Shai Gilgeous-Alexander just completed one of the most impressive seasons in NBA history. He is one of only four players to win the MVP, Finals MVP, and scoring title while capping that off with a ring. He joins Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Michael Jordan, and Shaquille O’Neal in that elite company. If you remove the scoring title requirement, only 10 players have accomplished that mark. No matter how you slice it, this was an all-time great season from SGA.
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While this should’ve silenced all doubters, there are still those who do not want to crown Shai in his rightful place. While most would agree that he is clearly a top-three player in the NBA, alongside Giannis Antetokounmpo and Nikola Jokić, they struggle to put him at that top spot.
While Shannon Sharpe is a former football player (quite a good one, at that) and not a basketball player, he has been speaking on the NBA for the past decade and wanted to add his own thoughts. Despite the monumental season that Shai just had, he does not sit atop the throne in Sharpe’s personal player rankings.
“I’d still take Jokić,” said Sharpe on the Nightcap podcast, “that’s not to take anything away from Shai. He’s a phenomenal player, but you’re talking about – you’re really splitting hairs – you’re looking at Shai, you’re looking at Jokić, you’re looking at Giannis. I think those are the three best players…”
Ultimately, as all the conversations do, the argument moved to a conversation of the supporting cast. While no one would deny that the roster built by Sam Presti does a much better job of supporting their superstar than the one built by the now-fired Calvin Booth, it doesn’t make a ton of sense to ding Shai because of it.
Still, it is a frequently quoted point, and this was no different as Cedric Maxwell brought it up. “Lu Dort looked like he should’ve been playing with the Cleveland Browns the way he was knocking guys down… The big question we’re gonna talk about later on is this: we’re gonna talk about three guys who were the MVPs when they were with the Thunder. They couldn’t get it done.”
Presti has spoken on regrets of mismanaging the previous generation of Thunder contenders as he oversaw a team featuring James Harden, Russell Westbrook, and Kevin Durant go ringless after making a Finals appearance in 2012.
Greatness has some subjectivity to it. We’ve been overthinking greatest of all time debates for decades, it’s obvious we would do the same for greatest in the world right now. Still, all three of Jokić, Giannis, and Shai have won an MVP, Finals MVP, and a championship. Worrying about what season they did it in is unimportant, to say the least.
