LeHerpetologist

ESPN: Lebron calls SGA a snake

Also ESPN: SGA going to the lakers according to insiders

/r/nba: LeBron says SGA is third on the scouting report.

*Shams

No step on Snek! (Sorry, wrong sport)

ESPN: Lebron calls SGA KD?

shhh, you can’t be logical about SGA on here

I would add that this sub in particular has unbelievable recency bias. Like wemby in October of this season was barley an all NBA first team member imo. Obviously he got significantly better throughout but MVP is about the best player of the whole season, not just the latter months

Don’t forget his whole life is consistent too

There’s also the fact that there are two other historically dominant players who had historically dominant seasons along with Shai… he’s the clear number 1, but it’s not like jokic and Wemby had no case.

he had this same case last year and i was getting torched for arguing that a guy with 18 more wins than the other guy should at least be a heavy favorite for the award but one had double digits in PRA while the other had a warriors level superteam of “jdub” and half a Chet

The one and only reason SGA winning MVP is remotely controversial is because he’s the most hated out of the main candidates lol everything about his win is 100% consistent with historical precedent

wemby elbowed someone in the head on purpose, and somehow SGA is getting more hate than him

who knew flopping was worse than trying to hurt players, it is truly bizarre to me

also, a lot of players in the nba flop, even players that this subreddit love so much (Luka, Lebron, Jokic) but now apparently it’s wrong? lmao

Meh efficiency meh. We can see now that when he is targeted like other stars are he has big troubles. He is also very average playmaker. Historical precedent, pls dude. MJ had more playmaking skill in his one finger. He did shit on his own. Never dragged an average team far into playoffs. Smart player but not historical in any way.

But how much of him winning MVP has to do with him being the actual “most valuable player” over it just being another “hey he was the best player on the best team”

Because I guaranfuckingtee you, slot in ANY current tier 1 guard onto this OKC roster, they will have the exact same outcome, because that’s how STACKED this roster is; you’ve got an OKC bench that can all be starters on 29 other teams.

If you’re giving the MVP to anyone this year, it should’ve been Wemby. Game 1 proved it.

I was trying to explain to a fellow thunder fan last night that Mitchell is gonna have a harder time scoring on Vassel, Castle, etc, compared to Luke Kennard or Austin Reaves.

and fwiw you guys did p well for your personnel. you had 1 goal: stop shai - and for the most part you stopped shai (as much as he can be).

the trap was good, but subsequent rotations+backline help was lacking - and that’s just a personnel issue.

It’s such common sense to dare guys further down the roster to try and score on you, even the Spurs with much better depth and defense did it to help them win Game 1. IDK why some people don’t get it.

Our offense would be absolutely fucked without Shai. We can barely make open threes, if we didn’t have his gravity we’d be dead in the water

Ajay was able to do that well because the Lakers defense is as good as a YMCA meetup on a weekday afternoon. So ofc people are going to talk.

But I’m of the opinion SGA didn’t even deserve MVP this year. You can quite literally slot any current tier 1 guard onto this same OKC roster and have the exact same season outcome.

Slot Steph into this OKC roster: better or worse? Better.
Slot Brunson into this OKC roster: better or worse? same outcome.
Slot Ant onto this OKC roster: same outcome if not better.

My point essentially is: SGA won MVP last year fair and square. This year there’s an evident fucking bias.

You just waged war against 99% of r/NBA

I was watching the show with Beadle, Boogie, Parsons, and Lou Williams. THE ONLY PERSON who took issue with the physicality of game 2 was the only person that didn’t actually play ball at the NBA level.Everyone else said Hartenstein did exactly what he was supposed to do. NBA players know that all of this shit is part of the game. There is a massive difference between how NBA players view the game and how fans view the game.

Are we sure lebron knows ball though? What are his qualifications exactly

I think it is the second thing. We’re witnessing the changing of the guard from this sub being a bunch of obnoxious Jokic fans to a bunch of obnoxious Wemby fans lmao.

This is nothing new

Every player who wins mvp gets glazed for awhile before everyone turns on them for the next new hot thing

Jokic fans know he can’t win mvp anymore so they’re coping

This is gonna fucking suck isn’t it

Yeah its the latter

Bit of a stretch, I’ve seen so many lakers fans hating on SGA and believe me they don’t like Jokic

I hate SGA and the Thunder as much as anyone but the Wemby fans (especially the ones that aren’t even spurs fans simping over him 🤢) are actually getting embarrassing

Absolutely hilarious considering he’s been hard doubled all postseason

Just to emphasize your last point in the edit - Kobe Bryant famously shot ⁶⁄₂₄ in game 7 of the 2010 finals.

It happens. When you play 82 regular season and 16 (likely 24+) playoff games - you’re gonna have a few bad games and off nights. Hence why use averages and aggregate stats to talk about legacies. If we didn’t Michael Carter Williams would be a top 10 player all time because of his rookie debut game lol

I think being a Kobe fan is why I appreciate SGA being a mid-range master. Just a shame his FTs distract people from the fact he is ACTUALLY a great scorer. One of the best. His FTAs boost it but I don’t think of him as someone who gets notably worse without them.

Well haters gonna hate and we can all agree that he doesn’t need to do all that extra shit 

I can acknowledge that SGA is a great player. But just the way he exaggerates contact sometimes rubs me the wrong way. The way he flails, slinks and falls to the floor as if there’s a sniper in the building gets tiring after a while.

A lot of people see him hit the ground and call it a flop when hes clearly trained to fall in ways that spread the impact across his body instead of trying to land on his ankles, knees, and hips every single possession. Curry does the same thing only Curry was doing it on catch and shoot where as Shai is testing the interior significantly more, so hes falling off contact.

It’s because LeBron knows the NBA is rigging games for SGA, and if he speaks bad about him the league office will have the refs give LeBron a bad whistle /s

type of greed they warn us about in the bible

If only he took the vet minimum every team would love to have him. 

But i don’t see him going anywhere at this point of his career. La is right for him at this point

I hope he doesn’t take a paycut, he rightly should be paid among the most in the league with all the money he makes them. He doesn’t owe them anything and shouldn’t take the paycut even if he isn’t in his prime anymore, tickets and jerseys will be sold.

How’s the golf scene in OKC

No one would respect that and it won’t happen anyway

Thunder don’t need him and he’s not coming off the bench

i wouldn’t complain. i’m ready for our superteam era

It would be funny because he’d go right back to being as hated as when he went to Miami. I don’t think he’d do it. Even less so if they win this year.

True, LeBron is wrong and Scottie Barnes is wrong and even Haliburton is wrong but BUT xXEliteEater500Xx is RIGHT yall! 🤣😂

Thunder’s games have the highest TV ratings, so he’s clearly not turning off NBA fans.

He was also the 4th highest vote getters by the fans for the All Star, so he’s clearly loved.