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Brandon Rahbar: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander wins the Male Athlete of the Year ESPY. pic.x.com/TCS1yRHWnN
Marc J. Spears: Legendary former #NBA head coach and executive Bernie Bickerstaff honored by @BCAWORLDWIDE for his influence on the game and his outstanding coaching tree. JB Bickerstaff, Mike Brown, David Fizdale, Phil Handy, JJ Outlaw and others spoke the praises of the NBA pioneer tonight. pic.x.com/A9kXVnjBzg
Legendary former #NBA head coach and executive Bernie Bickerstaff honored by @BCAWORLDWIDE for his influence on the game and his outstanding coaching tree. JB Bickerstaff, Mike Brown, David Fizdale, Phil Handy, JJ Outlaw and others spoke the praises of the NBA pioneer tonight. pic.twitter.com/A9kXVnjBzg
— Marc J. Spears (@MarcJSpears) July 14, 2025
You were the youngest MVP ever. So, like, how hard is it to win MVP? Derrick Rose: It's extremely hard. I mean, you’ve got to dedicate your whole life to it, man. I play chess now, so I say you’ve got to make a gambit move. A gambit move is sacrificing a piece to actually get ahead in the game. When I was younger, my gambit move was that I rarely went out. I was kind of obsessed with the game. And with me being obsessed, it kind of led me to get close to that record. I thank God I got injured though—because I tapped out. I would have been stuck and would've become a totally different person. So yeah, it takes a lot of work, bro, to even get close to that. And you have to be delusional.
Michael Scotto: 2025 NBA Finals MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander: “Jalen Williams is a once-in-a-lifetime player. Without him, his performances, big-time moments, shot-making, defending, and everything he brings to this team, we don’t win this championship. This is just as much my MVP as it is his."
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander wins Finals MVP
NBA Communications: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander of the @okcthunder is the recipient of the Bill Russell Trophy as the MVP of the #NBAFinals presented by @YouTubeTV .
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Keerthika Uthayakumar: Only four players have won MVP, the scoring title & an NBA Championship in the same season. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in 1971 Michael Jordan (x3) Shaquille O'Neal in 2000 Shai Gilgeous-Alexander this season
Brian Geltzeiler: The following players have won a league MVP, the scoring title, a championship, and finals MVP in the same season Michael Jordan Kareem Abdul Jabbar Shaquille O’Neal Hakeem Olajuwon Shai Gilgeous Alexander is on the verge of joining this list
"But you never could tell when you turned the TV on that he was struggling. Because his leadership is always there, his intensity is always- that fire is always there. So, because he’s 8 for 24 from the field or something like that, you could never tell with a player like Kobe.”
Don Nelson named Chuck Daly Lifetime Achievement Award winner
Nelson, you see, is the 2025 winner of the Chuck Daly Lifetime Achievement Award presented annually by the National Basketball Coaches Association, league sources say. NBCA president Rick Carlisle comes to the NBA Finals every year to hand-deliver the award to its honoree before Game 2 ... but he'll have to do so this time while coaching Haliburton and the Pacers in the Finals. "I think it's one of the best honors I ever had," Nelson said this week upon returning from his Hawaii residence to the mainland. "I'm very proud to get it. "I haven't had shoes on for six years. And I haven't been on a plane for about seven. But I figured that this would be something I should probably be there for."
Surely you haven't forgotten the highly fortuitous l-o-n-g two that Haliburton drained to force overtime in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals at Madison Square Garden … his stepback hoist at the regulation buzzer that bounced straight up into the air off the back of the rim before dropping straight back through. It was the NBA's modern-day homage to Don Nelson. "I thought for sure the announcers would say something about it because it was very similar," Nelson told me the other day, reflecting on the decisive Game 7 shot he sank in the 1969 NBA Finals. "But they didn't mention it. It was kind of funny to me because that's the first thing I thought about. "His shot was a lot longer and it went way higher than mine though," Nelson added with a laugh.
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Toumani is a big topic on the team, who did get All-Second Team All-Defensive. Yeah. How big is that for him and just the growth that he's shown in just year two? Chauncey Billups: "Well, first of all, I was mad he didn’t get First Team. I really was. I thought he did good enough to get First Team. I thought the only reason why he didn’t is because our team—we didn’t make the playoffs, and nobody sees the Blazers. Of course, we do in this market. People in Orlando, people in Atlanta, people in New York—they don’t really watch the Blazers that much. That’s going to change, though. We’re going to start continuing to get better and get more national games. That was the only thing that was different for me. I thought he performed at a First Team All-Defense level. But even him getting Second Team needs to be celebrated in an incredible way. He’s a young player. He’s just now playing these guys for the second year. You know what I mean? It was incredible what he’s done.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander wins Western Conference Finals MVP
Ben Golliver: Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander named Western Conference finals MVP. - SGA averaged 31.4 PPG, 5.2 RPG & 8.2 APG in five games vs. Timberwolves.
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