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[Saba Sports News] One of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s own teammates thinks the MVP frontrunner isn’t getting enough love from the referees—yes, really.
Oklahoma City Thunder forward and 2025 All-Star Jalen Williams appeared this week on ‘The Old Man and The Three’ podcast, where he made a surprising claim about his star teammate. Williams argued that Gilgeous-Alexander should be heading to the free-throw line more often.
“He honestly should go to the free-throw line more,” Williams said, per Awful Announcing.
“He leads the NBA in drives, and we’re like the lowest free-throw shooting team in the NBA. I think there are like six or seven people ahead of him that shoot more free throws. But because the media doesn’t like certain ways he gets fouled, that gets pushed. Just watch the games.”
Williams’ comments were part of a broader criticism of the national media’s tendency to rely on surface narratives instead of actually watching full games. But the free throw take? That one raised some eyebrows.
For starters, Gilgeous-Alexander is widely viewed as one of the league’s top foul-drawers—some would say expert foul-baiter. He’s averaging 8.8 free throw attempts per game this season, ranking second only to Giannis Antetokounmpo (10.5 FTA).
While that’s a dip from his career-high 10.9 attempts in 2022–23, it’s still among the league’s best.
So Williams’ claim that “six or seven people” shoot more free throws is, well, not supported by the numbers.
To his credit, Williams was correct that SGA leads the league in drives per game (20.6). But in today’s NBA, simply not getting to the line is the outlier when it comes to Gilgeous-Alexander.
The idea that he’s somehow getting shortchanged by officials is likely to fall on deaf ears—and probably spark more than a few laughs.