Why Shai Gilgeous-Alexander & OKC Thunder have DYNASTY upside | Colin Cowherd NBA Reaction

Why Shai Gilgeous-Alexander & OKC Thunder have DYNASTY upside | Colin Cowherd NBA Reaction

You know, I it was two things can be true. Number one is the NBA got 76 billion dollars. They’re good. Number two, number two, hockey, baseball, MLS, and the NBA regular seasons will never matter as much as they used to because there’s just too much content. We’re all distracted. Young people don’t watch as much television. And I was looking at the game last night between the T-Wolves and OKC and I was thinking, “Oh yeah, this isn’t going to work. This is not going to pull a number. The Knicks Pacers will, but I was watching Minnesota OKC and I’m like, this is Adam Silver’s want. This is the league he wants. He doesn’t want stack teams. He inherited that league from David Stern. He heard he’s a very, if not idealistic. He’s kind of a um he’s very pro- employee like like he listens to his employees. David Stern could bulldo you. This is what I’m going to do. He had two or three agents and five or six owners he was close to. Silver is more about the collaborative and the fabric of the league, but he also inherited a very successful league from Stern. Stern ended up trying to kind of save the league. So, David was like, Nike, Jordan, Magic Bird, big markets. That’s what we’re going to do. So, it’s a different time. But I look at I think this is now the NBA with a new CABA that Adam Silver wanted. But I watch two things can be true. I watch Minnesota and Oklahoma City. I don’t I think that will get a dreadful national number. Am I wrong? I don’t think you’re wrong, but I also don’t care. Like, I’m not a television executive. I’m not in business like I I’m not I’m not in business with the NBA. I, you know, like I don’t care. I I think that we should be talking about it on our shows because I think sports fans will watch it. Will they watch it at the exact same clip as the Eastern Conference Finals? No. Obviously not market size, relevance, people know New York, all of those sort of things. That that’s all fine. Um I have a lot of thoughts on last night’s game, the Thunder, the discourse, but we can start with your premise about the the league that Adam Silver wants. This is a historic time for the NBA. This will be the first time ever that there are seven different champions in seven years. not no backtobacks, but last seven years, seven different organizations will have won the NBA title. And so I looked it up, heyday of the NBA, everyone says is, you know, Bird, Magic, Jordan, Kobe Shack, Lakers, right? 1980 through the early 2000s. If you go from the 1980 NBA finals when Magic Johnson came in and played center and replaced Kareem, maybe the most famous game of his career through just before the first that the the Dwayne Wade Shack Heat title, 26 years, 1980 to 2005, seven different teams won a championship. Yeah. So the heyday of the NBA, 25 26 years, seven champions. Now seven champions in seven years. Dynasties are good for sports. They make people care. You love them. You hate them. You have opinions. They are good for national ratings. But I do think that in the long run, even if there is a 5% dip, a 10% dip in ratings, I do think long-term this will be good for the NBA because there will be some belief that I think they will legitimately be able to sell of anybody can win. Listen to this. I just got this from our Goldie. Our producer just sent me this. T-Wolves Thunder game one down 24% from last year. Least watched game one conference final since 2021. There you go. Okay, fine. So, small markets, people that not everybody knows yet, but also a blowout. Like, let’s see how that goes over the course of over the course of time. Also, this is a you’re a media observer. Okay, I understand why the Western Conference Finals have to start later than the Eastern Conference Finals, but when it ends up being Oklahoma City in Minnesota, does it have to be 8:30 Eastern? Right. Am I Am I crazy? Like, like the Eastern Conference finals will start at 8:00 p.m. Eastern. And I if it was if it was if it was Lakers Warriors, I get why they need every minute possible to try to pack the building and respect the people leaving work on the West Coast, but and I know that these things are predetermined ahead of time. Eastern Conference games are going to start at 8. Western Conference games are going to start at 8:30. But when it’s two teams in the Central time zone, that game ends after 11:00 p.m. Eastern on a school night, that can’t help. that can’t help what you’re talking about with with the ratings. So, I wish that they had a little bit more flexibility when it comes to scheduling. Sorry to interrupt this great video, but please remember to like and subscribe. Thank you. Now, back to the video. You know, the other thing I thought about last night is that I don’t know how many shots a took. It was like 13 or something. He didn’t shoot 13. Yeah. And he’s a he’s a great player, but this is the difference. how great Michael Jordan was. Jordan last night, probably in a losing cause if he played for Minnesota, would have taken 39 shots is that Michael never had a game that I can remember, a big one. Even the flu game where you’re like, Michael took 13 shots. His generation, Michael didn’t care. Michael was gonna go down. Michael’s the most relentlessly competitive person I’ve ever seen. I mean, in Magic, Bird, everybody, LeBron, Steph, it doesn’t matter. is that Jason Tatum there are times I’m like is he on the floor last night in the second half I’m like is is amp playing is that everybody’s rich in the league it’s a much more you know collaborative I mean Michael Jordan had no problem saying hey Republicans buy shoes too I I’m not I’m not talking politics if you it’d be hard to say that today as a professional athlete you’d get just destroyed uh by the collective, the media collective. But that’s the that’s the difference. When I when people haven’t seen Michael play, I always say that Michael never had a game or a moment where you went, “Is Michael on the floor?” I mean, I remember a game against Utah in the finals. I remember a game against Phoenix in the finals. He took a jumper from the angle. It hit backboard and floor. It didn’t hit rim. It was a terrible shot. He had games against Utah where he was like seven for 33. But there is something about everybody being rich and everybody has the same four agents and they all like each other that there isn’t there isn’t there is a real sense there’s tomorrow. Don’t don’t don’t expend your energy and I and I watched Minnesota the second half and I’m like oh they’re done tonight. They’re they’re done tonight. They were clearly done early. Listen, I I will give Anthony Edwards the he went back to the locker room with the ankle injury and I don’t know how much pain he was in. Like I maybe Right. But here’s the thing about last night’s game. I was I was appalled at some of the discourse of SGAA is a foul merchant. The Thunder aren’t watchable. I don’t like their brand of basketball. I know he was just announced as the MVP, but he hadn’t won the MVP yet. He has no finals appearances. He has no rings. If people are already sick of the Thunder and you’re an actual basketball fan, the next 10 years of your basketball viewing are going to be miserable. They’re they’re the youngest playoff team in the league. They’re younger than the Pistons. Their oldest starter is 27 years old. Shay is 26. Jaylen Williams and Chad are like 23 each and Sam Prey is the best executive in the sport. Their coach was a finalist for coach of the year after winning it last year. And they have every draft pick for the next decade. And people SGA is a foul merchant. They talk about him like he’s James Harden. He drives to the rim more than any player in the league. Not this year. Not these playoffs. For five straight years, Sheay Gilchis Alexander has led the NBA in drives to the basket. Minnesota took 51 threes last night. Right. Right. Oklahoma City took 21 and the free throw discrepancy was five. And people were like, “Oh, the refs are in it for small market Oklahoma City and zero time MVP SGA.” No, that’s how he plays, right? And so like that game was a blowout. aunt got hurt. There was no reason to watch the fourth quarter of the game. The ratings were down. Okay, fine. But man, I don’t understand how people all year can be like, they don’t play defense. Like the collective league, the league doesn’t play defense and all they do is shoot threes and now you have a young upand cominging historically great defensive team with a guy who scores from everywhere on the floor and you’re like, I hate that too. Like is is is anybody satisfied? Like, do we have to do we have to bring Michael Jordan back from his fishing boat to play? Is that the only way people will not complain during an NBA game? It drives me insane. Yeah. No. And let me throw a theory at you. I talked about it on my show today. I think you’ll like this. So, I talked about it for like, as you can do on our show for four minutes. I could talk about it with you for Tim. So, one of the things I love about sports, I think you know this, theories, cultural changes, trying to see them as they’re happening in real time, right? So, take out the last two. Zack Edy made the all rookie team. Okay. Three years ago, it’s like can’t play just a college guy. Why was everybody so wrong? A year ago, Mark F’s like, “If he can’t play NBA, it’s an NBA problem.” Danny Hurley’s like, “You you can’t tell me he’s not an NBA player. He He’s the hardest guy I’ve ever done a a game prep for. We there’s no way we’re going to stop him. Mark F said, “All my years at Gonzaga, hardest player to defend. We have nobody in the program.” And then he hits uh uh the Yukon team that had two guys make the all rookie team. Uh the big in Portland and then Donovan um oh god, what? Klingan. Yes, Klingan. My bad. And then the kid from San Antonio, Steven Castle. Yeah. So, two things have happened in the last two years of college basketball. Zach’s dominance translated to the NBA and that Yukon team that crushed people even in the tournament really was full of excellent NBA players. Why do I say that? Because for the previous 20 years, guys like Doug McDermott won player of the year and were at best rotational players. So why is this happening? NIL has saved college basketball. So NIL is keeping guys like Zack Edy, NBA guys in one more year or they choose college over G-League international. A story today that Real Madrid and Barcelona’s amateur teams and this Spain has all the great European young players. They’re thinking of folding the league because American NIL money is taking all the European kids over here. So what is happening? So this European system that was so we were so enamored with Oh no, no, those kids are now going to play college. The G-Leaguers are going to play college. What does it do? First two rounds this year, March Madness, highest in 32 years. The quality was much better. Houston, Florida, Yukon, those are NBA players. So, we went through about a 20-year cycle kind of at the end of Grant Hill and all those kind of guys, Larry Johnson and all that stuff, right? Those were if you dominated college, you were going to be a good pro. And then went about 25, 30 years, you’re like Jimmer Ferd, Doug McDermott, uh Tyler Hanssboro, you could dominate college and be a rotational player. And I think it hurt the quality of the game. But between that Barcelona story, between uh the ratings and Zack Edy and the Yukon guys, what you’re seeing now is college basketball is a rebirth that when you’re watching it in March and a guy is dominating. So long story. Yeah. What does this mean? What does this mean in terms of OKC? They have stockpiled all these draft picks and we always assumed OKC Danny was going to use those picks to get a Giannis. Don’t give those picks up. The draft now is going to be like this year’s draft. You’re like, “Oh, there’s like seven domestic players in the top 10 and they’re all really, really good.” Is that the idea that you give out your picks for Giannis? If you don’t like OKC now with all those picks, these are going to be NBA players coming out of college now that can play almost immediately. Yeah, I think it’s a great point. And the guy who accumulated the picks happens to have a better record in both eras of what you’re talking about of nailing the picks. So like Sam Prey, every everybody has misses, but he has fewer than than most. Like he traded for SGA, but on his rookie deal. Like SGA was just available and he traded for him and he sniped him. He traded. This is not a college player, not a young player, so not a perfect example, but like Alex Caruso wins them game seven. Alex Caruso was on the Lakers. They offered him three years, $21 million. The Bulls offered him three for 37 and restricted free agency. And the Lakers were like, “No, we’d rather have Tayen Horton Tucker.” So, he went to Chicago. Then the Bulls trade Alex Caruso to Sam Prey for Josh Giddy. Josh Giddy, nice player, fills up the stat sheet. Fun, young, high upside guy. Not saying anything bad about Josh Giddy, but Alex Caruso clearly is a championship pedigree player, elite defensive player, and Sam Prey has approximately 327 extra draft picks and the Bulls couldn’t get one of them in that trade for Alex Guso. I read that trade and I was like, “Oh, that’s funny. They got Josh Kitty, but like what’s the draft pick?” And it never came. They ne like so Sam Breesty is just great at this. He’s great at it. And I agree with you. They will keep a lot of those assets. You can only have 12 guys on a team and like they traded Josh Giddy because there wasn’t a spot for him. Like they had too many good young backcourt players that were cheap. That’s not a problem most teams have. So I don’t think he’ll use every draft pick. That’s right. you know, but he can he can he can go out and get any player he wants whenever he decides to cash his chips in. I don’t think it’ll be for Giannis, but I think it’ll be for cheap labor because they want guys on their rookie deal who they can sign to second contracts because free agents aren’t historically going to choose Oklahoma City. And he can just say, “Oh, we’re what’s the one thing we’re not elite at? Three-point shooting. Who’s the best 3 and D guy in the NBA on a rookie contract? I want him. And he can go get him. Like that. That that’s what I don’t think people completely understand about what Oklahoma like if Oklahoma City said we want Giannis, they would win. If Oklahoma City said we want Durant, they would win. If fill-in-theblank superstar becomes disgruntled and they if the Mavericks were like we’re going to hold a bidding war for Luca Donuch and San Prey’s like I want him. they would win. They have more assets than everybody in the league and it isn’t particularly close. So, I don’t know how he’ll play use the poker chips, but I know that he’s more likely than not going to be right. He will prioritize young cheap labor. And to your point, he’s not going to trade as many of the draft picks as people think because he’s excellent at drafting.

Colin Cowherd is joined by Danny Parkins to react to the NBA playoffs. They talk about whether parity is good for the league and how the Oklahoma City Thunder are set up for the future better than anyone else in the NBA after their Western Conference Finals matchup with the Minnesota Timberwolves.

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