Thursday: SGA's legacy in OKC

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Back from Scotland.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
I will tell you more about that coming up in
the six o'clock hour. Let's talk some NBA stuff and
I'm going to start this with Shay Gilges Alexander Shaquill
O'Neil did a top ten list that I think he
did a few days ago, and he listed his top
ten players, and he got a lot of flack over
the fact that he put Kobe Bryant second behind Michael Jordan.

(00:27):
Now I don't know that. I don't know that Kobe
or Michael. To me, Kobe and Michael are interchangeable. I
always ask this question, what did Michael do that Kobe
didn't other than win one more championship? And yeah, you
could say that in ninety four, ninety five and ninety
five ninety six, if he hadn't taken a vacation or
a gambling suspension.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
However, you want to look at it, that they would
have won eight in a row.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
And they probably would have if he'd have played, because
I think the league was heavily dominant with Michael at
the time and that would have solidified him even more
as the greatest. But I think that Kobe was the
next generation of Michael Jordan, so I don't disagree with

(01:11):
his list. The only thing that was missing from his
list is he didn't have Kareem abdul Chabbar in the
top ten. And that's just an oversight on his part
because he had to have forgotten. There's no way that
Kareem's not top five of all time. He was the
most dominating player in the league for twenty years, and
I mean thirty plus a night and five or six

(01:32):
blocks in eight or nine eight plus ten plus rebounds
a game, and he did a lot of great things.
You throw the ball into him in the last few
seconds of his shot clock, most of the time it.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
Went in the goal.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
The reason I bring this up is that we always
like lists. We always like to see who's in the
top ten and who's not in the top ten, and
compare this generation's player to the next generations player. And
what Magic Johnson did in the eighties was transcended, and
what Steph Curry did in the twenty tens plus was
also transendent in the way that we played the game.
And now people are saying, well, shay Gil just Alexander

(02:05):
should be Michael Jordan. They're comparing him to Michael Jordan,
let's pump the brakes on that a little bit. Shay
Gill just Alexander is the first or second or third
best player in.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
The NBA right now.

Speaker 2 (02:15):
He wins the MVP, but there's nothing to say that
on any given night, Luca and Joker aren't just as
good or better. And you may even be able to
throw two or three other players that rotate through there.
If Kawhi Leonard wanted to be the greatest player in
the league right now, he could have been. He chose
not to because he doesn't have the tolerance and threshold

(02:36):
of pain to be able to fight through enough games
to where he's ever.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
Going to be honored with that status.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
But the word foul merchant has been directed in the
area of Shay Gilles Alexander, and if I were him,
I would trademark that name and patent it and say
and be very proud of the fact that he is
a foul merchant.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
I haven't looked at the stats lately, and.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
This is coming off of I think a pretty good
memory from years ago. Moses Malone scored something like twenty
eight thousand points in his career, and over half of
them were at the free throw line, he would get
under the basket. He would camp out two feet from
the goal, and as soon as the ball bounced off
the rim, he would grunt really loud and throw his
arms up in the air, and the officials would give
him two free throws on a loose ball foul. And

(03:23):
Moses Malone was an eighty two percent career for a
three free throw shooter, so he made a bunch of
them and he's racked up a ton.

Speaker 1 (03:31):
Of points that way.

Speaker 2 (03:32):
Adrian Dantley lived at the free throw line in his
days in the late eighties and into the nineties. Adrian
early eighties, Adrian Dantley was an incredible score in the
low post as a guard, but he got fouled a lot,
and he went to the free throw line a lot,
and he was a ninety something percent free throw shooter,
and probably more than half of his points were there.

(03:54):
Larry Brown, when he was coaching the Spurs back in
the eighty nine ninety season, comes in and says, the
key to the NBA, the key to basketball is to
play great defense and to attack the goal and if
you don't score, get found. Now that was prior to
the three point line, but now that the three point
line is important. You can attack the goal so that

(04:15):
you can throw it to shooters as you're being penetrated,
as you're being collapsed on from a defensive standpoint. And
so when when the ball goes to Shay and he's
handling the ball ninety percent of the time as a
point guard, and he takes off down the lane, and
he's got such quick reflexes that he can step back
and shoot a ten footter and make it most of
the time, or he can kick it to a shooter

(04:36):
if you collapse on him, or if you get too close,
he can drive by you and bump you as he goes,
and there's going to be free throws in an and
one possibility. So Shay Gilles Alexander has figured out how
to play that game and there's nothing wrong with it,
and they should not change the rules for him.

Speaker 1 (04:52):
But two things.

Speaker 2 (04:54):
One he should keep doing it, and number two, we
need to pump the brakes on comparing him to Michael Jordan,
because he's he's only twenty five years old or twenty
four years old. He's only been in the league for
a little bit a cup of coffee at the most.
He's a if he has any catastrophic injury, and let's
hope he does not. But he's on a trajectory to
be a really good scorer in this league. And I

(05:15):
don't think we should hold the fact that he has
figured out a way to get the officials to call
fouls on the other team by the way that he's
able to toward his body going in and out of
the lane.

Speaker 1 (05:27):
I think he's a terrific player. I would keep him.

Speaker 2 (05:31):
I would have no reason for him to stop playing
the way he does.

Speaker 3 (05:35):
Now, Andy, when you watch SGA play, does he compared
to James Harden, because Harden was considered a foul merchant
as well.

Speaker 2 (05:41):
Well, I think there's a difference is that while Harden
led the league in assists a couple of years ago
and would give it up to get somebody an easy
basket in crunch time, Shay is a little bit less
selfish with the basketball. And I don't think Shae travels
on the shot that he takes. And the reason I

(06:03):
know that James Harden travels in the shot that he
takes is because every college and high school player that
tries that move gets called for traveling. I've called, however,
many UTSA games I've had in the last eight or
ten years, and every time a player does that step
back three without dribbling, it's traveling, and it should be
traveling in the NBA. But that's even more blatant than

(06:24):
the second or third or fourth the step that players
get in the league. So in the way that James
Harden was able to get fouled is similar, but I
think the way in which they do it with the
quickness that Shay has going in the lane is a
little bit different.

Speaker 1 (06:41):
See.

Speaker 3 (06:41):
The difference to me is that James Harden was unwatchable
at times. I couldn't exhaust him flop around, grab guy's arms,
and SGA. It feels authentic. It feels like ethical free
throw shooting, ethical basketball. The guy's getting in there, he's
causing contact. It does he flop a little bit, sure,
but at this point, who does right like everybody's doing it.
I find watching him play SGA more entertaining and just

(07:05):
a better all around player than Harden at its peak Andy,
which is saying something.

Speaker 1 (07:10):
Here's the other thing. Shaye plays.

Speaker 2 (07:12):
Doesn't have to play defense, but he does, And James
Harden doesn't have to play defense, and he doesn't. And
when James Harden was at Arizona State. One of the
assistant coaches at Arizona State was Scott Parra. Scott Parah
coached at Rice from twenty seventeen to twenty twenty four.

(07:33):
Scott Para was in charge of Arizona State's defense to
camouflage James Harden's lack of desire to play defense, and
they played kind of a weird matchup zone at Arizona
State so that wherever James Harden was, there was nobody
to guard because he wasn't gonna guard anybody anyway. And
Scott tried that at Rice, but he had players at

(07:55):
Rice that actually played defense, so he didn't need to
do that as much. But that was the joke because
Scott Parrol liked to play different versions of zones when
he was at Rice, and it came from the fact
that they couldn't play a man to man at Arizona
State because Harden wouldn't guard anybody. Harden is really good
at guarding the guys. Harden doesn't guard anybody in this league.

(08:18):
He has pretty much you know, Mattador defense, where Shay
is going to play a little bit of defense. He
doesn't have to play as much because everybody else on
Oklahoma City's roster is a really good defender, and you've
got Hartenstein when he's in the game to clean up
rebounds at home, can block a few shots, so they
are a good defensive team. And that's where I think

(08:39):
the difference is.

Speaker 3 (08:40):
Can we start this conversation comparing Hga to Jordan and
you said, hey, pump the brakes there The only comparison
that I see is the Hey, the guy won the MVP.
He might win the finals MVP. This might be the
greatest regular season we've seen since the seventy three and
nine Warriors. That is to me, where the comparison stops
like this could absolutely be the greatest, one of the
greatest seasons of all time.

Speaker 2 (09:01):
If Shae plays fifteen more years and win six championships
and has three or four more MVPs, now we can
start putting him in the goat conversation. But goat conversation
shouldn't start for somebody. He's twenty four years old. You
haven't played enough yet. And I hope he plays forever.
I hope he plays forever in Oklahoma City. I hope
he gets his eighty million dollar max extension. I hope

(09:22):
all of that comes from he seems to be like
a really good dude. I hope that he is, and
it's he seems and it comes across as if he is.
But what I don't think he's listening to that, as
he should not. But we're not talking. I'm not going
to put Shay. You'll just Alexander in the top fifty

(09:42):
all time until he does it a little bit more
than what he's done so far.

Speaker 3 (09:46):
Would you put him number one in Thunder history?

Speaker 1 (09:49):
Yeah, I would put I would put Durant number one.

Speaker 3 (09:51):
So if he wins the title this year, Durant still
your number one guy.

Speaker 2 (09:54):
Yes, I think Durant. I think from a now, championships
are team driven. Yes, he led them to a championship.
But the reason the Thunder didn't win in twenty twelve,
this is because Miami had Lebron and Dwayne Wade and
Bosh and they had a better team. But the better
the better player in Thunder history, even in the years

(10:15):
in which he played only for the Thunder is Kevin
Durant and Kevin's thirty seven years old. I think now
or thereabouts was a Penina League fifteen years sixteen years
something like that. Yeah, yeah, let's compare Shay and Kevin Durant,
you know, fifteen years from now, not at this stage.

Speaker 1 (10:33):
Kevin Durant.

Speaker 2 (10:33):
I heard Jason McCollum, Jason McK and tire talking about
that earlier today that he thinks that that Shaye's the
better player or no. Eddie House said that if Shae wins,
he would be the better Oklahoma City player.

Speaker 3 (10:48):
I think the legacy though, that's kind of where it
comes down to that if you lead this organization who
gave away that seventy nine title to the Sonics one,
they don't claim.

Speaker 1 (10:55):
That they claim anything with the Sonics.

Speaker 3 (10:57):
This would be the first title in franchise. At that point,
you're like, you know what, Westbrook had the triple double KD.

Speaker 1 (11:03):
Let's talk about Westbrook.

Speaker 2 (11:05):
I'm not a big fan of Westbrook, but he has
claim ahead of SGA right now because of his numbers
and what he did.

Speaker 1 (11:11):
I see.

Speaker 2 (11:12):
My biggest problem with Westbrook is that he thinks he's
the first option at the end of the game. And
there's no team he's ever been on where he was
the first option at the end of the game.

Speaker 1 (11:21):
Or should be.

Speaker 2 (11:22):
He is a He's talking about a guy that can
get to the free throw line and get in the
lane and draw fouls and do all those kinds of things.

Speaker 1 (11:29):
That's Russell Westbrook.

Speaker 2 (11:31):
But there was too many times in Oklahoma City when
Hardin and Durant were on the floor and he decided
to take a three pointer heavily contested with early in
a shot clock, when there were better options prior to
him making that decision.

Speaker 3 (11:45):
It sounds like what you like to do is you
want to go resume. You look at the entire absolutely,
which is completely fair. I look at it as the
individual season. Two hey s, she had the greatest individual
season in Thunder history. That's to say, if they win
the title, right, Yeah, now that point, I gotta start
gets his name in the Mount rushmore, I gotta start throw.

Speaker 1 (12:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (12:04):
He's well, he's at worst the fourth best player in
Oklahoma City history behind Harden and and and Harden wasn't
there probably long enough, so he's probably third behind or
even second with Durant. But until he does what KD
has done for the bulk of his career, even though
Kd's jumped around from team to team, I just hope
that that that Oklahoma City pays him that he's happy

(12:25):
there and he wants to be there. And I think, uh,
I think you if you as long as you're winning,
that'll be that'll be a place he considers to be
home for some time.

Speaker 1 (12:34):
All Right.

Speaker 2 (12:34):
Tom Thibodeau got fired the other day. I saw that
as I was landing uh yesterday uh in uh and
and and catching up on all the news. I've got
some thoughts on that. Coming up next, it's the Andy
Everage Show on the ticket