{"id":116886,"date":"2025-09-03T23:56:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T23:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/116886\/"},"modified":"2025-09-03T23:56:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T23:56:09","slug":"charles-barkley-offers-perspective-on-nba-mvp-shai-gilgeous-alexander","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/116886\/","title":{"rendered":"Charles Barkley Offers Perspective on NBA MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a> star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander<\/a> improved his resume significantly this past season.<\/p>\n

The 27-year-old guard has reached champion status while earning a nod as the league\u2019s most valuable player throughout the course of a regular season.<\/p>\n

Even with the new accolades, Gilgeous-Alexander tends to deal with criticism from outsiders. One NBA legend recently made remarks about the Toronto-born guard, which seems to get critical of Gilgeous-Alexander\u2019s on-court mentality.<\/p>\n

\"Shai<\/p>\n

Jun 22, 2025; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA; Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (2) reacts after a play against the Indiana Pacers during the second half of game seven of the 2025 NBA Finals at Paycom Center. Mandatory Credit: Alonzo Adams-Imagn Images \/ Alonzo Adams-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

\u201cThe one thing about OKC, even though I think Shai is a great. To me, he\u2019s more like LeBron. He\u2019s a really nice guy. He\u2019s not out there trying to kill you,\u201d Barkley told Bill Simmons<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Not necessarily a knock. More like pointing out the difference in NBA generations.<\/p>\n

Barkley admits that LeBron James is one of the three best players he\u2019s ever watched. However, he doesn\u2019t believe James possesses the early NBA hunter mentality.<\/p>\n

\u201cMichael and Kobe were dangerous,\u201d Barkley explained. \u201cThey will kill your [expletive]. LeBron is a nice guy, and that\u2019s not a knock. He\u2019s still great, great, great, but he\u2019s a nice guy. Michael and Kobe weren\u2019t nice guys. They\u2019re different.\u201d<\/p>\n

James came up in different eras and has been the face of the league since entering the picture in the early 2000s. The mentality of players on a nightly basis doesn\u2019t seem as intense. Entering the NBA in 2018, Gilgeous-Alexander is a product of that.<\/p>\n

However, that\u2019s not to say that Barkley is taking a dig at SGA. He was complimentary of the young star. At the end of the day, Gilgeous-Alexander\u2019s approach with his personality won\u2019t take away the fact that he\u2019s an NBA champion, NBA Finals MVP, NBA MVP, All-NBA three times, and a three-time NBA All-Star.<\/p>\n

\"Shai<\/p>\n

Jun 22, 2025; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA; Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (2) after winning game seven of the 2025 NBA Finals against the Indiana Pacers at Paycom Center. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-Imagn Images \/ Kyle Terada-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

Since joining the Thunder via trade six years ago, Gilgeous-Alexander has averaged 27.4 points, 5.2 rebounds, and 5.5 assists per game, while shooting 50 percent from the field and 35 percent from beyond the arc. <\/p>\n

Last season, Gilgeous-Alexander won MVP by posting a stat line of 32.7 points per game, 5 rebounds per game, and 6.4 assists per game.<\/p>\n

Next season, the young and talented Thunder roster plan to be right back in championship contention, as they want to get back to the NBA Finals to defend their status as the 2025 champions. Gilgeous-Alexander will need to be right back on his A-game, playing in a tough Western Conference once again.<\/p>\n

More Fastbreak on SI<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oklahoma City Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander improved his resume significantly this past season. The 27-year-old guard has reached…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":116887,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":["post-116886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116886\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}