When you're an all-time NBA great, the haters will flock towards you. That comes with the territory. You're basically a local deity in one market and an enemy among 29 other fanbases. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has learned that lesson over the years in his improbable rise to basketball superstardom.
When Gilgeous-Alexander joined the Oklahoma City Thunder, he was an afterthought. He was a nice sweetener added to a historic trade package, but nothing else. Entering his eighth season, he's one of the era-defining NBA superstars of the 2020s. The two-time MVP winner has seen his scoring style fall under heavy criticism over the years.
Gilgeous-Alexander has averaged a superb-efficent 30-plus points over the last four seasons. He snatched the all-time
20-point streak record from Wilt Chamberlain. As one of the greatest scorers ever, the drive-heavy player has been called out for how he gets a decent chunk of his points.
The free throws. Yep. I bet you could've guessed that. Gilgeous-Alexander's free-throw numbers have been a nauseating talking point over the years. Something, something about the ethicality of them. Something, something, it's not about the numbers, but how he gets them. If you're an OKC fan at any level, you've surely heard the same talking points parroted throughout the NBA social media world.
But what does Gilgeous-Alexander think of all the talk? Specifically, about how he draws his contact? Another thing that rubs fans the wrong way is the constant falling or whatever. To the point that national basketball pundits manually tallied the number of times he did it at the peak of the OKC hate frenzy. He addressed the evergreen topic in his 'Time Magazine' interview.
"Sometimes I’m leaning so much and fading away so much that it’s easier for me to fall than to try to stick a landing or risk landing on someone," Gilgeous-Alexander said. "It’s just natural. Your body’s in a way in the air that if you try to stick the landing, it’s unnatural. If I’m this way and my knee will have to go the other way, you’re compromising your body."
I mean, honestly, the Gilgeous-Alexander falling discourse is something I've always found silly. I know sports hate makes folks irrational, but I mean, c'mon — really? Have you watched any NBA games recently? Guys are falling literally every possession. Whether to draw fouls or fight for a board or try to get a stop or whatever. It's part of basketball. Always has been. Always will. These guys are basically playing the human version of bumper cars out there at going 100 MPH all the time. That invites chaos and contact.
To think Gilgeous-Alexander can calculate to fall down and bait a defender into a foul undersells the speed of the game. Just not enough nanoseconds in a typical pull-up jumper to be that mischievous. As he noted, he likes to score his buckets amid traffic — whether in the paint or on the grill on defenders — that's naturally going to lead to a lot of contact and fouls.
TIME’s new cover: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is the best player in the NBA… according to @shaiglalex.
— TIME (@TIME) October 8, 2026
Our interview: https://t.co/sHyT1te0bx pic.twitter.com/kbQSiCAZQo
This article originally appeared on OKC Thunder Wire: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander brushes off falling criticisms: 'It’s just natural'
