Giannis in bloom and the elephants in the room: seven NBA Cup takeaways | Claire de Lune

Antetokounmpo is having an MVP season

Giannis Antetokounmpo’s NBA Cup Final opponent Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Denver’s Nikola Jokić have deservedly generated a lot of MVP buzz for a quarter of the regular season. But over three days in Las Vegas, Antetokounmpo added to his own already pretty compelling example by taking home his third NBA MVP trophy. He has put up great numbers all season, averaging 32.7 points, 11.5 rebounds and 6.1 assists, while recording a triple-double of 19 rebounds in Tuesday’s finals, a 97-81 victory at Oklahoma City. But his statistical line doesn’t exist in a vacuum; he looks just as dominant, if not more so, than ever before. And he’s been deadly from mid-range this year (like Kevin Garnett gave him props for that over the weekend), which is an important addition to his virtually unstoppable inside game. During Tuesday’s showdown between MVP frontrunners, Giannis certainly looked like the best player on the floor.

The elephant in the room

When you fly out of Las Vegas’ Harry Reid International Airport, you find yourself shopping for magazines and water bottles amid a sea of ​​zombies with blank stares, and it always feels like there’s a strange, unspoken elephant in the room : this is a place where almost everyone has a hangover, but no one acknowledges this verbally. It was hard not to notice the NBAs own The elephant in the room in Vegas this weekend: that a clear succession plan for a post-LeBron James, Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant basketball world doesn’t really exist. The collective breath-holding of the NBA media machine after Curry’s Warriors were eliminated in the quarterfinals, ensuring that no bona fide, proven needle-mover would join the party in Vegas, was palpable. Last year’s opening tournament featured James and the Los Angeles Lakers: both have topped the NBA’s popularity rankings for decades. This year there was no such luck. While the four teams (Milwaukee, Oklahoma City, the Houston Rockets and Atlanta Hawks) certainly provided basketball entertainment for hardcore fans, the brutal truth is that not a single star of the next generation, not Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, not Antetokounpo, even came close. to reach the popular heights of James or Curry. For reasons that may be unknown, they just don’t have the juice for it. The NBA has a marketing problem for young stars that seems no closer to being solved than it was a few years ago, and with James, Curry and Durant getting closer to retirement, the problem is only becoming more pressing.

The value of Isaiah Hartenstein

I’m old enough to remember, just a few months ago, pundits fretting over Isaiah Hartenstein’s three-year, $87 million contract. If anything has crystallized in Vegas in recent days, it’s that the 26-year-old center (who was pried by the Thunder in free agency from the New York Knicks) was worth every penny. He exemplifies the highest level of a jack of all trades, master of none: exactly the type of hard-playing Swiss army knife center the Thunder so desperately lacked last season. Despite a blowout loss to Oklahoma City in Tuesday’s final, Hartenstein scored 16 points and 12 boards and at times looked as good as the Thunder’s second-best player. There is speculation that he will eventually come off the bench once Chet Holmgren, who is currently sidelined with a hip injury, is back in the lineup. But the Thunder would be wise to rethink that, as it has become clear that Hartenstein will play a crucial role in whatever success Oklahoma City has this postseason.

Amen to Amen Thompson

The Rockets had a bit of a disappointing performance in their first trip to Vegas for the Cup: They were decisively defeated by an Oklahoma City team that at times looked a lot like an even more evolved version of Houston’s own young team. , athletic, defensive minded template. But a clear bright spot has been small forward Amen Thompson, who is not only an incredible defender and tremendous athlete (which was well understood on draft night), but also a player who is really starting to emerge as an offensive force. Good. Despite the defeat, Thompson was the talk of the town after Saturday’s games. Houston should absolutely consider him as a fundamental part of any core with championship aspirations going forward.

You need A Guy™️

There’s nothing like a high-stakes environment to expose roster flaws, and the Rockets, a feisty and formidable young firecracker of a team, exposed theirs this weekend. When the game gets heated and the minutes get shorter, it’s vital to know you have A Guy™️: the one person on your team who, when the ball lands in their hands, can find a way. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is that player for Oklahoma City. The Hawks have Trae Young and the Bucks have Giannis (and Damian Lillard too). Houston, despite the embarrassment of having a wealth of exciting young talent, just isn’t going anywhere, and that fact was never more apparent than on Saturday in their semifinal loss to the Thunder. With trade season officially underway and names like Jimmy Butler and Zach LaVine believed to be in the area, the Rockets would do well to look for a Guy™️ of their own.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander the Great

There’s a lot of nuance to the voting on the NBA awards, and it’s not unusual for MVP frontrunners to be more representative of compelling stories (cough, cough, Russell Westbrook) than a veritable time capsule of who was the best player in the league that year was. But one example of such an adjacent metric, beyond just the literal reward, is the evergreen barbershop debate over which players in the league could safely be the best player on a championship team. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who was somewhat disappointing (by his immense standards) in the cup final, has shown that he definitely ticks that box. It really seemed at times as if he was playing the game with his own proverbial sliders pointed all the way up against Houston in Saturday’s semifinal, carving their formidable defense to pieces and getting every shot he wanted with remarkable ease, ” oohs” and “ahhs”. ‘ from the crowd with his finesse in ball handling. One thing has become abundantly clear: Alexander is a surefire, bona fide superstar.

Trying to live up to ‘The Cup’

Traditions often feel as if they have always existed, floating in a timeless space without needing a clear beginning. But the reality is that everything has to start somewhere, and nothing can replicate the gravitas that only years of history can provide. Even a prestigious NBA championship only has its appeal because we, collectively, decided it matters. Despite the NBA’s most convincing Rosario Dawson-backed, Emirates-funded endorsements to the contrary, the NBA Cup doesn’t really matter yet. The artificial pomp and circumstance, and the large amounts of sponsorship and advertising surrounding it, are evidence that the league would love for it to matter right now, but there is no substitute for the passage of time. One day it will organically take on meaning, but that moment is not now. Therefore, the legacy isn’t really about the players in this year’s Cup, or even next year’s. They end up doing the dirty work of laying the groundwork and creating the history that will bring reverence to the event years from now.