Antetokounmpo is having an MVP season

Giannis Antetokounmpo’s NBA Cup Final opponents Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Denver’s Nikola Jokić rightly generated a lot of MVP buzz for a quarter of the regular season. But within three days in Las Vegas, Antetokounmpo added to his already pretty convincing performance and claimed his third NBA MVP trophy. He put up tremendous numbers all season, averaging an incredible 32.7 points, 11.5 rebounds and 6.1 assists while hitting a triple in Tuesday’s finale, a 97-81 victory over Oklahoma City. Scored a double with 19 rebounds. But his stat line doesn’t exist in a vacuum; He looks as dominant, if not more dominant, than ever before. And he’s been lethal from mid-range this year (which Kevin Garnett recommended him for over the weekend), which is an important complement to his near-unstoppable inside game. In Tuesday’s showdown between the MVP frontrunners, Giannis clearly appeared to be the best player on the floor.

The elephant in the room

Flying out of Las Vegas from Harry Reid International Airport, you find yourself among a sea of ​​blank-eyed zombies shopping for magazines and bottles of water, and it always feels like there’s this strange, unspoken elephant in the room : This is a place where almost… all is hungover, but no one verbally acknowledges it. It was hard not to notice the NBAs own The elephant in the room this weekend in Vegas: that there is no clear succession plan for a post-Lebron James, Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant basketball world. The collective gasp from the NBA media machine after Curry’s Warriors were eliminated in the quarterfinals, ensuring that no real, proven needle-maker would join the party in Las Vegas, was palpable. At last year’s inaugural tournament, James and the Los Angeles Lakers competed: both have been at the top of the NBA’s popularity rankings for decades. This year I wasn’t so lucky. While the four teams (Milwaukee, Oklahoma City, the Houston Rockets and Atlanta Hawks) certainly made for entertaining basketball for hardcore fans, the brutal truth is that no next-generation star, neither Shai Gilgeous-Alexander nor Antetokounpo, even has come close to reaching the popular heights of James or Curry. For perhaps inexplicable reasons, they simply lack juice. The NBA has a problem with marketing to young stars that seems no closer to a solution than it was a few years ago, and the closer James, Curry and Durant get to retirement, the more pressing the problem becomes.

The value of Isaiah Hartenstein

I’m old enough to remember pundits discussing Isaiah Hartenstein’s three-year, $87 million contract just a few months ago. If anything has become clear over the last few days in Vegas, it’s that the 26-year-old center (whom the Thunder plucked from the clutches of the New York Knicks in free agency) was worth every penny. He’s a prime example of a jack-of-all-trades who is a master of none: exactly the type of hard-playing Swiss Army Knife center the Thunder so desperately needed last season. Despite Oklahoma City’s resounding loss in Tuesday’s finale, Hartenstein scored 16 points and 12 points and at times looked as good as the Thunder’s second-best player. There is speculation that he will come off the bench when Chet Holmgren, currently sidelined with a hip injury, returns to the lineup. But the Thunder would be wise to consider it, as it has become clear that Hartenstein will play a critical role in any success Oklahoma City achieves this postseason.

Amen to Amen Thompson

The Rockets had a somewhat disappointing performance in their first trip to Las Vegas for the Cup: They were soundly beaten by an Oklahoma City team that at times looked like a step-up version of Houston’s own youthful, athletic, defensive-minded template. One clear bright spot, however, was second-year small forward Amen Thompson, who is not only an incredible defender and great athlete (which was clear on draft night), but also a player who is slowly starting to emerge as an offensive force . Despite the loss, Thompson was the talk of the town after Saturday’s games. Houston should definitely consider him an important part of any core team when it comes to championships.

You need a guy™️

There’s nothing like a high-stakes environment to expose roster flaws, and the Rockets, a feisty and impressive young hotshot of a team, were exposed this weekend. When the game gets tight and the minutes are running out, it’s extremely important to know that you have an “A Guy™️”: the only person on your team who can find a way when the ball ends up in their hands. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is that player for Oklahoma City. The Hawks have Trae Young and the Bucks have Giannis (and Damian Lillard too). Houston simply hasn’t been able to keep up despite its abundance of exciting young talent, and that fact was never more evident than Saturday’s semifinal loss to the Thunder. With trade season officially underway and names like Jimmy Butler and Zach LaVine reportedly on the line, the Rockets would be wise to find their own Guy™️.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander the Great

There’s a lot of nuance involved in NBA awards voting, and it’s not uncommon for MVP front-runners to represent more compelling narratives (cough cough, Russell Westbrook) than an actual time capsule of who the league’s best player was that year . But one such adjacent measure, beyond pure accolades in the truest sense of the word, is the perennial hairdresser’s debate about which players in the league can be expected to be the best players on a championship team. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who performed somewhat disappointingly in the cup final (for his immense standards), showed that he absolutely lives up to this claim. At times it actually looked like he was playing the game with his proverbial sliders all the way up against Houston in Saturday’s semifinal, cutting through their formidable defense and getting the shot he wanted with remarkable ease, drawing “oohs” and “ahhs.” He stood out from the crowd with his ball-handling ability. One thing has become abundantly clear: Alexander is a surefire, bona fide superstar.

I’m trying to make “The Cup” happen

Traditions often seem as if they have always existed, floating in a timeless space without the need for a clear beginning. But the reality is that everything has to start somewhere and nothing can replicate the gravity that only years of history can provide. Even a prestigious NBA championship only has meaning because of us together decided It is important. Despite the NBA’s most compelling Rosario Dawson-backed and Emirates-funded advocacy to the contrary, the NBA Cup still doesn’t really matter. The artificial pomp and circumstance and the oodles of sponsorship and advertising surrounding it are evidence that the league would really, really like it to matter now, but there’s no substitute for the passage of time. One day it will inherently have meaning, but that time has not yet come. That’s why his legacy isn’t really about the players in this year’s cup or even next year. Ultimately, they do the dirty work of laying the groundwork and creating the story that will instill awe in the event for years to come.