2025 NBA FINALS: #1 Oklahoma City Thunder vs #4 Indiana Pacers (OKC leads 3-2)

[kaansunman]

I get shai has been doing this the less time but what would he need to do for people to accept him as acontender for 1st?, for how long?

Probably when OKC pays the bigger contracts to the supporting cast and loose the depth. SGA will put up bigger numbers against the younger and deeper team but loose. Then SGA will be the leading actor for what if scenarios and voila he is recognized.

[bbms]

i won't recriminate people taking giannis over sga, even though i disagree.

what i pick on is people using arguments such as "sga has a better team" like sga isn't the biggest reason why his team is so great.

the comparison i draw is with duncan. duncan was one of the top dogs of an era (almost a decade in top 3 in impact metrics, median), but i don't think it's mere coincidence that multiple players developed and could punch way above their prospect weight class in the duncan environment.

duncan was never a helio type of top dog and i think that allowed multiple players to develop with him in a way that i don't see many players developing around of other guys from the elite 4 (jokic, giannis, doncic) like we see with sga.

and that's possibly an underrated trait that's mistakenly used to knock on duncan, and also is erroneously used to knock on sga.

[wang000hk]

Those Nemhard turnovers were hard to watch. He basically gave the Thunder a head start into multiple fast breaks. It's the kind of situation where you'd rather see him simply pull up from the logo where he could technically make 1 of 4 shots, instead of just throwing the ball away.

He felt alone this time with the "deny" pressure defense by OKC. Haliburton should be the one with the ball in those minutes. McConnell can get back in but both Nembhard and Haliburton played big in clutch all playoff long. Coac Carlisle's decision to play that duo is highly reasonable.

Haliburton was straight up trash this entire game, I wouldn't bring him back unless the game was getting out of reach and they needed to try something else

Just plain stupid coaching that I find it hard to believe RC would do
Not to mention repeating same mistake in not involving Siakam down the stretch
These dumb TOs could have been avoided if they passed to him more in low post to operate the offense

[syrus3]

Scooby Doo has been carried by Jalen Williams, Caruso, Scott Foster, et al, in addition to his team being allowed to hack and maul people while the opposite team cannot play the same way. But we are supposed to be impressed.

Delusion is truly real!

But we’ll sit back and wait and see how things unfold a year from now. Things change in basketball very quickly.

[bisme37]

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