cade MVP talks pls and put the belt to Jokic’s fat ass
MVP is his to lose
Looks like AG may return then as well
Detroit about to jump this man.
Letās see if heās still the same post injury
Now I just hope heās 100% so he can secure the streak record
Whichever way it goes will be big in MVP discussions. This is the sweet spot of the season where these head to head matchups really effect the outcome of the MVP race
How convenient that y’all don’t want the previous matchup to have any effect lmao
Nah I think you’re just not understanding my point. The MVP discussion has heated up, much more than it was a month ago or whatever. The late season battles are what stick in people’s minds
I got it I was just trolling since Shai destroyed jokic last time they played
Pistons, Nuggets, Lakers, Spurs, AND Celtics fans in shambles
If Luka does anything short of averaging 60 for the rest of the season it doesn’t shake up the odds even a tiny bit. The narrative is set already. No one voting wants Luka MVP.
Itās unlikely, sure, but the Lakers still have a lot of big games left. And if he outplays all the other MVP candidates, weāll be having a different conversation. Itās more likely that they just lose a bunch and stay the 6th seed or drop to 7th, but I think heās still in the mix, he just has the worst odds out of all of them, considering the current narrative and the fact that the Lakers arenāt that good.
Everything is still in play because Denver and OKC have brutal schedules left. Denver has three games against OKC, three against the Spurs, two against the Lakers, one against the Rockets, and one against the Timberwolves. OKC has three against Denver, two against the Celtics, two against the Knicks, one against the Pistons, and two against the Lakers, etc.
Meanwhile, Cade and the Pistons are chilling. They basically have a clear runway to the best record in the league, and Cade will end up with the most games played out of all the MVP candidates.
I just can’t see anything realistic pushing him above Shai or Jokic. Most people at this point think Cade has surpassed him too. It would take a level we haven’t seen from the Lakers so far and I don’t think they have that extra gear in them to give Luka a case. For the record I think Shai is MVP right now and probably will be at the end of the season barring injury, Denver is gonna go through a brutal stretch which could ofc raise Jokic stocks if we do amazingly but more likely we’re mediocre and live up to expectations at best and nothing changes.
yeah it does crush hopes, because Shai is considerably better than all of the other candidates except Jokic
Good thing the MVP has rarely been about who the best player is.
Exactly, which is why Shai is going to win it this year instead of Jokic
Cool
“Crush hopes” as in he was originally set to be re-evaluated tomorrow, meaning he could have been out another week or slightly more.
If that was the case, he was getting close to missing the 65 game threshold to be considered MVP.
If thatās what OP was going for, then I agree.
It was
My bad!
Yeah I do think that was the point, Shai now has 6 games left before missing the cut instead of the 1 or 0 I thought he wouldāve had
FTA vs Flopic, duel for the ages
Game is gonna be 4 hours long
Lakers fans would know
Of all people really
4 hours later Luka still wonāt have taken that shot
4 hours later Luka still crying to the refs
Adam Silver must’ve seen my comments about the Thunder shamelessly resting SGA these last few weeks and forced him to return, so I’m probably the reason he’s returning this soon.
That Jazz fine genuinely seems to have broken your brain
lol
Resting seems pretty reasonable when you have a nagging injury
Didn’t y’all have a player be declared out for the season after getting a nose job?
He had trouble breathing, so he had to get his nose fixed
Why wasnāt SGA penalized in the MVP race for missing games when everyone else was? Preferential treatment? No way.
He was penalized, the betting odds are closer to #2 than they were. The thing is, he had such a massive lead over everyone else that he is still #1 after missing 10 games. Jokic is the only player who has matched him in production and he is 1 game away of not being eligible l
Shai went from like -400 to -150 odds or so during these missed games, thatās significant
Yeah its closer but the gap is still pretty big. And only jokic is kinda close atm (but not really).
Shai plays 65 games and its a wrap basically