Serbia’s Head Coach Calls Shai Gilgeous-Alexander ‘One of the Best Players’ He Has Seen
Despite Canada losing to Serbia in the FIBA World Cup semifinals, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander left a great impression on Svetislav Pesic, Serbia’s head coach. Canada won’t walk away victorious, but Gilgeous-Alexander left his mark as one of the best players in the world this summer, and set himself up for another big season in the NBA.
Against Serbia, Gilgeous-Alexander didn’t have his most explosive scoring outing but he still turned in a solid performance. The First Team All-NBA guard totaled 15 points, nine assists and three steals on 4-of-8 shooting. He drew impressive praise from Serbia’s leader after the game.
"Secondly, very good 1-on-1 defense, especially against Shai [Gilgeous-Alexander], Pesic said. “He's one of the best players that I've seen in my career.”
The 74-year-old head coach has been around plenty of basketball over the course of his long career, making the compliment mean that much more to SGA.
"He needs time and experience, but he's great player,” Pesic said about SGA. “He was an additional motivation for our team to take him out of the game. It was difficult, but I think we did this job with great success.”
The most impressive part about Serbia's run to the World Cup Finals is the amount of NBA firepower the team is missing, starting with a former MVP in Nikola Jokic. Serbia is also missing two players from Oklahoma City's own roster in Aleksej Pokusevski and Vasijile Micic. If Pokusevski and Micic were both suiting up, it would've made for a fun Thunder battle.
Nonetheless, Gilgeous-Alexander made his mark internationally this summer, and proved that his game easily translates overseas too. He has loads of momentum carrying over into a big season for the Thunder, and anything better than a season ago would give him a shot at the MVP.
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