NBA refs – Please don’t ruin monumental Game 7 and Wemby’s run to historic Finals with SGA flopping

The internet is wrong and the narrative is skewed.

Which means that this is the perfect time for the NBA to ensure that the best team emerges from the Western Conference finals — not the young superstar who begs for the most fouls.

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No one wants to watch a Ref Show in Game 7

Here’s looking at you, NBA referees assigned to the biggest Game 7 since last year’s NBA Finals.

Please play it fair, call it straight — and don’t be swayed by Shai Gilgeous-Alexander flopping all over the hardwood.

But also don’t give a 7ft 4in Alien any extra advantages — especially since the San Antonio Spurs enter Game 7 on Saturday night having actually taken more free throws than the reigning NBA champion.

That’s right, social media haters and internet trolls.

The Spurs have attempted 168 free throws through six games of this truly back-and-forth series, which was tied at 3-3 via a dominant 118-91 home win by San Antonio in Game 6 on Thursday.

The Oklahoma City Thunder have only taken 143 shots from the charity stripe, which means that little ol’ San Antonio is plus-25 in free throws.

With the scorching-hot New York Knicks — and potentially United States President Donald Trump — waiting for the NBA Finals to start, Spurs vs Thunder in Game 7 is a literal must-watch and everything that The Association could hope for in what will eventually become a post-LeBron James league.

The last thing that anyone wants to watch is a free-throw show.

SGA is the king of drawing free throws

A fourth quarter bogged down by whistles, fouls and more whistles.

A human being wearing a gray-and-white striped shirt taking over the hardwood like a mall cop, dictating the flow and action, even though no one inside Paycom Center paid hundreds of dollars to watch a ref crash the party.

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x@HouseLowlights

x@HouseLowlights

The NBA has battled the perception for decades that it favors and caters to certain superstars, so this is nothing new.

What is fairly recent is SGA being perceived outside of OKC as a ‘Free Throw Merchant,’ and spliced-together videos of the NBA’s back-to-back MVP unnecessarily flopping all over the court just to receive another and-1 call.

An X vid from House of Lowlights had more than 22 million views as of Friday morning and the title — ‘Shai flopped on every single shot attempt’ — said it all.

“How ** is this **** even allowed?” one fan tweeted.

Fans are tired of all the needless flopping

“One day this dude is gonna roll his ankle on a flop,” a second fan wrote.

“What happened to the game I love?” a third fan posted.

Breaking down the fouls

Western Conference finals

Oklahoma City Thunder
Free throw attempts in Games 1-5: 112 of 132
Game 6: 11 of 12
Total FT entering Game 7: 144

San Antonio Spurs
Games 1-5: 121 of 143
Game 6: 21 of 25
Total FT entering Game 7: 168

Thunder’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
FT in Games 1-6: 54
Percentage of OKC’s FT: 37.5

Spurs’ Victor Wembanyama
FT in Games 1-6: 50
Percentage of Spurs’ FT: 29.7 pct

Did you know? SGA averaged 9 free throws during the regular season, which was 1.9 fewer than his career high of 10.9 attempts in 2022-23.

“Flopping and foul baiting should be a tech if it’s undisputable and clear evidence,” a fourth fan said. “With a free throw rewarded to the other team. The NBA must do something.”

Apparently NBA commissioner Adam Silver has been too busy trying to fix the league’s horrendous tanking problem to watch all the painful videos of the Free Throw Merchant trying to earn as many Oscar, Emmy and Tony awards as possible in a single playoff series.

The irony is that Gilgeous-Alexander has attempted 54 free throws in the conference finals, while Wembanyama has taken 50, so the direct comparison is fairly even.

Thunder rely on SGA for extra foul shots

The problem is that SGA’s free throws account for 37.5 percent of the Thunder’s shots at the line, while Wemby’s 29.7 percent of the Spurs’ total attempts is more reasonable.

Even an unbiased outsider who only watches European football would recognize that the Thunder are overdependent on their $285 million franchise face receiving beneficial foul calls.

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Michael Jordan finished a perfect 6-0 in the NBA Finals and became the greatest basketball player in history partly because he received a favorable non-call vs the Utah Jazz‘s Bryon Russell in 1998, so this isn’t new.

But this is a massive opportunity for The Association in 2026, and all Silver has to do is doom scroll for a bit to understand that literally no one on Earth wants to watch a ref decide this Game 7.

Let SGA play — but don’t let him flop like a freaking fish.

Let Wemby be Wemby — but call it fair and even vs the 22-year-old phenom from France, too.

This Game 7 is a dream for the NBA.

No one fantasizes about watching a ref with a whistle ruin a beautiful basketball game.