Yang Yi: What to do if you get criticized? Just keep winning

In an offensive and defensive transition, Nikil Alexander Walker (to prevent everyone from suspecting that I cheated on royalties, NAW) faced Shea Kyrgyz-Alexander (same as SGA).

He may be the person who knows SGA best in the NBA world because his mother is the SGA father's younger sister. NAW was also born less than two months after SGA was born. They spent every stage of their lives together.

They made their first shot in the same backyard; they slept on the same bed; SGA's father Vaughan Alexander was the NAW's enlightenment coach and the source of the term "Alexander" in his name; they played all the games together every weekend, whether it was football, football or baseball played with old tennis; they often quarreled over the previous second for the stronger topics of Kobe, LeBron or Iverson, and then forgot to play NBA 2K together; they went to the same elementary school and the same middle school, and moved from Toronto to Tennessee to get a better basketball education; they played for the same church school in Tennessee, living in the same bedroom at the home of team head coach Zach Ferrer. Even though SGA went to the University of Kentucky and NAW chose Virginia Tech, they would still meet again in the Canadian national team training camp.

NAW obviously knew how difficult it was to prevent his cousin. He tried to lower his center of gravity. While putting his hands behind his back to prevent the other party from committing a foul, he was preparing to use his torso to fight his cousin to slow him down, but SGA's speed came faster than he expected.

Dribbles the ball in a direction and accelerates the ground. The head-on confrontation that NAW is preparing to engage in suddenly becomes a side-to-side confrontation. SGA flew out to the right, while maintaining balance, throwing the ball to the rebound with his left hand in the air. The whistle ball entered. In this short moment, SGA has demonstrated all the qualities that are enough to win the scoring champion: clear brain planning, good explosive power, exaggerated changeover levels, skillful human-ball combination, enough balance in confrontation, and a soft feel.

As SGA walked to the free throw line, a tsunami-like "MVP" shout sounded in the Paycom Arena. NAW lowered his head. At that moment, he might inevitably remember the NBA dream he had been talking about when he was 6 years old when he didn't sleep with SGA for several hours, lying in bed.

You must know that even in the unrestrained and imaginative fantasy of children, "MVP" is an overly distant word.

Yesterday, SGA really took over the MVP trophy in the hands of Adam Xiaohua and became the third MVP in the history of the Oklahoma City Thunder. As the top card and league scoring champion of a 68-win team, the four words "most valuable" are absolutely worthy of. Sam Presti's move to exchange Paul George for SGA and a large number of draft picks was once again, but he admitted very frankly that he never thought that this young man who averaged only 10.8 points per game in the rookie season would be so outstanding. He just wanted those draft picks, and SGA could only be considered a big deal in that deal.

This is not a mistake for Mr. Pu to take a look. Unlike most MVPs in history, SGA did not show any superior talent in his youth. Until high school, SGA had lost more and won less and won against NAW in the backyard singles. He was not even selected for the school team in his first year of high school. He would not be on the news, he would not be on the cover of a magazine, and he would not be promoted as a "super newbie" or "son of the choice"; he played halfway through the freshman season, and he started the Kentucky team with Vanderbilt, Nick Richards, Kevin Knox, P.J. Washington and Hamidou Diallo...

At that time, no one thought he would become an MVP, including himself: "I always believed that I could be a very good player because I have seen everything that can bring to myself in my heart. I know I will make great progress in the future, but I never thought I would become MVP, I never thought it would happen until everyone really started discussing this. "The first time people discussed it seriously was last year, when his average average score increased from 24.5 points to 31.4 points in three years and then stabilized at 30.1 points, and the Thunder went from 24 to 40 to 57 in three seasons. By the end of the 2022-23 season, people have recognized him as one of the best scorers in the league, and in the MVP selection last season, he has risen to second place.

It is difficult for us to tell whether it is because of the increase in the number of helpers around him that his game level has improved rapidly, or that he has continued to break everyone's expectations and grow rapidly, which has allowed the Thunder to rise at a speed that people can imagine. But anyway, if you watched yesterday's Western Conference Finals, you should admit that he is now one of the best players in the league, and his team can even remove this "one". The more terrifying thing than getting an MVP in just a few years after entering people's vision is that MVP is likely to be just a small goal for him.

The Thunder did not play perfectly in the first two games against Minnesota. In the first game, SGA and Jaylen Williams made only 17 of 45 shots, while in the second game, their team had only 9 of 33. These two things lead to a while in every game of the Western Conference Finals. You will feel that the Thunder's offense is a bit sluggish and not smooth enough, but that doesn't matter because they make the Timberwolves more uncomfortable.

As the game progresses, the Thunder's energy, aggression, depth and cohesion completely overwhelms the opponent. In just two games, the Thunder scored 53 points through turnovers, while the Timberwolves had only 20 points in this stat. And most importantly, the Timberwolves have no way to get SGA.

In the last round of the series, the Nuggets' defense against SGA changed a lot, including 23 joint defense, 32 joint defense, pinch attack and one-start four-way matchmaking tricks made him tired of dealing with it, and it was difficult to enter a comfortable game rhythm. But the Timberwolves' joint defense is just a matter of shape, and in the end he will always dismantle it into a simple one-on-one, walk to the dessert position he is used to, and then eat it easily. You can easily see panic, frustration and incompetent fury in the defensive players’ expressions and body language – in just two games, Edwards and McDaniels have already eaten a skilled foul and a malicious foul on him.

We should probably remember this clip that happened at the beginning of the series: SGA was lying outside the bottom line after being fouled, holding his head in his hands, as if sunbathing on the beach in the Maldives, and at this time the frustrated Edwards threw the ball on him. If it was against others, it would likely lead to a conflict, and SGA just raised his head and looked around, then got up and prepared to make a technical foul free throw.

This is a clip that best reflects the different personalities of these two new NBA stars. Edwards is the kind of passionate idiot protagonist in traditional narratives. He is always aggressive and always as fierce as fire. He wants to rush and beat hard, and smash all obstacles with a hard bridge and a hard horse. And SGA seems to be just facing all this with a calm and ice-like face. His emotions are too stable. It is hard to imagine that something will make him lose his composure, because when he lost the third game of the last series at home at the Nuggets, he was still smiling. Behind the elegance and calmness, you can feel the most horror of this player.

According to himself, his personality comes from the teachings of his mother Xia Meiyin Kyrgyzs - now do you know how his longest surname in the NBA came from?

From a family perspective, SGA's athletic talent also comes from his mother to a large extent. Xia Meiyin Kyrgyz was a track and field star in Antigua and Barbuda. 32 years before her son represented Canada in the 2024 Paris Olympics, she participated in the Women's 400m event as a sprinter at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. To this day, she still adds a sentence "sprinter" when introducing herself.

Those who are familiar with her will know that this is not just about her resume.

Sprinters may be the group in the world who knows best where the end is and how to move towards the goal. The same is true for Kyrgyzs in life. She always sets goals for herself and her children again and again, and requires everyone to devote themselves to their goals without stopping or being discouraged. As an ordinary social worker in daily life, she has never made a lot of money. After divorced from SGA's father, she was responsible for raising SGA. The family had to move frequently and the pressure was always there. But she insisted on staying calm in front of her children: "No matter how bad the situation is, no matter how much I want to cry, I will wait until after they go to bed. They will never see me crying, nor will I see me frustrated."

Kyrgyzs has several uncompromising requirements for their sons: homework must be put first; food must be healthy and clean; no matter what difficult things happen in life, they must look impeccable when they go out. She said she didn't like kids who talk big, nor could she stand the arrogant people: "I cultivate confident children, not arrogant and noisy children. Children make noise because they have too many insecurities, and confident people know that they are excellent and do not need other people's praise to prove anything."

SGA admits that such education has made me who I am now: "Whenever I leave home, I have to make sure my collar is upright, my shirt is not wrinkled, and my nose and eyes are not dirt. We always try to make ourselves look like an adult. Because my mother taught me that when I walk out of the house, I represent the family."

Some people may regard this as vanity, but in my opinion, it is just upbringing. It’s just that when the offense and rudeness of the lack of boundaries in the general environment become a habit, education seems to be hypocritical.

The Thunder have always taken the absolute lead throughout this season. They won a row, overcame the injuries of Harten, Homgren and Caruso, and steadily won the league first place. Off the court, the reporters could not find out any gossip about them.

In the last round, the two-year-old champion Denver Nuggets caused them a lot of trouble, but with their final advancement with a 32-point tiebreak victory, it is hard to believe that there is anything else to stop them this season. Considering their age structure, the chips in Presti's hands and the current situation of other strong teams, looking at the entire league, it's easy to think that they are the teams with the most chance to complete a winning streak since the Warriors in 2018 in this era without dynasties. SGA has the opportunity to become the first Grand Slam star to win MVP and FMVP in the same year since LeBron in 2012.

And in this moment when he is about to win everything, the negative public opinion about SGA has become even more insignificant recently - the iron of the world is the success or defeat. Since ancient times, people have classified others in Winner and Luther. We have seen countless examples of this: after dozens of days, the ever-advanced front will turn monsters from Corsica into the supreme Emperor; players who have been criticized by the media for their entire career as soft-boys will be praised as superstars. Now, in the mouths of some fans, SGA is just Xiao Hua's own son, a despicable free throw thief, but the world is not transferred by human will, and victory will ultimately guarantee everything. Time and general trend are on his side.

There are only 6 victories left before SGA and his Thunder reach the top of the world. There is not much time left for Kuroko.