SGA & Thunder DESTROY Luka & Lakers, Ranking NBA’s Best Young Cores | Nerd Sesh x Matthew Sponhour

The nerds are joined by Matthew Sponhour of the Stay Hot podcast to react to Shai Gilgeous-Alexander & the OKC Thunder’s dominant win over Luka Doncic & the Los Angeles Lakers, break down the best aspects of the Charlotte Hornets’ brilliant season and discuss where their young core ranks among the NBA’s best, and to revisit the most controversial parts of the nerds’ Top 30 player rankings.

Timeline:
0:00 Intro
2:00 Thunder crush Lakers
29:50 Ranking Best Young Cores in NBA
57:45 Has Kon clinched ROY?
1:12:06 Revisiting Top 30 players
1:35:55 Matthew Has Some Questions

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48 comments

  2. Smiling and joking about Luka “faking” his injury is disgusting. I get you guys hate Luka but this is such a bad look & it’s everything that’s wrong with sports media today. Be better. Put your stupid agendas aside. Absolute terrible look

  3. Is it like a prerequisite to be an SGA fan to come on this podcast or something? Luka's MVP stock was virtually nonexistent coming into this game and the only people of the belief that he was better than Shai were Luka fans anyway but no offense to Shai, the Thunder dominated the Lakers before he even had to get going and that will be the case for as many times as OKC plays the Lakers until Rob Pelinka realizes that you need real athletes around Luka to win. I also just think Lukas athleticism is cooked to the core and he's essentially all skill at this point in his career and that's not going to work against teams like this. I do think it's unfortunate how people talk about Luka now though because he accomplished more than almost anyone individually in the sport of basketball as a whole until the age of 25 and then last year he lost what little athleticism he had and now these matchups are untenable for him. I mean this guy was averaging 30 in the playoffs against a title favorite at 20 years old and I don't see that level being reached again for him unfortunately. He's a basketball prodigy and anyone saying otherwise needs to research what he was doing before he even got to the NBA but you need a baseline of athleticism to compete against teams like OKC and the Spurs that he simply does not possess. He can still average even 40 against any team that doesn't have those kinds of players but its physically impossible for him to get off against those teams and he will put up disaster after disaster because the only way LA even competes with those teams is if he scores 50 and thus his risk profile goes skyhigh against those teams.

  4. jaylen brown went ban for ban with sga better than fluka .you 2 and y'all fans steady disrespecting jaylen brown constantly this the difference between jb like dude woudnt go out that bad🤣🤣🤣🤣.Jaylen brown went ban for ban with sga better than fluka .Realtalk disrespect Jaylen brown constantly this the difference between jb like dude wouldn't go out that bad🤣🤣🤣🤣.Brown actually got clutch stops on sga to secure the win. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

  5. I hate when Carson uses head to head stats to judge players against Shai. Comparing Lukas stats against the defense HE calls the greatest of the modern era and Shais stats against the Lakers absolutely terrible defensive talent is just arguing in bad faith. Luka could be way better than Shai, and his stats would probably look worse against OKC.

    I think Shais way better, but this type of argument is annoying

  7. You can’t call the Thunder defense the greatest of the modern era, then turn around and use Luka’s stats against that same defense to knock him, while comparing it to Shai putting up numbers against the Lakers much worse defense. And Luka didn't finish the game in 2 separate times in that sample size btw. That’s just ignoring context. Luka is facing an elite, suffocating defensive system with multiple all defensive level players. Shai, in that comparison, is going up against a MUCH weaker defense without strong POA defenders with Ayton being the rim protector. Those are completely different environments. So yeah, Luka’s numbers looking much worse in that head to head isn’t some definitive statement. You can prefer Shai all you want but using that kind of comparison without context is just arguing in bad faith.

  13. I know I'm being crazy here but it seems like Oklahoma is becoming the mecca of basketball. The Thunder, Marcus Smart, Austin Reeves, Cade Cunningham. I can keep going…

  23. Infuriating hearing the boys argue against Carson’s Zion take after he made it clear he was assuming full health for all players. He shouldn’t have had to clarify it repeatedly before moving on to debate it based on ease of fit.

  32. Shai is better than luka but comparing Shai numbers against the lakers defense and luka numbers against maybe the goat defense is just dumb

  38. Nico somewhere laughing . Flagg is the youngest player ever to drop 50 points in history, meanwhile Luka still can’t guard a parked car on defense . He’s the most overrated player ever

  39. If Luka was in shape these soft tissue injuries wouldn’t be a lingering issue. Hard to blame anyone for doubting him when he starts limping every time he loses a big game

  42. Kon vs Flagg debate is so disingenuous lol it’s not close. Flagg is multiple tiers above Kon and it’s been that way since December. Oh Kon is efficient from 3 on a play-in team, okay bro Flagg is the youngest player to ever score 50, most 45+ point games by a rookie since mj, only rookie since mj to lead thier team in every category other than blocks, would be the only rookie to average atleast 20-5-4 and not win roty, literally the highest scoring peaks we’ve seen from a teenager and also just averaged 1.5 steals and 1.5 blocks for the last month coming off an injury.

    He’s so obviously better than Kon on both sides by a wide margin, like no disrespect to Kon he’s an elite 3pt shooter but he has not once shown a peak anywhere near the stretches that Flagg has shown. Like not only is Flagg averaged 2 more ppg and beating Kon in every other stat, he’s reached levels offensively that is multiple tiers above anything Kon has shown.

    3 40+ point games and Kon hasn’t even had a 35 point game btw Flagg has 5 of those, and playmaking wise yeah it’s not close Flagg is playing pg for his team and leads all rookies in ast, like other than 3pt shooting there is literally nothing that Kon does better when you watch them play it’s so obvious Flagg is multiple tiers better.

    But then you’ll see guys like this hop on twitter or their podcast and talk about how Flagg could never shoot like Kon and glaze the hornets. How can Flagg be the better scorer, playmaker and defender but Kon being a better 3pt shooter in a tertiary role trumps all of that when they have the same fg%???

  43. Shai is not guarding Luka so why is their head to head even talked about lol this has to be paid promotion, any one facing Okc is facing the best defense of all time of course everyone will look worse head to head compared to Shai who is mostly hiding on defense and basically their only weak link

  47. We’ve seen a team build a great playoff defense and make a conference finals run with KAT, we’ve never seen Joel make it that far with frankly better teams around him most of his career, I get the push back, but especially at this point in Embiid’s career, I don’t think Logan’s overall point is really that unreasonable, that being said Embiid is still a better defender than KAT

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