Shai Gilgeous-Alexander put the ‘WORLD ON NOTICE’ – Stephen A. Smith | First Take

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander put the ‘WORLD ON NOTICE’ – Stephen A. Smith | First Take

welcome to our new digs our new studios in the NYC it’s your boy Stephen A in case you haven’t figured it out and I got to sit there and say this i have to say this whoever decorated this place is pretty marvelous look at this photo right here i mean this is beautiful this is beautiful you know morning Stephen hey is this serious what what do you mean we have a photo of you like it’s your living room well you know Mom you’re the face of the network you work on General Hospital doing soap operas on ABC and stuff like that they you know they do stuff like this but you know if you want me to I can holler at somebody for you check it out i’ll talk to somebody yeah I’m sure you will uh host could get some love around here there we go first take starts right now feel like this organization’s in a good spot they’ve obviously done it in the past so I think they know what it takes and they know how to do it and it’s only a matter of time the Oklahoma City Thunder are going back to the NBA finals they want to win the NBA championship like it’s always about winning for me one of the greatest regular seasons in NBA history and now for the first time the NBA champion resides in Oklahoma City we did what it took this year to be champions and we deserved this we roast to the moment here we are the Thunder are champions and we have a brand new studio as you can see good morning everyone welcome to First Take thank you for being with us we got Stephen A in the building my guy Brian Winhorse who I have not seen in months so I’m very happy to see you in the flesh and Jay Will of course gentlemen what do we think of the new digs it’s cool it’s cool it’s cool i can’t I can’t complain yeah all the angles all the no hiding nothing there are actually some very large photos of both of you in this building just to say that i want to say this i did not ask for them i don’t think they’re necessary but I don’t mind on that note news uh new studio same show clearly and as I mentioned the Oklahoma City Thunder are NBA champions the Pacers gave OKC everything they could handle despite the devastating injury to Tyrese Hallebertton but the Thunder capped off a historically great season with SGA taking home finals MVP honors here’s the MVP a lot of hard work a lot of hours in the gym um this isn’t just a win for me this is a win for my family it’s a win for my friends this is a win for everybody that was in my corner growing up this is a win for the fans the best fans in the world love you guys not so long ago Shay this was a 22- win team so what does it mean to you now to be standing here as a champion yeah it means everything uh it’s why you play the sport you play the sport to win you play every sport to win uh we have a team full of competitors and uh we did what it took this year to be champions and we deserve this uh we rose to the moment here we are the title capped off a historic season for OKC who finished with 84 wins in the regular season and playoffs combined tied for the third most in NBA history just behind the 9596 Bulls and those 2015 2016 Warriors good company to be in stephen A here’s what I want to know from you what’s the biggest reason OKC won this title well it’s because of that brother right there who by the way I want to applaud for reminding America and the world what you play for i mean I know there are people that have tried to get us to forget about that but you actually play trying to win some championships it actually does matter so I applaud him for that shay Gil just Alexander is something spectacular uh to be approaching his 27th birthday to be three consecutive years averaging over 30 to be a runner up for league MVP last year and then to show up this season capture league MVP honors leading the team to 68 wins coming into the finals with an 80 and 18 record overall and then to play the way that he played um is just something to behold i watched him yesterday coming out just just to start the game i saw other guys a bit jittery at first and they all ultimately a worn off but they start off a little jittery not him he came out looking to score and let you know what you expect is what I’m going to give you he was not phased at all he wasn’t he didn’t shoot well eight for 27 but he didn’t look panicky he didn’t look like he was lacking composure or anything like that i give him all the credit in the world but they were assisted to some degree by the injury to to Tyrese Hallebertton which broke all of our os if you’re a basketball fan that was exactly what you did not want to see when he went down you just said “Damn.” Cuz remember he shot four times he hit his first three shot he hit three of his first four shots all three were three-pointers and it looked like it was going to be one of those nights where this brother was going to go off and if he was gonna go off it was gonna call upon Sheay and the rest of the crew in Oklahoma City to give you a little something extra if they were gonna pull out a championship and then he goes down and you’re just deflated indiana still fought and what have you you look at Rick Carlile you look at the rest of the team the Miles Turners and Nmiths of the world looked like the moment was a little bit too big for them uh T.J mcconnell had a big time third quarter in the game seven just like he did in game five but then only collect only had one shot in each fourth quarter in game five and game seven you just looked at it at the end of the day and when you ask yourself the biggest reason for the Thundering the title it’s because they have one of the top two players on the planet playing for them who’s a reigning league MVP that just put the world on notice i have arrived i am here and I have no intentions of going anywhere anytime soon the road to title town is going to have to come through me that’s what I saw in Shay Gilas Alexander and that’s why Oklahoma City are the reigning champions right now i agree with you um I think there’s a larger identity picture okay that people may not talk about as much today that I I think the players need to be set up for success and some people like you or Stephen A smith we just had the cold intro but there is somebody that found and saw Stephen A smith it was like uh that’s different now you have to mold into that the whole LeBron James talking about you know person in the coliseum understand all that but the architect of culture overhyped to me is Sam Prey because if you saw in that third quarter when they start to put the squeeze on them the the star of this team is their defense it’s the sum of the collective now SGA is a superstar there’s no doubt about that but their defense is the one that gives you so many points for possessions and that’s that’s what makes this team elite you talk about flipping PG into SGA and five first round picks think about that foresight to have that to see that SGA has turned out into the player he is jaylen Williams the 12th pick in the draft santa Clara where is it a guy that had to practice and participate in a scrimmage during the NBA draft combine sam Preie found him the vision to sit out Chad Homegrren for a year oh you’re talented i’m going to need you with this injury sit out for a year cautionary tell and then for him to defensively anchor the backbone of this defensive championship team the fact that they have 15 plus first round picks the fact that they have so much cap space that sets them up for the future kasem Wallace Lou Dort you add in Alex Caruso all the names i Hartinstein we talk about what he would have been like on New York Knicks team this year the pieces that he’s masterminded put together it it reminds me similar to Howie Roseman and what they were doing with Philadelphia right it’s like I’m not going to overpay for certain pieces i’m going to have them be homegrown i’m going to make them be additive and I’m going to value system and alignment over individuals and these two leaders and Jaylen Herz and SGA MVP caliber players that lead with how they play on the field and how they play on the court more so than what they say and I think Sam Prey has learned a lot over his time at OKC and I think his name deserves to be in the lights with the Bob Myers and with the Pat Rileies what is a perfect NBA basketball team look like got to have a superstar right you’re not winning without a superstar check you got to have a couple really good supporting players that you can rely on to like maybe score 40 points in a finals game they got to check you need size you got to have size they have two sevenfooters that they start you got to have depth now they may only go seven or eight deep when it really matters but they play 10 deep no problem you got to have camaraderie you got to have defense you got to have flexibility you got to have leadership look at this team that’s how you get to 68 wins that’s how you get to two game sevens that you win that’s how twice you’re down in series 2-1 on the road where you’re facing game four and you’re in trouble in those games and you get through it they are a perfect modern basketball team they have been constructed as if they were constructed in a laboratory that doesn’t always work when that happens but that’s what they have now can they keep going that’s another question but they are perfect team and we saw them go through a near perfect season one of the things that I’m going to tell on him anyway he probably don’t like it i don’t give a damn but I’m going to tell on them anyway one NBA countdown last night and Oklahoma City Thunder won the championship and the confetti is just descended from the rafters and what have you and I look over at Kendrick Perkins and Kendrick Perkins is shedding a tear kendrick Perkins because he was so happy for the owner Klay Bennett he started talking about off the air what a wonderful wonderful owner and what a wonderful wonderful man he is it starts there because when you have an owner that people want to work for and an owner that players want to play for that goes a long way i’ve been all over Sam Prey i’ve talked about his greatness as an executive but I said I don’t give a damn about executive of the year you’ve been the head of this franchise since 2007 always be closing glen Gary Glenn Ross my f one of my favorite alltime speeches by the by Alec Baldwin i said “Always be closing you got to close.” And sure enough he closed last night dagnol young coach you know made a huge because if they had lost his finals Mommy we would have been talking about game one we would have been talking about why did you change your lineup before uh the ball was even tipped off rick Carlile was already in your head and as we watched the great Rick Cara who is a great coach all right we looked at him throughout this series and there was plenty of times we looked at him and we said “He’s getting the best he’s getting the better of Dagnel.” And so to watch him do what he did as a coach you can’t say enough about it they overcame they overcame all the skepticism all the criticism today we have to look at Sam Prey as being that elite executive not just the executive of the year now look at all the deals we got to think about you know the Russell Westbrook deals the Paul George deals and stuff like that we got to look at the moves that he’s made in accumulating those assets not Not only do they sit here as champions they’re the second youngest team in NBA history to win a championship the only team that was younger was the 7677 Portland Trailblazers when led by Bill Walton and Lo Holland and those boys that’s what we’re talking about here so you have youth you’ve already captured a championship and it ain’t like you have to look at them and say “Well Shay’s gonna turn 27 you know daughter’s 26 Jaylen Williams is 24.” You don’t have to stop there even if you lost one of them or somebody you have so much assets coming down the pike you’re not going away yeah I want to expound on that sentiment gentlemen so the Thunder win in game seven makes them the seventh different franchise to win the championship over the last seven seasons this is the first time in NBA history that seven different um franchises won the title over a seven season span so Stephen A with that being said and Wendy alluded to it a little bit earlier a lot of parody lately but do you think this is the beginning of a dynasty it could be and because of the assets I would I would still having said that although it could be I’m going to lean more towards a no than a yes here’s why interesting i’m looking at the Dallas Mavericks and I’m looking at Anthony Davis kyrie once he’s returned if Cooper Flag is a speck of what the hell we think he is and we think he is going to be great look out for the Dallas Mavericks the Houston Rockets which we’ll get into yet later just acquired Kevin Durant and you kept Shagon and you kept Aman Thompson and you kept Van Vleet and you kept Jabari i mean they’re not going away i’m just looking at the West itself it’s just as wild as it was this year i think it’s going to be just as wild next year so what’s the first thing you need to do when you have a championship team you got to hold them together right so in the next couple of weeks they are in position to sign Sheay to a contract extension it’s going to be huge yes going to be the largest one ever he’s going to be years in that contract where he’s over $70 million two they got Chad Homegrren who they can sign to an extension this summer jaylen Williams who they can sign to an extension this summer they’re going to lock those three guys in for five years now with the way the league is structured right now they’re trying to squeeze teams out they’re trying to squeeze because of the second apron even if the Thunder lose some of these role players even if they can’t keep and I’m not going to speculate who they may or may not because of the 15 first round picks i mean guys they have the 15th pick in this draft on Wednesday i mean who knows maybe they draft a guy there that ends up being really great for them maybe they don’t they got 14 more first round picks in the next seven years they got guys sitting out right now who can contribute because like if you think about the last really great team that lasted for 10 years you’re talking about the Spurs the 2000s you go back to the Bulls look at the the the the players that were supporting Tim Duncan and Manag Nobi and Tony Parker in 2014 completely different than the ones that were supporting them in 2007 the Bulls in the 90s totally flipped that team over around Pippen and Jordan because they’re able to bring in extra players the Thunder are in position to do that even under the curtain rules so Stephen D brings up a good point we are in the parody era not only have we not had a repeat champion Molly we haven’t had a team in these last seven make it out of the second round so I’ve not given them anything but they are best positioned probably since the Warriors 10 years ago with the young players they had under contract control to to to do something special i would agree with you i think they’re you both they’re in the best position hear me out on this one though i I think the days of the dynasties are kind of over um knocking on the door is one thing remaining healthy is another and I think body types have a lot to do with remaining healthy we’ll get into the whole Tyrese Hallebertton conversation look what happened to Steph Curry this year look what happened to Aaron Gordon this year guys that one guy tried to fight through it another guy chose not to fight through it longevity of the career we’ve had eight torn Achilles this season alone i think pace and space and the amount of possessions we have in this game but the amount of money people are able to earn I I think are going to create some issues with longevity we have and and seeing these dynasties when to me a dynasty is three right it’s three in a certain amount of years you start winning three so health plays so much into that with contracts three straight or three in five years three and four years i’m down with three and five years i think three and five well go ahead go ahead no I would say this to you i think Oklahoma City warrants the conversation and I think they’re the closest conceivably to it simply because of the assets they have in terms of players on their roster in terms of their depth and the assets they have in terms of draft capital like when you have 15 first round picks but you also are the reigning defending champions with a starting five that has size athleticism etc etc and then you can go 10 deep right that means you can afford to suffer to some of course you don’t want Shay going or whatever but you don’t want Jaylen Williams gone but you can afford a lot of things other teams can’t afford because of the of the of the assets that you have everybody can’t say that agree they can yeah i they they can’t I guess just with so much player movement there’s so much volatility each year like think about what just happened with Houston just adding KD we still don’t know where Giannis is going to be there still so many conversations cuz it’s so how do you say it fluid it it’s fluid every year so I seven champions in seven years I just don’t know if all of a sudden we’re going to see consistency for the next five yeah let’s dive into that injury conversation because it’s very concerning devastating to see Tyrese Hallebertton go down with that Achilles last night considering all of his heroics throughout the playoffs putting them in position to even be playing in a game seven of the NBA finals obie Topphen crushed when he saw his teammate go down we needed tie out there and he’s been good for us all year and for him to go down getting a game like that it’s like it sucked the soul out of us i ain’t going to say out of everybody but I don’t feel like I played good because I was thinking about it the whole the whole day and I felt like it was my fault all shared in heartbreak for Hie as everything was set up for an epic game seven stephen A obviously we already saw stars like Jason Tatum Damen Lillard go down with an Achilles now Tyrese Hallebertton in the biggest game of his life a game seven what was your reaction when it happened obviously you were there in person i I just I threw up my hands i was I was so I was so hurt for the brother i really really was because you know I’m one of those guys that I I love the game seven the moment the adrenaline the fervor the fans outside just the atmosphere and it’s like yes and and now let’s get it on it’s game seven it’s no excuses it’s no It’s nothing it’s all here for you and I I just said to myself when he went down like that it it’s like how you going to overcome this it’s like and he was balling three three three shots four shots three three-pointers and you saw the way he was going it was like oh my goodness he came to play tonight this ain’t game five he came to play you’re going to have to be great to beat them with Tyrese Hallebert and looking like this so it was going to call for for SGA and the crew to summon up something extra to do it and then he goes down like that and it wasn’t like it was the calf train when he step when he when he fell down and he laid down and he started banging his hand on the floor you’re like whoa this this is really really bad then you obviously saw them helping him off the court and you was like it’s it’s over he’s he’s done and in everybody’s eyes it looked like a torn Achilles and your heart just you know you felt and and I saw his dad his dad was crying he was devastated and stuff like that and you know obviously he was crying he was just miserable and all of this stuff you saw it deflated give the Pacers credit though they fought and they were fighting immediately after he went out obi Toppin he could have played better no points four shots after the way that he’s been playing through had he had been playing throughout this finals that was a disappointment but we understand where he’s coming from you look at Miles Turner and N Smith they could have played better the moment just seemed a bit too big but it would not have felt that way if Hallebertton had been rolling see that’s the key here sometimes the moment is just big no matter what but when you see a guy like him having that ability to raise his teammates play it makes sense what Obie was saying now you’d like to believe all right he’s gone now i got to step up i got to handle it well it didn’t happen for them like that pascal Seakin could have had a better game he wasn’t awful by any stretch but he could have had a better game but when you saw Hallebertton go down it it was like you you realize like it it it’s over even though they stayed in it you were just waiting for OKC to create that level of separation because it was just too much to overcome it’s a shame devastating a game seven wendy I I was so very upset by seeing it i I was kind of taken out of the game and so the fans were taken out of it yes a little Thunder the Thunder were kind of out of it it was such a terrible thing and he said before game six I understand the risks i’ve had conversations i’m going to play we Shams told us that the doctors told him this is an injury that if it was a regular season you’d sit multiple weeks he knew they got the MRI he knew that there was weakness in there and he played anyway and he played brilliantly in game six all things considered he gave himself confidence he gave his teammates confidence and as you said Stephen A we know that when Tyres Hallebertton gets off to a good start he plays great and we know when he scores over 20 points they very hard to beat he had nine points in the first six minutes to the point where Mark Dagodal the Thunder coach was telling his team “Get up on him.” In the huddles he was saying “I don’t care if he’s four feet behind the line get up on him.” And by the way that play was Shay running out at him because he had been told by his head coach don’t let him have that open shot again and he was running to the he was going to the basket probably to get fouled or score and that is what we were robbed with not only are we robbed about next season I don’t know what’s going to happen with this Pacers team and when Tyrese went to the back when he was in the hallway he was crying not just because his leg was in so much pain he was crying because he understood what he had just lost and that made it a basketball tragedy and so while we absolutely must celebrate the basketball success story of the Thunder it is very hard to come to grips with the basketball tragedy the personal tragedy that we saw last night it made me think about a larger topic um this pace in this year’s pace for the NBA 108.9 is faster than any other season since the early 70s and eight Achilles tears this season that we just went through um to me that’s not a coincidence that’s more of a trend that we’re starting to see with what’s happening in the sport three pacers to their kill three exactly three uh and it brought me back to the KD moment Stephen A right you know we talk about that game five against Toronto in Toronto for KD where we saw it you talked about Jason Tatium Dame rolled up on I I just think it’s as it relates to protocols and as we have more pace and space as we have more expand the court more threes it increases the problem of injuries soft tissue injuries like this I think the NBA is going to have to find different ways protocols to put in place to minimize these types of things that are occurring because the trend is going up and up and up and it comes from the calf and one of the things before we close the segment that we got to point to it makes me think about JJ Reic when JJ Reic has argued in defense of the modern-day player one of the biggest things he brought up was pace of play and tear compared to what it used to be and he talked about there’s a level of physicality on the human body that go they go through now that y’all are not appreciating enough and when we see these kind of injuries we realize how much sense JJ Reic was making

On First Take, Stephen A. Smith, Jay Williams and Brian Windhorst react to the Oklahoma City Thunder defeating the Indiana Pacers 103-91 in Game 7 to win the 2025 NBA Finals.

0:00 What is the biggest reason the Thunder won the title?
6:00 Jay Williams says Sam Presti deserves credit for constructing the Thunder
9:40 Stephen A. says Perk was shedding a tear after OKC’s win
12:15 Is this the beginning of a Thunder dynasty?
17:58 Reaction to Tyrese Haliburton’s injury in the first quarter
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