This Has Thunder Fans PUMPED UP...

Thunder fans are pumped up because they are rejoicing that Shea Gilgis-Alexander is your 2024-2025 NBA MVP. He won it over Nikola Jokic who had a great season. We have to admit it. Nikola Jokic, it was a fantastic season by him. It was a great race. Probably one of the tightest races we've ever seen for the MVP award in NBA history. A guy averaging a triple-double, willing his team to the playoffs. Shea Gilgis-Alexander having the best season by a guard. We have seen in NBA history, leading his team to 68 wins in a regular season. Fifth best record of all time. So it was going to come down to the wire, alright? This is probably what took them so long. They had to make sure they had all the votes counted up correctly. They had all the points tallied up. They came to a conclusion. It was Shea. Sean has announced that today on Twitter. The awards show is in two hours by the time I'm recording this right now. So I thought it would have been announced by then. This would have been a later video. But I had to hop on it immediately here for you guys and break down why he won the MVP award and what is next for him and the Oklahoma City Thunder. Also, kind of talking about this whole free throw merchant narrative going around with Shea after that game one against the Minnesota Timberwolves. So before we get into all that though, quick moment to recognize. As always, alright, around 66% of you guys still are not yet subscribed to the channel. That sub number keeps on going up and up and up, but yet more people, more of you guys just aren't subscribed. So if you enjoy the content, find yourself coming back on a regular basis and you want to support the channel, the best way to do so is just by hitting that subscribe button. Try to hit 4,000 before the NBA Finals when the Thunder make it there. So as always, hit that subscribe button, hit that like button so we can defeat this YouTube algorithm. With that out of the way, let's go ahead and get into talking about your NBA MVP. Like I mentioned, it was announced today by Sean. Sorry, I'm breaking. This was, you know, just an hour ago by the time I'm recording this. has won the NBA MVP award sources tell ESPN. Like I said, I thought they were going to wait for the award show and have him come on there. Maybe tell him earlier today, like, hey, you won the award. Get ready to come on, do an interview or something. I thought that's what was going to happen. I truly thought so. Apparently not. So we're here now talking about it. All right. Congrats to Shea. It was a great season. Congrats to everyone else. I was a finalist. Nicola Jokic, Giannis Anadokoumpo. All right. They also had great seasons. But overall, Shea was deemed the best player this year, and there's no question around why he was. I mean, look at these stats right here. 32 points a game, five rebounds, six assists, a block and a steal a game. You don't see many guards averaging both one block and one steal. All right. Especially MVP caliber players. Only two turnovers a game. Only two fouls a game. Shot 52% from the field, 37% from three, and he shot 90% from the free throw line. He was close to having a 50, 40, 90 season. All right. And what's crazy about all of this is as a guard, he wasn't shooting threes. He didn't get all those points from shooting three balls. All right. Only 26% of his threes of his shots were three pointers. So yeah. All right. He took a few. He shot the three ball. Well, as you can see, 37% from three. But it's the fact he did all this by driving in, working in the mid range, getting to the free throw line. And before I hear it from everyone saying, oh my goodness, you gave the MVP award to a free throw merchant, to a flopper. He modeled his game after Kobe Bryant, who modeled his game after Michael Jordan. So you're going to call both those guys free throw merchants and floppers. Well, I wrote about it today as well. So I can go in and give you my two cents on it. Okay. Here's what I have to say about people saying, you know, oh, he shouldn't have been MVP because he's a free throw merchant. Okay. Shane modeled his game after the great Kobe Bryant and Bryant modeled his game after the greatest guard of all time, Michael Jordan. So let's compare the free throw numbers of all three players during MVP caliber seasons. This season, Gilded Alexander averaged 8.8 free throws and 32.7 points per game. In the 2006-2007 season, Bryant averaged 10 free throws a night and 31.6 points a game. So as you can see right there, Bryant averaged less points a game, but took more free throws. So Shea clearly is showing by his MVP season compared to Bryant's own MVP season. He was a better score. During Jordan's first MVP season, he averaged 10.5 free throws and 35 points averaging 35 is kind of crazy, but Shea wasn't too far off in that only two, two and a half points away from that. In his final MVP season, he averaged 28.7 points and 8.8 free throws each night. So Jordan, his final MVP season, when he was exiting his prime, averaged less points than Shea, but the same amount of free throws. So kind of showing there, Shea is a better all-around score compared to Jordan's last MVP season. I'm not saying Shea's better than Jordan all time. I'm just saying comparing the MVP seasons, this season was better than Jordan's last MVP season. So all these great guards that Shea modeled his game after averaged the same amount or more free throws, yet which player gets called a flopper the most? There are clips of Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan making defenders fall for a pump fake and then going into contact to get to the line. Shea does the same thing, but gets hated on for it. So it's kind of absurd, the hate that he gets for getting to the free throw line. It's a common thing, all right? If you bite for a pump fake, it's going to turn into a bucket, whether it's going into the contact to get to the free throw line, which is perfectly legal in basketball and you're taught to do that all the time. If you're called a flopper, don't leave your feet. Don't fall for a pump fake then. That's simple. All right? If they do fall for a pump fake, if they still have a dribble, take a little sidestep dribble there. Boom, knock down the shot. That's exactly what Shea does, but he gets hated on for it. But it doesn't matter because how many, you know, how many MVPs does your team have? How many? All right. Because my team has one. Your team doesn't. All right. Anyways, going into some more stats here. Right here. Boom. Another one. Shea Gillis-Alexander is your 2024-2025 NBA MVP. Here's just some stuff that kind of signifies how great of a season it truly was. He led the Thunder to an NBA best 68 wins. He led the NBA in scoring. As we mentioned there, he was a scoring champion this year. Scored 20-plus points in 72 straight games. He led the NBA in 20-point games, 75, led the NBA in 30-point games, 49 of those, led the NBA in 40-point games, 13, and led the NBA in 50-point games. He had four and two back-to-back. So that goes and shows it was absolutely spectacular season offensively. Another one right here. This is just the gift that keeps on giving. If you don't remember, the Thunder got Shea from the Paul George trade. Look at this. All right. Paul George finished second in MVP voting when he was with the Thunder. They traded him to get this package of picks and get Shea in return. That's what they got. They also ended up getting Jalen Williams from it. Boom. Whatever. But Shea's the big one here. And I'm not saying whatever to Jalen. He's great. All right. One of the best second options in the NBA right now. But Shea Goodles Alexander is the big piece from that. It turned into an MVP and a potential championship for the Thunder before Paul George made it to an NBA championship. That's something to say right there. Another one. Boom. Shane Young talked about it. Okay. He wins his first MVP award two months before turning 27 years old. He averaged 32-5-6 this season on elite modern shooting splits of 57-37-89, closer to 90 if you want to round up. It's all closer to 57-38-90, rounding up the decimal numbers. But it's whatever. All right. And final thing by Shams here. Just quick accolade note. He led the number one seed to a league high 68 wins and became the second player in NBA history to average at least 30 points on 50% shooting, 5 rebounds, 5 assists, 1.5 steals and 1 block per game, along with Michael Jordan. He's also one of two players to average 30 points per game on 50% shooting from the field in three consecutive seasons. The other one, Michael Jordan. I'm not saying Shea is on pace to be the greatest player of all time, but this is some elite company to be part of. It really is. If you are doing stuff that only Michael Jordan has done before, you're clearly doing something right and you're going to make it to the Hall of Fame at some point. The only thing that's next for Shea is he has to go out there, beat the Timberwolves, make it to the Finals, win it, win Finals MVP, and he'll go down as the greatest Thunder player of all time and submit himself as a Hall of Famer and potentially the face of the NBA. There's no doubt about it in my mind whatsoever. So congratulations to Shea Gildas Alexander on winning the MVP award. What's next is just to beat the Minnesota Timberwolves, win the NBA Finals and have a parade in Oklahoma City. That's all I got for this video. See you guys in the next one.