All human accomplishment has this same origin, identically. Imagination is a force of nature. Is this not enough to make a person full of ecstasy? Imagination, imagination, imagination! It converts to actual. It sustains, it alters, it redeems! —Saul Bellow
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander incites questions. For his defender, it’s “Where’d he go?” For the hoops curious, it might be “Yeah, what’s his deal? He’s from Canada?” For his haters, “Is he just a free throw merchant?” For the casual fan, “Is he the MVP?” For talking heads, “Is he the next face of the league?” For Thunder fans, “Is he God?” And all of these questions distract you from the fact that Shai Gilgeous-Alexander rules.
What SGA has done these past few seasons is transform himself into the NBA’s most imaginative scorer and propel his team to all-time regular-season heights. If the ball’s in his hands, it’s a carnival. He twists people up. Splits traps before they materialize. Flows like a cross between McGrady, Iverson, Ginobili, Randall from Monsters Inc., and Steve Nash.
When Shai arrived in Oklahoma City, he was a wiry 21-year-old with a herky-jerky style and enough game that noted rookie skeptic Doc Rivers hadn’t been able to keep him off the floor in L.A. Clear promise, sure, but nobody envisioned this. The rise of Shai—from promising youngster to the best guard in the league—is a story of precise science and boundless creativity. It’s meticulous training during Oklahoma City’s lean years birthing a scorer whose movement patterns fold space and warp time. Dr. Strangest.
SGA’s off-the-dribble laboratory is a world of pure imagination. Hold your breath. Make a wish. The lab is obviously rococo in style. Sculpted moldings, frescoes. It would also have, like, a taco station. Just something tasteful. Jean Prouvé chairs, a couple of tigers, seamless blend of indoor and outdoor living. The lab coats are floor-length furs. The snozzberries taste like snozzberries. Point being, the defender travels in a world of Shai’s creation. Anything he wants to, he does. He operates within a dream logic. The movement seems unreal, distorted, yet he just keeps getting closer to the rim. Subjects defenders to temporary sleep paralysis. The demeanor is calm. The demeanor is bedrock. The demeanor is I am the Oklahoma Thrill.
SGA’s MVP Case
Earlier this season, after a career-high 54-point outburst, SGA described the experience to me as a flow state. “You almost don’t even realize where you are,” he said. “Tonight, honestly, I don’t remember the point where I got to 40 or got past 30. I don’t remember, like, Oh shit, I’m about to get 50. I was just out there hooping.”
But SGA is equal parts artistic visionary and mad scientist. Bespoke workouts to make his ankles stronger, core sturdier, and feet more pliable. That’s how you end up doing stuff like this. One of the league’s foremost experts in angles and momentum. A student of the game, hunting opportunities to tilt it in his direction.
“Every offseason, I chip away at little things,” Gilgeous-Alexander told me. “I start my workout with ballhandling. And I try to make it harder on myself. … Your handle can always be tighter. Those little things I try to improve.”
It all adds up to the most formidable bucket getter alive.
A brief pause for numbers. The raw: 32.7 points, 5.1 rebounds, 6.2 assists, 1.8 steals, and 1.1 blocks per game this season. Shai’s points per game leads the league and is the 11th-highest scoring season for a guard ever. The difference between his total points this season and no. 2 in the league (Anthony Edwards) is about the same as the difference between Edwards and the no. 19 guy on the list (Damian Lillard). SGA leads the league in drives per game and pull-up jumpers. He’s second in total steals. He has the most 50-point games, 40-point games, 30-point games, and 20-point games this season. Only people to shoot the ball this well (64 percent true shooting percentage) on such high usage (34 percent) are him, Steph Curry, and Joel Embiid.
Not a numbers person? Some possessions he will, for a moment, forgo his human form entirely and become water. That’s selflessness, that’s leadership, that’s putting your teammates first and saying, “Hey, maybe I don’t need to be a solid right now. Maybe what’s best for the team is I become liquid.” It’s like Gilda’s man said: We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams. Shai isos on offense, and the game turns kaleidoscopic. Part high-grade hallucinogenic ride through the countryside, part party, part Krakatoa.
The bucket getting is consistent, efficient, and smooth as hell. The handle is an outrage. He’s making pretzels. His combo of flexibility and balance, core strength, and some of the finest hamstrings known to humankind equals a game that’s wavy and ethereal. Defenders jump at phantoms. He can score in so many places, in so many ways, and at all three levels. He’s got counters for his counters’ counters. The pantry’s full, and the menu of moves keeps growing.
When he gets to the paint, he’s up to no good, a real scoundrel with the ball in his hands. His stronger base means he’s finishing with dunks more often. Explosive, short bursts via long strides. Your man still has the best brakes in the biz. Stopping and starting with even greater ease now, in full command of his momentum and yours. The spins are quicker. Never gives the impression he hits turbo, just glides and flows from north to south with all manner of sorcery.
In the midrange, he is the preeminent artist in the league. Let him get to his spots unfettered, and it’s curtains. Broadway curtains, red velvet with golden tassels. Nicest curtains you ever did see. He’s going to make tough, what-is-the-meaning-of-this shots. He’s added more juice in the post. It’s good eating down there for him now. The smoothness travels. So do the delts. His fadeaways are narcotics. The bump stepbacks could power half the state of Oklahoma.
Even the 3s are coming at a higher clip now. Almost six per game, many of the stepback variety, on 37 percent accuracy. Add that to the middy and the regular assaults on the rim, and the arsenal’s loaded.
Gilgeous-Alexander’s the head of the dragon for an Oklahoma City team that has obliterated the high expectations it had coming into the season. It is the no. 1 seed in the West, 11 games up on the second-place Nuggets, holding a plus-12.58 point differential that would be good enough for first of all time if the season ended today.
Everything Oklahoma City does flows to and from SGA. He’s a load-bearing scorer who must be handled by the entire defense. The Thunder are designed to open driving lanes, which Gilgeous-Alexander attacks with joy. Their shooters give him space; he, in turn, provides looks. But OKC’s is not a heliocentric, stand-and-watch-me-dance kind of vibe. Shai doesn’t dribble the entire possession, then chuck someone a grenade with two seconds left on the shot clock. He gets off the ball, sets screens, and acts as a decoy. He finds shooters and cedes playmaking to Jalen Williams or Isaiah Hartenstein in the post.
Same story on defense. Gilgeous-Alexander scraps every night, fights through screens, and chips in on the glass. He battles in the post. He chases shooters. Flies in with purpose for deflections, stocks, general agitation. Plays in a way that makes clear to his teammates: This matters. Players come correct when they attack, or the ball is removed from their person. Intercepted entry passes, back taps, knifing into passing lanes. He’s itchy to make plays.
There’s an unknowability to Gilgeous-Alexander, even as he climbs the MVP ladder. He’s elusive, a confident mystery, one to be accepted. His game is predicated on this. He keeps defenders guessing—often wrongly—even as he dictates exactly what he wants to do.
Time and again, people have tried to put a ceiling on him, and every time he shakes loose of those preconceptions and forces a reevaluation of his place in the league. There’s no corralling him. He’s always got more in the cupboard. Trying to understand SGA is like trying to guard him. Best to let go of what you think you know.
