Part of the problem — to the extent that thereisa problem, anyway — is the dunking. Its absence, I mean.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has played 703 minutes in the 2025-26 NBA season, and he hasfour slam dunks. As in, one fewer than five. IV, if you want to get all Roman about it.Solamente cuatro.
Three of them came against the Kings, too. Which, y'know, if a tree falls in the forest, and all that:
And then there the assists. Don't get me wrong: Gilgeous-Alexander iscapableof the kinds of thread-the-needle-in-traffic, lefty-hook-pass-on-the-move, cross-court-fastball-right-in-the-shooting-pocket feeds that generateoohsandaahs…
… but SGAonly throws about 40 passes per game, and more often than not, his setups skew simpler. Draw two to the ball, because they know if they try to guard you straight up, they're dead where they stand. Take it slow, play off two feet, and keep your eyes up. Find a teammate — either the one who's exactly where he's supposed to be, or the one who's about to get there, because at this point, the defending NBA champion Oklahoma City Thunder, off to a 20-1 start and looking like a threat torewrite the record books, can probably playthe hand blind.
Make the easy pass, create the wide-open shot, and profit. Then, when you get the stop — and you're going to get the stop, because you've got the best defense not only ofthisNBA season, but perhaps ofthe last 50— come down and do it again. And again. And again.
The individual stat lines don't help much, either, because they rarely make your eyes bulge out of your skull. Two 40-plus-point performances this season, which frankly seems low because at this point, 30 is just expected — including, famously, by the man himself:
"There was a point where I got 30 and thought it was a good game. Now if I have 30, it's a bad game.""You think 30 points is a bad game?""If I have 30, it's … I mean it's below my average."Shai Gilgeous-Alexander in Starting 5 Season 2 🗣️pic.twitter.com/KwkC9x95C4
—NetflixSports (@netflixsports)October 28, 2025
Two games with double-digit dimes, because OKC's one ofeight teams this seasonwith at least eight players averaging at least two helpers per game. No 10-rebound outings, because listen, what do you think we pay Isaiah Hartenstein for?
Besides: It's not always easy to rack up monster numbers when you're consistently getting the rest of the night off.
Shai's now played in 21 games, and has only been needed in the fourth quarter in 10 of them.https://t.co/38jaJi2euy
— Dan Devine (@YourManDevine)December 2, 2025
In an NBA dominated by kaijus posting jaw-dropping numbers, your eyes can sometimes glaze over those non-mutant box scores. Just like they slide past a smooth drive through the paint for a scoop layup, a one-dribble pull-up from the elbow or a hiccup-quick right foot jab into a stepback 3 going left.
It's hard to make memorable highlight reels out of below-the-rim finishes, midrange Js and two-hand chest passes back out to a popping Isaiah Joe. But it's also hard to make those plays again, and again, and again, with the economy of movement of an elite marathon runner, while never messing anything up.
It all contributes to a sense of frictionlessness in Gilgeous-Alexander's ongoing growth, from lottery pick to trade-haul jewel to starter to All-Star to All-NBA to All-Everything. (OK, maybe there's beensomefriction.) How do you track the development of a player whomade a leap three years agoand then … just hasn't stopped leaping?
We all know the saying about how progress isn't linear. That's the thing, though: These lines look awfully straight.
Lest we glaze over or slide past, let's say it plainly: Gilgeous-Alexander won the scoring title, regular-season MVP, Western Conference Finals MVP, Finals MVP and the NBA championship last season. And this season, thus far, he has been even better. At virtually everything.
"He's to the point now where he's touching up the edges," Thunder head coach Mark Daigneaulttold Sam Amick of The Athleticearlier this season. "Your growth curve tends to be much higher earlier on, as you are accumulating experiences. But he's subtly getting better. He's had a great defensive start (to this season). On the offensive end, he's moving it earlier and with more intentionality than he ever has. He's been on that track."
And, in the process, on the track to what could wind up being one of the greatest individual seasons we've ever seen. Pick your all-in-one advanced stat of choice — player efficiency rating, win shares per 48 minutes, box plus-minus, estimated plus-minus, DARKO, LEBRON, etc. — and Gilgeous-Alexander is, for the fourth straight year, on pace for a career year.
SGA is scoring more points and delivering more assistsper minuteandper possession. He's shooting 59.2% on 2-point shots, including55% on midrange looks, and 41.1% on 3-point attempts, including43.2% on pull-up triples— all of which would be career highs.
He's scoring 1.21 points per possession that he finishes himself after serving as theball-handler in the pick-and-roll, 1.14 points per possession out ofisolation, 1.47 points per possession attacking intransition, 1.22 points per possession going to workin the post, and 1.2 points per possession off drives to the basket, according to Synergy — all of which would be career highs. And when you factor in the possessions where he passes to a teammate who shoots, the Thunder are averaging 1.14 points per play out of SGA's pick-and-rolls and isos, and 1.16 points per SGA post-up — all up from his MVP season.
Gilgeous-Alexander has notched the assist on 34.4% of his teammates' baskets while he's on the floor, and has coughed the ball up just 37 times in 703 minutes — an infinitesimal 6.8% turnover rate. Those would both be career-best marks, too. The only player inStathead's databaseto finish a full season with a usage rate as highanda turnover rate as low as what SGA's posted thus far? Michael Jeffrey Jordan.
While the Thunder haven't needed SGA's services to close out many of theirleague-leading 13 double-digit wins, when theyhavefound themselves in sticky situations, he's been the best closer in the league. Asmy podcast partnerTom Haberstrohrecently highlighted, despite playing in just nine "clutch" games — defined as contests in which the score is within five points in the final five minutes of the fourth quarter or overtime — Gilgeous-Alexander leads the NBA in close-and-late scoring, with80 points in 50 "clutch" minuteson 52.4% shooting. AsNBA.com's John Schuhmann notes, that isalreadymore points than Shai scored in the clutch all of last season (67), and in those 50 minutes, he's committedoneturnover. (It's no surprise, then, thatMike Beuoy's model at Inpredictableprojects SGA as the frontrunner for this season's Clutch Player of the Year award.)
No player to average 30 points per gamehas ever hada true shooting percentage (which factors in 2-point, 3-point and free-throw accuracy) as high as SGA's .674 mark. That means he's on pace to produce the most efficient high-scoring season in NBA history, topping Stephen Curry's 2015-16 season — a campaign in which Curry, fresh off a championship,won his second consecutive MVP trophy.
[Get more Thunder news: Oklahoma City team feed]
As you might remember, that yeardidn't endquitethe waythat Curry and his Warriors — whose 73 regular-season wins remain the high-water markthat OKC is chasing— had hoped it would. And after getting taken the distance by Denver and Indiana en route to the 2025 title, Gilgeous-Alexander knows that what matters most is sticking the landing.
"I don't think as a group we played our best basketball in that playoff run," Gilgeous-Alexandertold ESPN's Tim MacMahonearlier this season. "And I don't think as a player, I played my best basketball for the whole run. Granted, it's basketball, it's going to happen — but I had droughts, and there's a reason why I had droughts. We had droughts as a team, and there's a reason why we had droughts and meltdowns and things like that. We have to learn from those experiences and be better."
June's a long way off; what happens before then is only preamble. All Gilgeous-Alexander can do between now and then is what he's always done: just make the next play. Again, and again, and again.
"The things we want are so complicated and so hard to get," Gilgeous-Alexandertold MacMahon. "When you just focus on the simple things and the little things, you'll look up and be there one day."
Maybe the most interesting question on the board: When Gilgeous-Alexander finallydoeslook up, just how far will he have come? Just how high in the ranks of NBA royalty will he have climbed?
"He can get better," Daigneaulttold Amick. "... He seems to be kind of managing the game and manipulating the defense more often and more consistently than he ever has."
A version of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander that does those things better, more often and more consistently than he is right now … well, that sounds like one of the best players of all time. The highlights might never be all that loud. But then, it's the quiet ones you've got to watch.
Part of the problem — to the extent that thereisa problem, anyway — is the dunking. Its absence, I mean. Shai ...
