Devin Booker on what makes OKC a championship team: “You can’t say anything without bringing up Shai, He’s the MVP of the league, and he’s playing the best basketball in the league for the past two years.”
“No Booker you’re wrong, he’s a foul baiter and not even close to being even good” - r/nba
SGA might be the most hated star I’ve ever seen for purely on-court reasons lol it feels like literally nothing he does is enough to stop the circlejerk against him
Miami LeBron and Warriors KD were extremely disliked but no one doubted their skill
With SGA it feels like half of heavily online NBA fans think he’s an average PG with a great whistle meanwhile Luka averages more FTs with a far more perimeter oriented style and while people will call him out for whining no one questions his numbers to nearly the same extent
It’s because of tiktok/highlight consumption. The algorithm favours ragebait and one flop will get way more attention than 30 smooth buckets. It’s the truest sign that people don’t watch full games.
Even after last game where he went god tier, the clip farmers just waited for the hype to die down, then posted that one play where Ighodaro had his arm on him and he sold it. Never mind the contested and 1s or the crazy fadeaways, just that one play over and over.
Harden was called Hitler for his on-court actions
I think most people have realized he’s the best in the league by now. Even if they try to hate on him, they know this guy could soon reach some really high all-time rankings, and has already had one of the best peaks of all time.
Luckily for you it seems you haven’t visited r/NBATalk
There are daily posts there about how SGA is the worst player to watch in NBA history and has ruined basketball lmao I saw upvoted comments wishing for him to tear his ACL
He has some of the craziest haters I’ve ever seen for any player they don’t just think he’s overrated they legitimately think his whole career is a fraud and he’s not good
You have to view r/NBATalk the same way you view exhibits at the zoo.
That sub is actually unhinged lol
NBAtalk is furious he’s better than their Great White Hope aka the Tubster.
/r/NBATalk may as well be a KKK rally
the reality is that SGA is a mvp caliber player who also happens to have a great whistle. i think the idea that a lot of people think he’s mid is overstated, it’s just frustrating at times to watch a great player on a great team get some of the most random phantom calls.
personally i don’t think SGA himself deserves any hate he’s just playing the game and he doesn’t foul bait as much or outrageously as harden did. the refs treat him like art behind museum glass tho that’s kind of where it gets annoying.
MJ, Kobe, Lebron were all hated at their peaks. Not saying he’s close to it. But being the best at your time does that.
But the point is that people knew deep down that MJ, Kobe and LeBron were the best players in the world and were hating because they were jealous.
You got entire legions of people in this very sub who would swear up and down that he’s a “manufactured superstar.”
Yeah according to these people the NBA has decided to manufacture a superstar in the great big market that is Oklahoma City
it’s amazing how much you proved my point.
What
I’d say SGA’s hate is much more comparable to Dirk before 2011. People recognize him to a certain extent, but a narrative has built up which doesn’t match statistics or even the eye test if you watch him often enough. Confirmation bias and group think are real and the only way out is to do some overwhelming shit.
Harden and CP3 have him soundly beat in that regard.
Now I see why old players are always dismissive of new stars. Y’all dont know the slander that Harden was getting back in the day. He was basically SGA foulbait + LeBron travel + PG Dame Shot + Embiid conference finals.
Brother if peak harden happened in 2026, the amount of hate would have been generational. As bad as the sga hate gets, is isnt getting called Hitler.
Yup, Harden had it worse. Dude literally got snubbed from all nba in 2016.
It wasn’t that long ago most of us were here for his peak
On the other hand, r/nba somehow also cant find the nuance that people simply dislike him for his propensity to draw fouls while having a ridicuous team.
A part of how difficult he is to guard is because of the threat of him getting fouls. Prime Harden was the same thing, this aint new?
His shooting style is not aesthetically pleasing. He’s not flashy, he does not dunk so he must be average according to the casual’s logic.
What blows my mind is that we’re in knowledge era and the above mentioned casual NBA fans are one click away from live games, his anomaly performances and the data accumulated over the years but still choose to ignore these and be absolutely/proudly sure about their ungrounded, irrational narratives.
Because the refs don’t help his case and i’ll point out why:
Caruso and Lu Dort play way more physical defense on opposing star players and they get away with it.
Half the time SGA just flops to the ground on some ticky tacky bullshit which people don’t think should be in the playoffs.
There’s no balance here, that’s why people are upset. If Caruso and Dort weren’t on the same team as SGA, and played the same defence, they’d be in foul trouble by the first quarter, that’s what people are upset about, and if you’re not allowed to play defense in the league on one of the best offensive players in the league then what’s the point?
Miami Bron and Warriors KD never had that problem because Bron rarely gets called the whistle and the warriors kd were just way too good it didn’t really matter because they blew you out shooting 3s and letting KD cook you 1 on 1. They did have an issue with Draymond and Bogut setting illegal screens before KD came and that was valid too.
And i mean everyone hates austin reaves and luka for foul baiting too, hell Jalen Brunson does it but does that mean people want to see it? No and that’s the general sentiment here.
At the end of the day no one wants to watch guys fall on the ground and get rewarded for being ‘softer’ when they should be rewarded for actually trying to score a bucket. No one thinks sga is some scrub with a whistle, people think he’s good to the point he doesn’t need to have the refs bail him out/
Most teams have one elite point of attack defender, or at best two…
Guys who have a rep as elite defenders who get a little extra leeway playing physical defense (Herb Jones, Suggs, Thompson twins, Suggs, McDaniels, Camara, OG etc).
OKC legitimately have 4 of those guys who have made All Defensive teams as perimeter defenders and when two sit another pair come in with fresh legs and they just keep rolling waves of them at you. If you get past them you’ve got double elite defensive bigs in Chet & Hartenstein waiting for you in the paint. They don’t have many if any weak defenders to attack.
Then you go down the other end of the floor and SGA is hunting switches to attack any weak point in the defense, he’s exploiting guys who aren’t that level of defender and will inevitably get caught with hands in the cookie jar when he gets by them.
I get why that contrast is frustrating as hell to watch, and he absolutely gets a couple of weak or phantom calls per night (as do most superstars) along with exaggerating contact to force the whistle but the majority of the time they are still legit fouls.
It’s the perfect storm of an historic defense on one end and an all time guard that’s shifty as fuck off the dribble and near impossible to stay in front who just relentlessly attacks you on drives all night. His free throw rate is right in line with other elite guards of similar play style throughout NBA history.
It’s really not much deeper than that - there is no grand ref or league conspiracy to try pump up a team from Oklahoma of all places.
It’s frustrating to watch because SGA also gets the push off. It’s the same as watching James Harden do his wrap his arm around defender move so he gets the foul call regardless. Steph gets absolutely mauled and they swallow the whistle just because he doesn’t emphasize it?
And saying defensive players with rep letting people play more physical defense just because (let alone OKC having 4) just proves the point. The League shouldn’t be handing get out of jail free cards to these guys regardless of what team they’re on.
I’m not saying there’s some grand conspiracy to give OKC rings, i’m just saying as a basketball fan it’s annoying watching these games where the reffing is inconsistent. Happened in the Lakers Houston game too where Houston got a whole quarter of dumb free throws to keep them in the game.
Boring to watch, flopper, small team, team with a godly whistle. Easy to understand why.
After watching 4 straight games…he does do annoying shit. But almost every slo-mo they showed, he legit got fouled. He’s brilliant at embellishing, or playing for the foul at just the right time, but there were few calls that I thought were straight up no-fouls.
However, he’s still the engine of that offense. He still makes absurd finishes around the rim look routine. He doesn’t get hunted on the defensive end like many of the NBA’s top players do, and he hits timely threes.
I would love if the league cracked down on how he gets to the stripe (in general, he’s not the only player who plays like that, even if he is the best at it), but anyone who thinks doing so would render him less effective is kidding themselves. He has special finishing ability regardless.
All of the people saying he’s a hero for calling out OKC and the refs will turn on him now lol
Jokes aside I feel like the SGA foul merchant narrative is greatly exaggerated he’s nowhere even close to guys like Embiid and Harden in free throw rate despite being a very aggressive driver of the ball
You never had to say stuff like “it’s how he gets them not how many he gets” with prime Harden’s free throws because he was getting a ton of them he scored 22 points on 2 made field goals lmao
Of course SGA has a solid whistle but by no real metric other than “I hate OKC and here’s my eye test” is it an outlier Harden level whistle either I’d say it’s like 75th percentile among stars
At minimum there’s no way he’s as bad as guys like Deni or Butler who are bait first and shoot second SGA has the foul bait in his bag for sure but at least he’s always trying to score first
People are just fanboys/girls for their own favorites, and it gets to a point where they become delulus who deny anything that goes against themselves.
social media and sports talk/podcasts exacerbate it a ton, too.
Easy clicks/views.
OKC being small market and SGA being a polite Canadian means their marketability and reach is very low.
Most fans will want to see them (as the favorites) fail. So media and podcasters lean into that.
It’s more people start to hate a player or team and then clip everything that goes in their favour while ignoring anything that goes against them. It leads to casuals only seeing things that go in their favour and forming a biased opinion and when they do watch come playoffs or important games they’re already looking for it so they see what they’ve been conditioned to see.
That and hate generates more clicks than anything else so bot accounts and talking heads fuel the fire knowing it’s way more beneficial for them
You’re delulus
people who uses delulus to refer to delusional are the true delusional
Hey… I think you dropped this!🥹🫴🧠
I think the reason he gets it as bad as them despite not being quite harden and embiid level is cause how physical okc play, they have just have insane defensive depth to play and hard and physical and not worry about fouls, so he gets the hate from them being physical into his free throw narrative
Most teams have one of those high level lock down guys who’s an All Defense caliber perimeter defender - they’ve got a reputation as smart defenders who know how to play hard without fouling and they get a little extra leeway with playing physical and being a little handsy at times…
Most good teams generally have one of those guys - Thompson twins, Herb Jones, Suggs, Camara, McDaniels, White, OG, Smart, Castle etc.
OKC legitimately have 4 of those guys and they rotate them so when two sit another pair tag in with fresh legs and they just keep coming in waves. They can also gamble a little knowing if you get past them you’ve got a double big line up of Chet and Hartenstein waiting for you in the paint.
Then you get SGA on the other end of the floor hunting switches and attacking weak spots in your defense, exploiting guys who aren’t that level of defender and will inevitably get caught with hands in the cookie jar when he gets by them.
I get why it’s frustrating to play against, and he certainly gets a weak or phantom call or two per game (as many superstars do) but the majority of calls are legit fouls.
I think what looked really bad was him doing some faces and flopping especially in playoffs when people watch more games, but what you said is right, people forget how unwatchable Embiid was and hes flopping while being a big guy. Plus Embiid is a dirty player Shai at least its a good guy on the floor
Nobody forgets Embiid.
He just doesnt play lol. He’s actually worse coz he’s a gd big but his team is worse than OKC so it kinda balances out since they aint winning anything
Why do you say “by no real metric” as if there’s an actual metric for how good someone’s whistle is? FTr doesn’t measure that directly. Your 75th percentile is just completely made up lol
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Don’t disrespect Harden like that he was the GOAT flopper these young guns aren’t on his level
Other guys may have the head snap but Harden’s 3 point foul baiting and leg kick was in his own tier he’s the Steph Curry of floppers and his True Foul Baiting Percentage was over 70%
I remember 3 years ago and guys were furious if you said sga was top 10. It’s been crazy to ride this arc
He’s improved so much and continues to improve. That late bloomer career trajectory is more like Jokic, Giannis, Steph even, than a player like Luka who came into the league putting belt to ass. Or Tatum, who looked like a future superstar from year 1.
I’ve always found players who started slower more compelling than generational prospects
It’s why I’m the probably 1 user on this sub who likes both Jokic and SGA lol they’re definitely the two I root for out of the 4 MVP candidates
Anything that actually likes basketball likes both of them.
It’s kind of funny to hear Shai started slow when he averaged 19ppg in his second year and 24 ppg by his third year. If he didn’t have to play for a coach who hates young players during his rookie season, nobody would be saying he started slow.
Funny thought, what if the Clippers had a coach who played Shai more his rookie season so the front office valued him more and refused to trade him for PG
I think most Thunder fans like Jokic. He’s always been one of my favourite players to watch.
They just don’t like most nuggets fans, from the MVP race and the playoffs last year, but even that’s mostly online I think.
Bro I don’t even like nuggets fans.
Going back to UK, you can just tell players are special because they get better game to game. SGA just hasn’t slowed down since I’ve been watching him. Always improving
So much of the SGA hate is because people are mad that he passed their favorite players lol
This offseason the consensus here was that Luka is still better than SGA despite SGA winning a ring and MVP last year only after backing it up did he surpass someone with neither of them
It wasn’t the consensus.
I just don’t think the Luka comparisons are fair because Luka genuinely does not have a good roster around him while SGA has an incredible team which allows him to thrive while Luka’s greatness is despite his situation not because of it
No, it’s because of his stupid flopping. It ruins the game.
Bot
tle
Yep, perfect example of a delulu right here.
delulu? tha fuq
Lmao look at the game. Sga Pushes and hook his arms and he will get free throws.
You do know yo team’s got the best whistle in the league right?
Well yea at that time Clippers thought PG for SGA and load of picks was definitely a win.
Remember the Ja vs SGA convos?
For Ja it was mostly Ja vs. Fox.
Yeah I’m sure people were furious when 3 years ago a guy who was all-nba 1st team was being called a top 10 player. What is up with OKC fan’s always acting like a victim when it comes to SGA. Maybe if you said top 5 it would have been more believable lol
”…reinforcements, not subs.”
Thats a bar.
B2B
r/nba will ignore this and then say some goofy shit about how other players/coaches have never commended Shai
r/nba in shambles
So good even the Clippers would’ve been champions if they didn’t trade SGA
Did he steal Quin Snyder’s glasses? Great barrier thief better be on the case 🕵️♂️
SGA is the best player in the NBA.
How dominant OKC has been the past 2 seasons despite missing so many games from their 2nd and 3rd best players can be credited to the leadership and greatness of its 1 superstar.
Judges…
Devin “The librarian” Booker
Just come home to detroit and you’ll be fine, devin
Time to close the chapter on this season, Mr Book ☀️
Interesting pair of glasses
THey got rekt.
And oh was it beautiful
Shai > Booker
Shai isn’t fun to watch is all
He is plenty fun to wach
Buns* to watch
Things you say to avoid further fines, i see you big dawg
I’m sure the league is desperate to prop up the Canadian guy playing in Oklahoma who might be the most hated star among heavily online fans surely he’s the most marketable player ever
Truly makes sense doesn’t it lol
Ayee, cant hate on the take.
But Joker.
Give it a rest bro
Nope bro