NBA Awards Rankings: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander surges up MVP leaderboard
Thunder. 149. player. 3. . Guard. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. . 3
The Oklahoma City Thunder have officially arrived. There's every reason to believe the Thunder's current momentum will hold. At 11-4, OKC is second in the West with a top-five halfcourt offense and defense — the only such team in the NBA, per Matt Moore. That is a deep team with a ton of talent, but Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is the obvious front man and a very serious MVP candidate.
Gilgeous-Alexander has ascended to a special level of individual offensive output. He is more than the central hub for OKC. He's a one-man wrecking crew, with a strong claim to the mantles of best driver and best isolation scorer in the league. At 6-foot-6, Gilgeous-Alexander has the length to evade traffic at the rim and the feather-soft touch to hit every manner of in-between shot. He's endlessly creative with his handles and constantly on the attack, leading the NBA with 20.9 drives per game and scoring 70.6 percent of his 30.4 points per game on drives. Gilgeous-Alexander is always in the paint, forcing the defense to collapse and generating countless advantages both for himself and for teammates.
He's averaging 6.1 rebounds and 6.3 assists to go along with the lofty scoring numbers, not to mention hyper-efficient .538/.358/.931 splits. He's a beast in the interior, but Gilgeous-Alexander can also skate around defenders for mid-range pull-ups or bury enough 3s to keep defenders honest. He's not the only playmaking arm in OKC's dynamic offense, but he's a damn good one.
Then, he's a legitimate Defensive Player of the Year candidate as well, which is not common for a guard. SGA currently leads the NBA with 2.4 steals per game and he's tied for third with 3.3 deflections per game. He's a complete vacuum cleaner in passing lanes and he's plenty effective at the point of attack, swallowing ball-handlers with that 6-foot-11 wingspan. To carry the workload Gilgeous-Alexander does on offense while also playing elite perimeter defense is no small feat. He's a two-way superstar.