As Thursday’s Game 1 of the NBA Finals approaches, it is time for our annual deep dive into what the championship series will mean for the legacies of many of its participants. The 78th edition of the Finals will feature the young Oklahoma City Thunder, the underdog Indiana Pacers and so many stories.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Oklahoma City Thunder
When asked at the All-Star Game about being among the faces of the NBA — and if he had any desire to be the face of the game — Gilgeous-Alexander said, “It’s something we as players don’t have full control over. It’s literally for the world to decide; whoever the world gravitates to is going to become it naturally.”
Advertisement
Well, here is Gilgeous-Alexander, on the game’s grandest stage, with the world watching.
We are in the midst of the longest streak in which the NBA’s regular-season MVP has not advanced to win the championship. Gilgeous-Alexander has the chance to become the first player since Stephen Curry in 2015 to win MVP and a championship in the same season. And he has the chance to become the first player since LeBron James in 2013 to win regular-season MVP and Finals MVP honors in the same season.
(Davis Long/Yahoo Sports Illustration)
You may have heard of Curry and James. They are the biggest names in the sport. This is what happens when you meld individual success with team success; together it launches you into another stratosphere — one reserved only for the all-timers, and SGA is daring to join them on the very precipice of his prime.
Advertisement
Ten players in NBA history have won regular-season and Finals MVP honors in the same season, and only two of them are guards: Magic Johnson (1987) and Michael Jordan (1991-92, 1996, 1998). Likewise, Jordan is the only guard ever to win the scoring title and a championship in the same season. He did it six times. Gilgeous-Alexander, who averaged a league-leading 32.7 points per game this season, could join Jordan.
And wouldn’t that be something: Jordan’s six championships seasons, and Gilgeous-Alexander’s one.
In their own conversation.
[NBA Finals preview: Pacers-Thunder key matchups, schedule, X-factors and prediction]
Advertisement
This is where we remind you that Jordan was 28 years old when he first won a championship. Gilgeous-Alexander does not turn 27 until July 12. Any way you slice it, if Gilgeous-Alexander were to win the title this season, his season would belong among the very best for a guard in NBA history, and he will have done it at an earlier age than anyone else, including Jordan. That will force us to reckon with a number of questions, including where he belongs among the greats and whether or not he can replicate this feat.
With a ring, Gilgeous-Alexander would have something point guards Steve Nash, John Stockton and Chris Paul do not. In that case, he might only be chasing multi-time champions Johnson, Curry, Isiah Thomas and Bob Cousy at his true position. They are the Point Gods, and SGA could soon walk among them.
Tyrese Haliburton, Indiana Pacers
Somewhat lost in the improbability of Indiana’s NBA Finals run is the fact that Haliburton has done this at such a young age. The best player on the Pacers at just 25 years old. He has already accomplished something that few players ever do, leading his team to the championship series in only his fifth season.
Advertisement
With a victory against Oklahoma City, though, Haliburton would join an even more select few. The list of All-Stars who served as the best player on a championship team before his 26th birthday includes only Bill Russell, Bob Pettit, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Walton, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and Dwyane Wade.
In other words: Wade was the only one to do it this century.
All but Pettit went on to win multiple championships. They are also all members of the NBA’s 75th anniversary team. A win over the Thunder would all but guarantee that, when the NBA’s next anniversary team is announced, Haliburton will be included among the 100 greatest players ever.
Pascal Siakam, Indiana Pacers
Siakam is six years and three All-Star selections removed from helping the Toronto Raptors to the 2019 NBA championship, along with Kawhi Leonard. A win with the Pacers would make him the second-best player on two title teams — already a short list. Think in recent memory of Pau Gasol, a Hall of Famer.
Advertisement
Only six multi-time All-Stars this century have won championships with two different teams: Shaquille O’Neal, Ray Allen, LeBron James, Kawhi Leonard, Rajon Rondo and Jrue Holiday. Only O’Neal, James and Leonard — multi-time Finals MVPs — made an All-Star team as a member of both teams that won titles.
Siakam could become the fourth.
Last year in this same space we wondered if a second ring would mean Hall of Fame recognition for Holiday, a two-time All-Star and six-time All-Defensive selection. We have to say the same of Siakam, who has meant every bit as much, if not more, to the two teams he has helped lead to the NBA Finals.
Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren, Oklahoma City Thunder
A one-time All-Star and a zero-time All-Star, respectively, Williams and Holmgren (who might have made this year’s All-Star team had he not been injured) are only beginning to carve out their careers. What shape they will take we cannot know. That they are here, now, already, feels like the start of something.
Advertisement
Williams is 24 years old. Holmgren is 23. Both have likely already done enough to secure max contracts when their rookie deals end in 2026. They are that good, and a title would only be further confirmation.
More than that, though, they could be founding members of a rising dynasty. With proof of concept in these NBA Finals, it would be hard to imagine a group so young would fail to reach these heights again. If we think of the Golden State Warriors as a roadmap for a young core that breaks through before anyone expected, consider what their run of success meant to the likes of Klay Thompson and Draymond Green.
Yes, Thompson and Green are future Hall of Famers, but beyond that they are vital components to telling the story of their franchise — to telling the story of the NBA. You cannot tell the story of Stephen Curry without crediting Thompson and Green; the same could be true of Williams and Holmgren as they relate to Gilgeous-Alexander, and if they are to win again — and again — their story becomes more compelling.
Rick Carlisle, Indiana Pacers
Carlisle has the chance to become the fourth head coach in NBA history to win championships with two different organizations, joining Alex Hannum, Phil Jackson and Pat Riley. This alone is an accomplishment.
Advertisement
Carlisle’s first title, with the Dallas Mavericks in 2011, was among the biggest Finals upsets in history, as they defeated LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh and the heavily favored Miami Heat. Were the Pacers to win this season, it might mark the biggest Finals upset in history. To have both of those on a single résumé — for two entirely different teams — would be something, really, no coach could match.
Carlisle ranks 11th in career regular-season victories and 10th in career playoff wins. We may have to have a more serious conversation about where he ranks on the all-time coaching list if he were to win these Finals. Only the legends — Jackson, Riley, Red Auerbach and Gregg Popovich — would be clear of him.
Only Jackson, Popovich, Steve Kerr and Erik Spoelstra have won multiple rings as head coaches since 2000. Carlisle could boast something not even Jackson could match — titles with two different teams, as underdogs, playing wholly different schemes, with sub-pantheon level superstars as his best players.
Sam Presti, Oklahoma City Thunder
Even before he became (at the time) the league’s youngest general manager at age 28 on the 2007-08 Seattle SuperSonics, when he was modernizing a championship method as an assistant GM on the San Antonio Spurs, Presti had been thought of as one of, if not the smartest person in basketball. He has given seminars on the subject at MIT’s Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, heaven for basketball nerds.
And his analytically driven method has proven to be a successful one in practice, as he has twice developed championship-contending cores in his 18 years on the job in small-market Oklahoma City. All while building the deepest cache of draft picks in the league. No team is better set up for success.
Advertisement
But he has not won the title. Only then can we confirm he may be The Smartest Person In Basketball.
Myles Turner, Indiana Pacers
Turner is more than a role player and less than a star, and players like that do not often stick with one team. Yet here is Turner, long after — or still amid — years of trade rumors, still toiling for the Pacers.
Turner is in his 10th year of service in Indiana, and there had to be points along the way — like in 2021, when Justin Holiday started more games than anyone for the Pacers — that he believed he could never win in the Hoosier State. This title would mean more to him than most, and he means a lot to Indiana.
Alex Caruso, Oklahoma City Thunder
Also a 3-and-D wing on the 2020 NBA champion Los Angeles Lakers, Caruso would establish himself as one of the great role players of the 21st century, if the Thunder were to win this year’s championship. Think of Danny Green, who went on to win a third title with a third different team. Caruso is 31 years old and on a great contract for the best team in basketball. More rings are not out of the question for him.
Advertisement
James Johnson, Indiana Pacers
Johnson, who has never averaged more than 12.8 points in a season and has not averaged more than three since 2022, has played 786 career games over 16 seasons. He has stuck around as a consummate teammate, partly because he is widely considered the toughest pound-for-pound player in the NBA. The man is reportedly undefeated as a martial artist. To add a title to that résumé would be awfully sweet.
(Seriously: His nickname is Bloodsport. That in itself is cool. Add a ring to his fist, and then what.)
Paul George, Philadelphia 76ers
Both of this year’s NBA finalists built their teams from trading Paul George. The Pacers traded George in 2017 to the Thunder in return for Domantas Sabonis and Victor Oladipo, who Indiana turned into, among others, Tyrese Haliburton and, in a roundabout way, Pascal Siakam. Likewise, the Thunder flipped George to the Los Angeles Clippers in exchange for Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and a handful of draft picks, one of which became Jalen Williams. So either way George is responsible for this year’s NBA champion. Or not.
Adam Silver, NBA commissioner
The NBA will crown its seventh different champion in as many seasons. Parity is here, for now, and it is what Silver wanted. The collective bargaining agreement is aimed at tearing down dynasties as soon as they form. We will see if this is what everyone else wanted, as we monitor the television ratings for this year’s small-market battle between Oklahoma City and Indiana. Not that it will impact the NBA’s bottom line: The league’s new 11 year, $76 billion media rights package is not even set to begin until next season.
But parity is the NBA’s brand now, and we will see how the viewers like it.
Read the full article here
