Thunder’s Presti defends Gilgeous-Alexander against social media narrative, ‘He’s playing against six people’

Sam Presti knew he shouldn’t do it, but he couldn’t help himself.

The man in charge of Oklahoma City’s basketball operations — the man widely considered the best executive in the league, one who built a young championship roster — said he knew Shai Gilgeous-Alexander would “kill me for talking about this” and then he proceeded to talk about the narrative around SGA’s drawing free throws and the backlash to his playing style anyway. For almost seven minutes.

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“He’s playing against six people, he’s got five defenders and the sixth defender is social media,” Presti said (credit to Brandon Rahbar of the Daily Thunder for posting the video). “That’s a reality, and he’s not going to be the last player that the machine decides to target, but no one’s going to handle it as gracefully, because when they turn it on somebody else, they’re not going to step up there every night and not acknowledge it.”

Thing is, it’s not just fans on social media who complain about Gilgeous-Alexander’s playing style — although there are plenty of those — it’s coaches like the Knicks Mike Brown, the Warriors’ Steve Kerr and the Pistons’ J.B. Bickerstaff (among others). It’s also players such as the Celtics’ Jaylen Brown, or Victor Wembanyama’s thinly veiled discussion of “ethical basketball.”

Presti defended Gilgeous-Alexander against them, too.

“The postgame press conference has turned into the bully pulpit to create competitive advantage…” Presti said. “It used to be you get up there, you talk about your own team, now everyone gets up there and they talk about the officials and they discredit the other team.”

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Presti’s rant was playing to his core audience — and that likely starts with Gilgeous-Alexander himself. As noted by Presti, SGA brushes questions about his foul-drawing aside during the season, but if the narrative about it really does bother SGA, then Presti went out, made the case that everyone inside the Thunder organization has made for years, and had his star’s back. This also will play well with Thunder fans.

Presti continued to defend SGA for drawing fouls, saying all the greats do it, and his…

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Publish date : 2026-06-09 19:16:00

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