Candace Parker sits down with Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who discusses his development and drive to succeed.
OKLAHOMA CITY — The typical NBA pregame warmup is copied and pasted and shared around the league. The player stands beyond the 3-point line, catches a ball tossed by an assistant coach and shoots. Again, and again, and again, from deep corner or top of the key. Like robots, some wearing wireless headphones. The rest of the court is neglected.
Then he emerges from the locker room and everything changes because before the game even starts, before he drops another 30 points or more on some unlucky soul, Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander sets himself apart from everyone else. As he has all season.
The first shot is taken just in front of the rim. A few more are taken a few steps back, then a few more around the free throw line, wrist constantly cocked then bent, his form impeccably unchanged, the ball rarely hitting iron. Swish, swisher, swish-est.
Next: Midrange jumpers fly, from all angles. Then: 3-pointers, launched from around the arc. Finally: The pregame routine is repeated, just in reverse, same rhythmic flow, same form. After the soft and final five-footer drops, he leaves.
The entire space 25 feet and in from the hoop was canvassed and conquered. No real estate was spared. It was a manual on how to properly prepare to score almost at will. Later that night, Gilgeous-Alexander will put his fingerprints on the game. His footprints, however, were all over the court for warmups.
“I have my routine,” he said, and like other geniuses in their respective professions, he never strays from it.
This attention to detail, even the smallest, is why Gilgeous-Alexander is the most effective scorer this season and why he has pole position for Most Valuable Player honors.
The preparation is only the appetizer. What happens next, when the ball goes up, amounts to the compilation of what you see now, a career breakout that was planned but not predicted.
Finding his way as a scorer
The signature sequence for Gilgeous-Alexander this season, which will be engraved on the Kia MVP trophy should he win it, amounted to zero scored points by him. But in another sense, he scored big points by executing it.
This was Jan. 5 against the defending champion Celtics, a sequence made possible and triggered by … a missed shot by Gilgeous-Alexander. The Celtics sprinted toward the other hoop and the ball found Jayson Tatum. He drove for a certain layup and once the ball left his fingertips, it was smacked away by Gilgeous-Alexander — a picture-perfect chase-down swat.
And then: Gilgeous-Alexander collected the loose ball, dribbled up court and threw a lob for a bucket that brought the house down in OKC. That’s when everyone knew, if any had reservations, that this player was in the midst of a special season.
Even Gilgeous-Alexander, pressed for a response, did so as modestly as he could: “I’m good at basketball.”
WHAT A SEQUENCE FOR THE THUNDER 😱
SGA blocks it then lobs it up to Hartenstein!
CROWD BUZZING… OKC UP 9 ON NBA TV! pic.twitter.com/cTXCg6bkE1
— NBA (@NBA) January 5, 2025
Fine. It was great defense and court awareness. But, Gilgeous-Alexander is in this position because he gets buckets. And what’s most impressive is not how many, but how varied:
• At the rim. Gilgeous-Alexander is one of the better finishers in the game because of his balance, fearlessness in the paint traffic and fingertip control. His gentle touch is equally effective with the right hand or the left. He will challenge bigger players to absorb the contact and get the and-1. Which leads to …
• Free throws. The Thunder guard is second in the league in attempts. This is often derided by some observers, much as it was previously directed toward James Harden and Karl Malone in the years they were among the league’s leading scorers. But free throws are exactly that — easy points that, as a bonus, get his defender into foul trouble and force mismatches. And Gilgeous-Alexander shoots 90.3%.
• Midrange. It’s his specialty, and wisely so, because in the 3-point era, that space on the floor is mainly left unprotected. Gilgeous-Alexander developed an appetite for the shot early in his career when encouraged by Sam Cassell, then a Clippers’ assistant coach and a mid-range specialist himself during his playing days. Gilgeous-Alexander learned even more about the value of the shot at the knee of Chris Paul in the one season they were together in OKC.
• 3-pointers. He’s not a volume shooter from long distance — you’ll never see him launch from the logo like Stephen Curry or Damian Lillard — with average efficiency (37% this season, 35.3% for his career). Still, he’s a threat, and when left open, he doesn’t show a lack of confidence by passing up the shot.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s shot chart (through March 24, 2025).
Finally, there’s this: Gilgeous-Alexander creates space with his footwork, change of speed, deception and also a trademark shoulder-bump. That’s when he lowers it slightly, makes legal contact (just enough to escape the referee’s whistle) without extending his elbow, creates daylight and takes the shot.
“Growing up, I had to find ways to score and that was one that naturally came to me,” he said. “It came to be a weapon of mine.”
Given the variety of ways he scores, Gilgeous-Alexander is a throwback of sorts, an old-school player with new-school sensibilities. His manner of attacking would thrive in any era. His in-the-flow style of scoring comes with very little wasted movement.
“I’m out there taking what they give me, going to the direction they force me, taking the play in front of me, just going with the game,” he said, “letting what may be may be and seeing what comes of up. That free-mindedness is what helped me become the player I am today.”
This hefty bag of tricks he carries makes him, in addition to leading the league in scoring at 33 points, perhaps the toughest player to deny. As Nuggets coach Michael Malone said: “I haven’t seen one player guard him one-on-one and shut him down. Not one.”
Maybe because Gilgeous-Alexander has reached that rarified superstar stage where not many players dare guard him solo anymore, or at least not as much.
Gilgeous-Alexander excels at the two most crucial factors in scoring: space creation and shooting. One plus the other equals efficiency. Anyone can score 25 points on 27 shots. It’s the efficiency that places his season in historical context.
“Sometimes you have to take a 3, but the stuff in the paint, around the rim, is the highest percentage,” he said. “Jump shots are going to fluctuate no matter how good of a shooter you are. I’ve always said that and I never like to chance things … I like things more certain in percentages.”
His finest scoring performances this season are better than some players compile in a career. He has a 40-point game where he took only five free throws (and made all five). There was the seven-game stretch where he reached 50 points in three of them. He has four 50-pieces this season, none before.
He leads the league in 50-, 40-, 30- and 20-point games and was held under 20 just once this season (back in October against Orlando).
And to amplify why Gilgeous-Alexander’s season is MVP-flavored, his finest is saved for big games against great competition, the only exception being the Emirates NBA Cup final against the Bucks when he shot 8-for-24. Of course, since then, he has more than made up for that: 40 on Minnesota and Cleveland, 52 on the Warriors, 48 on Detroit, 40 on Denver, etc.
“I like to compete, to go against the best to see where I stand,” he said.
Surpassing early expectations
Beating out two-time winner Nikola Jokic could be a tall order, but Oklahoma City's star guard has the stats and the wins to threaten the Denver legend.
The quality of scouting in the NBA is unmatched in history. Rarely do players slip through the cracks. Projections are, for the most part, on the money.
But nobody saw this from Gilgeous-Alexander. Not the Clippers, who grabbed him in a 2018 Draft-day trade with Charlotte, then traded him to OKC in a package for Paul George a year later. Not the Thunder when that trade was made, as the five first-round picks and two swaps OKC also acquired were judged just as important, if not more, than Gilgeous-Alexander.
Doc Rivers, who coached him with the Clippers, said: “We did think he was going to be really, really good. I thought he was going to be a star. But I don’t think anyone can honestly say they knew he was going to be this special.”
A potential All-Star? Perhaps. All-NBA? Maybe his ceiling. But strong MVP candidate for the second straight season and a scoring leader? That wasn’t on the radar.
Rivers warned Kawhi Leonard, who pressed the Clippers to trade for George before signing as a free agent, that Gilgeous-Alexander had potential. But Kawhi didn’t want to wait on potential.
Like many young players, Gilgeous-Alexander spent his first few years just trying to gain traction and a reputation and to see where he fit in the league. Stardom was sought, but there were steps to this process.
“I was insecure,” he said. “Part of it is how I was taught to work throughout insecurities. You work on something so much you become confident and that takes over your insecurities. I am pretty secure who I am on and off the court now, but it wasn’t always like that. I had to work through it. Once you embrace and tackle them, they become your strength.”
From 10.8 ppg as a rookie with the Clippers when he was a secondary option, the scoring became gradual, then sudden: 19 in his first season in OKC and second overall in the NBA, 31 three seasons later and 30 or more since.
It hasn’t been just the scoring this season. Gilgeous-Alexander is a pest on the top-rated Thunder defense. He projects to finish among the top five in steals and among the top guards in blocked shots.
It’s that both-ends balance, along with OKC on top in the West and by a comfortable margin, that could give Gilgeous-Alexander an the edge on the MVP field. A media panel will decide that.
“It’s an honor to be in the conversation, and to be regarded as such,” he said. “It’s been very fun. Most of the appreciation comes from my teammates. No matter how good of a basketball player I am, if we don’t check the win column, the conversation wouldn’t be the conversation. That’s what it goes back to. I just focus on winning and the best version of what I can be for this team and wherever that takes me, it takes me.”
OKC coach Mark Daigneault added: “What I respect and admire about Shai is he hasn’t let that talk become a distraction. He’s only focused on our team, and our team success has reflected that.”
There is truism here: Gilgeous-Alexander is casual by nature and if there is a massive ego, it stays in check. He is respected and beloved by teammates, most of them young and impressionable; that’s the best indicator of a player’s character.
He would like the MVP award — who wouldn’t? — but the most underrated individual trophy is the Finals MVP, which has gone to a player on the championship team each time but once (Jerry West, 1969). Gilgeous-Alexander wants to know how much those trophies weigh, and there’s only one way to find out.
In the meantime: Most valuable player for 2024-25? A generational talent? One of the faces of the league? Much like the basketball secure in his hands, those honors seem to fit right now.
“The attention means you’re one of the top three to five players in the league,” he said. “All those things are cool and fun. But most importantly, winning championships is what sets you apart in all those conversations. You take care of that, everything else will follow.”
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Shaun Powell has covered the NBA for more than 25 years. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on X.
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