NBA Halloween: Playing trick-or-treat with each team’s early season trend

Oklahoma City Thunder

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is ready for his closeup: Treat

This should be pretty straight-forward: On a team that includes a surly Chris Paul, Steven Adams and Danilo Gallinari in his second straight year of mid-career Renaissance, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has been the most impressive player in an Oklahoma City Thunder jersey.

That wouldn’t mean as much if the Thunder were playing like a team that knows it’s going to be blown up any day now, but OKC isn’t quite there yet. The 1-4 start makes their predicament seem worse than it is, but the Thunder narrowly have lost to Western Conference powerhouses like the Utah Jazz (by three), Houston Rockets (by four) and Portland Trail Blazers (by three). That Washington Wizards loss is indefensible, but at least they massacred a very bad Warriors team.

Through it all, SGA has looked like the future of the franchise, averaging a team-high 21.6 points, 7.0 rebounds and 3.2 assists per game. It’s clear the volume is taxing on his efficiency a bit, since he’s only shooting 44.3 percent from the field and 33.3 percent from deep, but that’s something all young players have to adjust to as they become the central focus on offense. Once he gets acclimated and comfortable with such a drastic change in his role compared to last season, Gilgeous-Alexander will really start to turn heads with his emerging Most Improved Player campaign.