The rollout of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s MVP moment never fully landed the way many expected. Even after the award was handed to him before tip-off, the spotlight quickly drifted elsewhere, and by the end of the double-overtime thriller, Nick Wright believed the entire conversation had shifted away from the MVP winner altogether.

The former radio talk show host, on “What’s Wright with Nick Wright,” on Tuesday, put up a ‘controversial’ take on what happened at OKC.

“Shai might have just had the shortest tenure of best player alive in the history of any sport,” Wright said. “I think most people felt it was Joker (Nikola Jokic) going into this postseason. Then Joker loses… Then Wemby has his bad moment with the elbow, Shai gets announced as MVP, and it felt like the moment, like he was handed the trophy. It’s like all right. It’s the two-time MVP. The defending champs, they’re huge favorites. Shai congratulations. You’re the best player alive might have been like 15 minutes… by the end of the first quarter, it’s like nope. It’s the other guy.”

The other guy, Victor Wembanyama, finished the game with 41 points, 24 rebounds, and three assists, alongside three blocks in almost 49 minutes of gameplay.

Those were the second-highest playoff points in his NBA career, against the defending champions, as he led San Antonio to a 122-115 Game 1 win in double overtime.

It was meant to be Gilgeous-Alexander’s night. But instead, he watched as the man who took five first-place votes from him joined Wilt Chamberlain as the only players to record 40 points and 20 or more rebounds in their Conference Finals debut.

All on a night when NBA Commissioner Adam Silver stood at the center of Paycom Arena to place the trophy in SGA’s hands. Wemby even acknowledged the moment.

“Feels like I still got a lot to learn, and I want to get that trophy, you know, many times in my career,” he said. 

Gilgeous-Alexander struggled during the first half of the game. He finished with four points on 1-of-5 shooting from the field, sadly, with San Antonio having to play without De’Aaron Fox, who was ruled out due to an ankle injury.

The Spurs jumped into an early 12-3 lead, holding the Thunder’s elite defense to silence for long stretches. By the time OKC rallied from ten down in the fourth quarter to force OT, the narrative had already shifted

By then, the narrative had already been written, and it was crowned with Wemby hitting a 28-foot 3-point shot with about 27 seconds left in the first overtime to tie the game 108, a shot that, had he missed, would have ended the team’s night and maybe spared the Thunder and Shai all these troubles.

However, he didn’t miss it. He then scored the first four points of the second overtime, dunked on Chet Holmgren with 61 seconds left, and closed out a performance the Wright described with a rhetorical question: “I don’t even know how that works out.”

How Wembanyama Made the MVP Ceremony Irrelevant Before Halftime

While there’s no doubt that Shai Gilgeous-Alexander deserves his back-to-back MVP title, what happened last night exposed a fundamental flaw about how fans see the “best player alive” tag in real life versus in award cycles.

The MVP title came to Shai after he led the Thunder to the best record in the regular season, 68-14, averaging 32.7 points, 5.0 rebounds, and 6.4 assists per game.

While that resume won him the title, what happened hours after the trophy ceremony felt different.

OKC had not lost a single game across the two rounds of playoffs. They swept a Luka Doncic-less LA Lakers, were the defending champions, and even had home-court advantage.

All that to allow a 22-year-old, who watched the MVP presentation from the visitors’ side of the court, to put together one of the greatest Conference Finals in league history.

Wemby’s 40-20 performance is the seventh such feat in NBA history in the Conference Finals. That placed him alongside greats like Kareen Abdul-Jabbar, Charles Barkley, Wilt Chamberlain, and Shaquille O’Neal.

The Western Conference Finals were billed as a matchup between two of the three best players in the league this season, and it didn’t disappoint.

Although Wembanyama took the spotlight, Shai came alive, fighting his way through San Antonio’s double-team to record 24 points, three rebounds, and the game-high 12 assists.

While SGA’s moment was muddied in Game 1, he has another chance at redemption on Wednesday to make Nick Wright’s argument premature. But don’t write off a Spurs team that bettered the Thunder 4-1 during the regular season.