How will Shai Gilgeous-Alexander's MVP run be remembered?

Yahoo

21-05-2025

Yahoo Sports NBA contributing writer Tom Haberstroh and senior NBA writer Dan Devine highlight Shai Gilgeous-Alexander's stellar 2024-25 season and talk about his journey to becoming this year's winner. Hear the full conversation on 'The Big Number' and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen.
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Video Transcript
Shay Gildris Alexander is probably gonna be named the MVP.
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He's the MVP in my book.
He is by far the, the scoring leader this season, 32.7 points per game.
And then when you look at the plus minus, the steals, the assist to turnover ratio, the lead.
shit, I think is a big part of this and people are saying, Dan, like, free throw merchant, our favorite, Doris Burke is talking on the broadcast and bringing up that NBA Twitter believes he's a free throw merchant.
I understand why people are frustrated with all the foul calls that he gets, because I think it's unusual the way that he gets these calls.
But that's true for every superstar in the NBA.
Jokic benefits from the whistle, Dodgeic benefits from the whistle.
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LeBron does every MVP candidate in the NBA will get one or two calls a game that you're like, did he really foul him there?
Do you have any thoughts on like how you'll look back?
On this MVP race this season, one of the challenges with MVP voting, and I, I do have a ballot, and I did vote for Shay over Jokic in 2nd place.
One of the challenges is balancing sort of the sober-minded statistical analysis with, I don't think that narrative is a dirty word.
I think this is, I think storytelling is a really important part of our business and also of what our jobs are and what we do.
To me, the Thunder were the story.
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of this season.
The driver of that literally and figuratively is Sha Gilda Alexander.
Like they do not, yes, you can, you know, you can make the argument that he has the better supporting cast around him and Jokic has to do a heavier carry job and so on and so forth.
And like everything about how Oklahoma City plays with the way that they structured the team to be a 5 out team with Chet at the big, the drive and kick, the guard guard screening actions, everything that kind of got.
The ball rolling for Oklahoma City.
All of that flows out from Gilous Alexander.
This is not purely unethical hoops.
There's more to it than that.
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And then you like zoom out and it's 35 and 5, 50+% shooting with the steals and the blocks.
And you're talking about Michael Jordan territory, like the, the in terms of production, not just from the guards, but from anybody, hitting those numbers, it's Jordan and it's SGA.