{"id":6934,"date":"2025-05-02T23:15:12","date_gmt":"2025-05-02T23:15:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/6934\/"},"modified":"2025-05-02T23:15:12","modified_gmt":"2025-05-02T23:15:12","slug":"will-shai-gilgeous-alexander-be-motivated-by-2019-trade-if-he-faces-clippers-in-playoffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/6934\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Shai Gilgeous-Alexander be motivated by 2019 trade if he faces Clippers in playoffs?"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a> enjoy a week-plus between games, they’re on the verge of finding their Round 2 opponent in the 2025 NBA playoffs. It’ll either be the Denver Nuggets or the LA Clippers<\/a>, as both teams will play a decisive Game 7 on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Like a pick-your-own-adventure book, either possibility ensures juicy storylines to follow. In Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s case, it’ll either be against his direct competition for the MVP award or against his old squad that shipped him in one of the most shocking NBA trades in recent history.<\/p>\n

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If the latter, Gilgeous-Alexander has already extinguished any possible bulletin material. The 26-year-old said he’ll have zero extra motivation if the Thunder match up against the Clippers in their second-round series. Advancing to the Western Conference Finals will be enough motivation in itself.<\/p>\n

“They did (motivated me) a long time ago. I haven\u2019t thought about them in years, though. I can\u2019t hold, I guess you can say, grudges forever in life,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “For whatever reason, they moved off me and they thought it was a good idea and the Thunder vice versa. Those are the cards I was dealt.”<\/p>\n

Even though he spent his rookie season on the Clippers, seven years is an eternity in the NBA. No hard feelings reside on Gilgeous-Alexander’s side as he’s blossomed into one of the league’s best players. He’s above personal vendettas against a franchise that’s been widely mocked for the blockbuster deal he was part of.<\/p>\n

Instead, Gilgeous-Alexander is fully focused on a championship. The Thunder are fresh off one of the greatest regular-season campaigns in NBA history. A Round 1 sweep over the Memphis Grizzlies showed how their dominance seamlessly translated to the playoffs. He’s got bigger fish to fry than acting petty against LA.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on OKC Thunder Wire: Will SGA be motivated by 2019 trade if he faces Clippers in playoffs?<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the Oklahoma City Thunder enjoy a week-plus between games, they’re on the verge of finding their Round…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6935,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[7,187,623,192,177,6,11,179,209,3460],"class_list":{"0":"post-6934","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba-playoffs","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-denver-nuggets","10":"tag-gilgeous-alexander","11":"tag-la-clippers","12":"tag-memphis-grizzlies","13":"tag-nba","14":"tag-nba-playoffs","15":"tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","16":"tag-shai-gilgeous-alexander","17":"tag-western-conference-finals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114440786640293397","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6934\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}