Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the reigning MVP, is getting better at everything — in case you haven’t noticed

Part of the problem – to that extent Is There is one problem, anyway – dunking. I mean, its absence.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has played 703 minutes in the 2025-26 NBA season, and he has four slam dunks. Like, five to one less. IV, if you want to get complete Roman information about it. solamante cuatro,

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Three of them also came against the kings. You know, if a tree falls in the forest, and all that:

And then there is help. Don’t get me wrong: Gilgeous-Alexander is Qualified The type of thread-the-needle-in-traffic, lefty-hook-pass-on-the-move, cross-court-fastball-right-into-the-shooting-pocket feeds that arise Oh And ahh ,

…But SGA only throws about 40 passes per game, and more often than not, his setups end up being simple. Pull two towards the ball, because they know that if they try to directly protect you, they will die where they stand. Take it slow, play on two feet and keep your eyes up. Find a teammate – either one who is exactly where he needs to be, or one who is about to get there, because right now, the defending NBA champion Oklahoma City Thunder, off to a 20-1 start and looking like a threat to rewrite the record books, might just be playing blind.

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Make easy passes, make wide-open shots and take advantage. Then, when you get the stop – and you’re going to get the stop, because you not only have the best defense it NBA season, but probably the last 50 – come down and do it again. And then. And then.

The individual stat lines don’t help much either, as they rarely make your eyes pop out of your skull. Two 40-plus-point performances this season, which obviously seems low because at this point, 30 is expected — including, famously, by the man himself:

Two games with double-digit dimes, as OKC is one of eight teams this season with at least eight players averaging at least two assists per game. No 10-rebound outings, because listen, what do you think we pay Isaiah Hartenstein for?

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Also: It’s not always easy to have a large gathering when you have the rest of the night off constantly.

Jaw-dropping numbers are posted in an NBA dominated by Kaijus, so sometimes your eyes may glaze over at those non-mutant box scores. Just like they slide a smooth drive through the paint for a scoop layup, a one-dribble pull-up from the elbow or a hiccup-quick right foot flick into a stepback 3 going left.

It’s hard to create a memorable highlight reel with below-the-rim finishes, midrange Js and popping two-handed chest passes to Isaiah Joe. But with the economy of motion of a typical marathon runner, it’s also hard to make those plays over and over again while never making anything go wrong.

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It all contributes to a sense of frictionlessness in Gilgeous-Alexander’s ongoing rise, from lottery pick to trade-hall jewel to starter to All-Star to All-NBA to all-everything. (Okay, maybe there has been Some? Friction.) How do you track the development of a player who made the jump three years ago and then… still hasn’t stopped making the jump?

We all know the saying that progress is not linear. However, that’s the thing: these lines look pretty straight.

Lest we be surprised or forget the past, let’s say it clearly: Gilgeous-Alexander won the scoring title, regular-season MVP, Western Conference Finals MVP, Finals MVP, and the NBA championship last season. And this season, so far, he’s been even better. Literally on everything.

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“He’s at the point now where he’s touching the edges,” Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault told The Athletic’s Sam Amick earlier this season. “Your development curve gets much higher than before, as you’re accumulating experience. But he’s slowly getting better. He’s off to a great defensive start (this season). On the offensive end, he’s moving at it earlier and more intentionally than ever before. He’s on that track.”

And, in the process, on his way to having one of the greatest individual seasons we’ve ever seen. Pick the all-in-one advanced statistic of your choice – player efficiency rating, win shares per 48 minutes, box plus-minus, projected plus-minus, Darko, LeBron, etc. – and Gilgeous-Alexander is, for the fourth year in a row, on pace for a career year.

SGA is scoring more points and dishing out more assists per minute and per possession. He’s shooting 59.2% on 2-point shots, including 55% on midrange looks, and 41.1% on 3-point attempts, including 43.2% on pull-up triples – all of which would be career highs.

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According to Synergy, he is scoring 1.21 points per possession serving as a ball-handler in pick-and-rolls that he finishes himself, 1.14 points per possession out of isolation, 1.47 points per possession shooting in transition, 1.22 points per possession working in the post, and 1.2 points per possession driving to the basket – all career highs. Will be at the highest level. And when you take into account the possessions where he passes to teammates who shoot, the Thunder are averaging 1.14 points per game from SGA pick-and-rolls and isos, and 1.16 points per SGA post-up – all more than his MVP season.

Gilgeous-Alexander has assisted on 34.4% of his teammates’ baskets while on the floor, and has rebounded the ball just 37 times in 703 minutes – a paltry turnover rate of 6.8%. Those two would also be career best marks. The only player in Stathead’s database to finish a full season with a high usage rate And Is the turnover rate lower than what SGA has posted so far? Michael jeffrey jordan.

While the Thunder didn’t need SGA’s services to close out many of their league-leading 13 double-digit wins, they did. to pass Finding himself in difficult situations, he has been the best closer in the league. As my podcast partner Tom Haberstroh recently highlighted, despite playing only 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, with 80 points in 50 “clutch” minutes on 52.4% shooting. As nba.comJohn Schuhmann’s notes, i.e. already That’s more points than Shai scored in the clutch last season (67), and in those 50 minutes, he’s committed One Turnover. (It’s no surprise that Mike Buie’s model in Unpredictable puts SGA as the frontrunner for this season’s Clutch Player of the Year award.)

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No player averaging 30 points per game has ever had a true shooting percentage (which factors in 2-point, 3-point and free-throw accuracy) with an SGA as high as .674 points. That means he is 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 won his second consecutive MVP trophy, fresh off a championship.

,Get more Thunder news: Oklahoma City team feed,

As you remember, that year didn’t end extremely Just the way Curry and his Warriors — whose 73 regular-season wins remain the high-water mark for chasing OKC — had hoped it would happen. And after Denver and Indiana went the distance on the way to the 2025 title, Gilgeous-Alexander knows what matters most is landing the shots.

“I don’t think as a group we played our best basketball in that playoffs,” Gilgeous-Alexander told ESPN’s Tim McMahon earlier this season. “And I don’t think as a player, I played my best basketball the entire time. Granted, it’s basketball, it’s going to happen — but I had droughts, and there’s a reason I had droughts. We had droughts as a team, and there’s a reason we had droughts and slumps and things like that. We’ve got to learn from those experiences and get better.”

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June is far away; What happens before that is just prologue. Gilgeous-Alexander can do what he’s always done between now and then: Just make the next play. Again and again and again.

“The things we want are very complex and very difficult to achieve,” Gilgeous-Alexander told McMahon. “When you just focus on the simple things and the little things, you’ll look up and get there one day.”

Perhaps the most interesting question on the board: when will Gilgeous-Alexander finally does Look up, how far would he have come? How high would he have climbed the ranks of NBA royalty?

“He could be better,” Daigneault told Amick. “…He seems to be managing the game and manipulating the defense more frequently and consistently than ever before.”

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A version of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander who does those things better, more often and more consistently than he does now… well, that sounds like one of the best players of all time. Highlights can never be that strong. But then again, it’s the cool things you have to see.