Shai Gilgeous-Alexander just completed one of the most impressive seasons in NBA history, becoming one of only four players to win the MVP, Finals MVP, and scoring title while capping everything with a ring. He joined Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Michael Jordan, and Shaquille O’Neal in that elite company. But that seems not to be enough to impress NFL legend Shannon Sharpe.
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No matter how you slice it, this was an all-time great season from SGA. And while this should’ve silenced all doubters, skeptics are still abound. Most agree that he is clearly a top-three player in the NBA, alongside Giannis Antetokounmpo and Nikola Jokić. But they are reluctant to put him in that top spot.
Sharpe is a former football player (quite a good one, at that) and not a basketball player. However, he has been speaking on the NBA for the past decade and has his thoughts on SGA. And, despite the monumental season that the OKC superstar just had, he does not sit atop the throne in Sharpe’s 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, the roster support is a frequently quoted point, and 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 – 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.
