Over the past few seasons, OKC Thunder superstar Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has found himself on the receiving end of quite a number of slanderous and, frankly, unfounded takes.
From his ridiculed long-range shooting capabilities to being branded a free throw merchant, the 26-year-old has caught a good amount of heat for things that he's not only managed to dispel with his on-court play but, also, may not have been true to begin with.
However, among all the questionable and deplorable assessments that have been made about SGA's game, this week arguably the worst of them was made by former 12-year NBA veteran, Nick Young.
In a scathing post on his personal X account, the 2018 NBA Champion went on a tirade criticizing the current state of the league's MVP race, specifically noting "a guy like Jason Tatum could never win" because, in his eyes, the Celtics are regularly blowing their opponents out on a nightly basis which forces the forward to sit fourth quarters and, subsequently, caps his per-game averages.
Now, while there are many things that could be challenged about Young's claims, perhaps the most egregious is when he stated in his post "teams like OKC gotta keep Shai in the game during a blow out to get his numbers."
This, without question, is one of the most baseless takes yet when in relation to the Thunder cornerstone.
Nick Young makes truly asinine claim about OKC Thunder star
Here, the logic just doesn't seem to be logic-ing.
Young suggests that Tatum, the sixth-leading scorer in the entire league at 27.5 points per night, would have even better averages in this department if Boston were in closer games on a nightly basis and, as a result, he saw more fourth quarter action. On top of this, he seems to have alluded to the fact that Gilgeous-Alexander has more run than the C's star during final periods in 2024-25.
Perhaps the NBA veteran isn't aware of this but Google is, in fact, free and so, too, is the NBA's statistical database.
Had he known this, Young could have easily saved himself from such an embarrasing appraisal by looking up how Tatum actually has played in more fourth quarters (33) than the Thunder guard (31) this year, and, despite logging roughly 20 more total minutes in said quarters, he trails Gilgeous-Alexander in points by 13.
With this, Boston has found themselves in close-call contests more frequently than Oklahoma City has this season as made evident by their plus-minuses rating (+413 compared to +538) and the sheer fact that they've seen less 15+ point victories (14 compared to 20).
What makes this take even more nonsensical is that SGA boasts the lowest minutes per game averages among the top 12 scorers in the association and ranks all the way down at 35 overall in this department with 34.1. To put this into perspective, Tatum ranks 10 at 36.3 per game.
Despite this, the Thunder stud ranks number one in points per game with 31.5 per night.
To say Nick Young's take on the MVP race and, more specifically, where Jayson Tatum stacks up against someone like Shai Gilgeous-Alexander in the pecking order was based predominantly on emotion rather than logic would be a major understatement.