Shai Gilgeous-Alexander Will Drive The OKC Thunder To Elite Territory

This is always a tricky part of the NBA calendar. Four months without on-court action will have everyone starving for games, eager to overreact to every standout player and jumping to conclusions after one week of basketball.

Most of the time, it’s easy to roll your eyes at certain declarations, such as which teams will be in the playoffs or who the MVP front-runners will be at the end. Opening week is also never a great time to reassess your preseason outlook or consider anything a botched prediction. After all, we have 170 days left of hoops in this wild, unpredictable league.

With that said … we all might have been wrong about the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Across all projections in the NBA media sphere, the range for OKC appeared to be from 40 to 50 wins. Pessimists believed they would require another year to develop and not escape the play-in tournament. Optimists had them as a homecourt seed in the West, possibly reaching the second round.

When I released my win projections, I leaned closer to their floor with a record of 43-39. It was a bet on the West being more competitive than last year and veteran squads finding the appropriate ways to defend OKC’s halfcourt offense, which I expected to stay league-average.

Throw all of it out the window – at least for now.

Forget the conservative approach when it comes to this team.

The Thunder, packed with youth, loaded with athleticism, and led by a stone cold killer, are ready to announce themselves as a West contender.

It might sound a little aggressive considering NBA history has proven it’s almost impossible to jump that many ranks without monumental additions in free agency.

However, if Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is already showing us this type of dominance and two-way brilliance, it’s time to expect the unexpected.

Only two games have passed, with OKC standing 2-0 after pulverizing the Chicago Bulls into the earliest players-only meeting in sports history and flexing their clutch gene to defeat the Cavaliers.

Their latest victory, a collective rally to spoil Cleveland’s home opener, was just an early glimpse of the damage they could do this year. And a great reminder of why they’re going to be the most annoying group to play against.

Trailing 100-90 with only 2:22 remaining, they lit up the Cavs with an 18-5 run to steal the win. In the matter of seven possessions, OKC displayed their offensive potential with four different players drilling 3-pointers in that span. Five assists, five buckets, zero errors.

Behind their leader, Gilgeous-Alexander, the Thunder appear poised, organized, and dialed in offensively. It was the next step in their progression after defending at a top-10 level for most of last season.

For SGA, we’re seeing an extension of his spectacular FIBA World Cup run, where he made it crystal clear to the basketball universe that his reign begins soon.

I’m not a fan of hyperbole, especially as it pertains to young players still carving out their path and adding new skills. But after making the leap into superstardom a year ago and already giving us flashes of how terrifying he’s going to be in 2024, Gilgeous-Alexander deserves all of the superlatives heading his way.

He’s already earned the right to be called the most devastating attacker and driver in today’s NBA. Better yet — stay with me here — one could argue nobody has been more effective at breaking the paint over the last decade-plus.

Between the unremitting rim pressure, the art of keeping a live dribble, and a smooth jumper that can render tough defense useless, SGA is nearing a complete offensive package.

Oh yeah, and he’s still a couple years away from the typical NBA ‘prime.’

Through two games, Gilgeous-Alexander has registered 54 drives, which Second Spectrum defines as any touch that begins at least 20 feet from the basket and is dribbled within 10 feet. That’s 27 per game, even higher than his league-leading mark of 23.9 last year. It’s also the most of any player in the database’s 11-year history, exceeding Russell Westbrook, James Harden, and Ty Lawson’s volume from a decade ago.

He has 18 more paint attacks than the next-highest player to begin this season, De’Aaron Fox. Both have played the same number of minutes (72).

Examining those 54 drives, he’s given defenders a steady diet of the scoring acumen and playmaking chops that make his skill-set so fascinating. Just on those possessions, Shai has:

• 25 shot attempts (shooting 52.0%)
• 20 passes leading to seven assists
• Only four (!) turnovers
• Three fouls drawn

While the constant aggression hasn’t resulted in many trips to the foul line in the first two games, last season’s data suggests that will change very quickly. His free throw rate jumped to 11 attempts per 36 minutes during his 2023 All-NBA run, leading all players at his position and nearly doubling his production from the previous year.

One of the separators for SGA, if you were to contrast him to other guards in his tier, is how frequently he can switch gears in the halfcourt.

As a defense, there is no speeding up Gilgeous-Alexander. He’ll never operate at a pace outside of his comfort zone. With his combination of size and tight handle to keep defenders at bay, everyone is at his mercy. Once he determines the pace that best fits his team for that given night, you’re playing his game.

If Shai decides to glide into the paint before switching hands and executing a beautiful spin to the cup … it’s over.

If he dribbles around a screen, puts his defender in jail (keeping them on his back), and wants to utilize the step-through … it’s over.

Or, if he establishes post position and illustrates a level of patience normal 25-year-olds simply can’t … it’s also over:

The footwork continues to improve year after year. Coupled with a 6’11” wingspan and long strides, SGA rarely has issues creating a scoring angle near the basket.

His elite shot creation might not be “unique,” considering there are other large guards and wings who are three-level scorers. However, what makes him such a handful for opposing coaches is the ability to get to his most efficient spots without having to turn on the jets or overpower his defender.

At 6’6” with a slender frame, he’s able to rise over the top of most guards tasked with this unfair assignment. He might not have the generational speed that Russell Westbrook or De’Aaron Fox can utilize at that position, but he possesses just enough burst to get to his favorite pull-ups.

With the point A-to-B quickness, along with his shifty playstyle that never fails to create all the separation he needs, he’s transformed into an impressive mid-range scorer. Notice how he maintains his balance on these looks, not rushing his release after taking contact and gathering the ball:

To a certain degree, factoring in the comparable height and how easily he generates those shots, there’s a Jordan and Kobe-esque component to this version of Gilgeous-Alexander – strictly in terms of style and comfortability down the stretch of games. He still has room to grow physically, which will happen over time as he builds strength and becomes a nightmare for anyone trying to keep him out of the lane.

Typically, the most effective ways to rattle bigger guards is to exploit their handle, crowd the paint by gifting them outside jumpers, or bait them into inefficient post-ups.

Exactly none of the above works against Gilgeous-Alexander because of his sheer talent and how he processes the game.

To that end, one year of working alongside Chris Paul (2019-20) really did wonders for SGA. Of course, we’ll never be able to quantify how much it mattered, but you can see some of the influence with Shai’s pick-and-roll attacks. How he manipulates his defender into a screen, occupies the big in drop coverage, and snakes to the opposite side for a pull-up is such a veteran move:

If anyone thought SGA’s scoring volume would take a dip this season with some added talent around him, it didn’t take long to shut down that notion.

Instead, it appears we’re in store for a more polished and well-rounded scorer that doesn’t mind launching a few more jumpers when the opportunities arise.

He’s already lighting up the court when he creates separation, shooting 6-of-7 on ‘step-backs’ and 17-of-27 (63.0%) on overall jumpshots. For someone that shot north of 37% on step-back threes last year and is exhibiting more confidence in letting those fly, the conversations around ‘best scorer in the league’ might start to appear in Oklahoma City.

Shai’s intentionality and, frankly, his ruthless nature on the court are both rising by the year. He knows how he wants to score, where he wants to score, and who he wants to target.

Now, he’s hunting the right matchups with the goal of finding the best avenue into the lane. As he invites the slowest defender on the floor into a ball-screen, heaven forbid the defense concedes a switch. Once they do, he’s roasting them off the dribble and forcing a rotation:

But it’s not always about dominating the possession with the ball in your hands. For instance, how many primary ball-handlers do you see (willingly) toggling between initiator and screen-setter? It’s not many, but Shai has no problem filling that role if he knows a teammate can draw two on the ball:

After five full seasons, Gilgeous-Alexander is still learning how to dissect every pick-and-roll coverage. As he continues torching the league with his individual scoring, more attention will inevitably come. More bodies. More help when he reaches the nail, either daring him to force ill-advised shots or give up the ball and succumb to the double teams.

The beauty of Oklahoma City’s young core is that insulates Gilgeous-Alexander with lethal versatility, valuable playmaking, and adequate shooting threats to make everything a difficult decision. If teams want to compromise their defense and floor balance by throwing extra bodies his way, it’s almost a death sentence to allow Jalen Williams or Josh Giddey 4-on-3 advantages in the halfcourt. Giddey, in particular, will pick you apart. Plus, if Shai’s partnership with Chet Holmgren evolves into one of the best ball-screen connections in the league (which is entirely dependent on Holmgren’s efficiency as a roller and how much gravity his long-range shooting provides), there just won’t be a solid way to guard this team. In time, if they stick together, there will be no viable solution.

OKC is still growing and developing offensive chemistry that will soon make that a juggernaut. But it’s worth pointing out, Gilgeous-Alexander is already absorbing the type of defensive attention that megastar creators, such as Luka Dončić and Kevin Durant, see throughout a game. That’s the biggest reason most of his assists to begin this season are the basic reads any talented guard can make – passing to a teammate on the strong side when the defense overhelps, quick pitch-aheads in transition, or recognizing when his screener is diving to the basket and hitting them in stride.

You can sense the next phase of his ascension, though. It’s clearly going to be his rise from “solid playmaker” to “supreme manipulator with the ball.”

He’s such an unpredictable player that even catches his teammates off guard. Now, the second he notices the low-man (Donovan Mitchell below) cheating over to protect the lane, SGA slings the one-handed skip pass to the weakside corner:

With SGA near the top of the league in time of possession and average seconds per touch for the last two seasons, he’ll have ample opportunities to enhance his passing traits and tendencies.

The degree to which teams are shading toward him and flat-out ignoring other options when he operates with a spread floor, he’s going to face countless situations where there’s multiple options to choose from. As he continues making reads and adapts to playing with a center of Holmgren’s caliber, it’s only going to get easier for him. That should induce fear in every West competitor.

There are many reasons NBA fans should tune into every Oklahoma City game this season. One of them will be watching Gilgeous-Alexander prove last year’s fifth-place MVP finish was only scratching the surface.