Shai Gilgeous-Alexander Has MVP Aura Written All Over Him

If basketball were only about aesthetics, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander would be the greatest player of all time. Blending the balance of Simone Biles with the reflexive flexibility of a contortionist and the audacity of Kobe Bryant, his trips to the basket collapse the distance between violence and grace, imagination and tangibility. He twists and turns, starts and stops, and elevates around and between opposition like a thrill-seeking thief. Imagine a charming bad guy slipping through an infrared laser security system to make off with a crown jewel; SGA’s handle itself is a form of sorcery. If he were speaking to his audience, he might say, “For my next trick, I’ll make the defender disappear.” Poof. 

His movement isn’t just effective—it radiates MVP aura, the rare kind that turns a scoring play into performance art. At 6’6” with three-level scoring wizardry and perhaps the best kinesthetic gifts in league history, he’s the answer to the question of, “What if Kyrie Irving were three inches taller?” Less abstractly, he’s the leader of a 68-14 Oklahoma City Thunder team that just finished the regular season as the No. 1 seed in the West. Statistically, he’s one of the three or four best regular-season scoring guards ever. Sartorially, he’s an emerging drip god with a lithe figure that once helped him secure a spot as a model for Kim Kardashian’s SKIMs.

If we prescribed such a title for young men with wicked crossovers and a knack for putting that shit on, we’d say he’s the NBA’s “It Boy.” If all goes the way it looks like it’s going to, we can also call him the 2024-2025 NBA MVP. And he’d be a worthy one.

A whirlwind of technical mastery and icy cool, SGA pirouetted his way to status as perhaps the most devastating scorer in the league, averaging 32.7 points and at least 10 fatalities per night; all while rocking pre-game fits that quickly landed on your favorite player’s mood board. He wasn’t consistent as much as he was inevitable. In 76 games, he notched 30 or more points nearly two-thirds of the time, with 13 of those nights clearing 40 and four eclipsing the 50-point mark. On the rare occasions when he didn’t hit 25—which happened only eight times—he still made his presence felt. Just once all season did he score fewer than 20.

Put another way: it was 13 times more likely he’d drop 40 than 19. That’s MVP aura by the numbers.

While he was branded a free-throw merchant, he would still lead the league in scoring if James Naismith had decided unguarded 15-footers were wack. Complain all you want, but SGA’s prowess and his point totals all stem from the power of his shot-making, which is pretty much as good as anyone’s…ever. That kind of statistical dominance, wrapped in style and serenity, is what MVP aura looks like in action.

Regardless of which part of the court SGA slithered to, he was buckets. Incredibly efficient buckets.

In the highly likely chance he managed to beat you to the basket, he finished at a rate of 73.7% at the rim. On the off chance you manage to cut him off—or, if he just decided he wanted to embarrass you—he’d go from 60-0 and come to a dead stop before draining a 10-16 footer at a rate of about 55% from the field. At his best, midrange god Dirk Nowitzki shot about 49% from the same distance. After spending his first several years in the league as a slightly below average three-point shooter, SGA upped his attempts and his percentage to shoot 37.5% from long range on nearly six attempts a game. His all-around touch led him to 51.9/37.5/89.8 splits on the season. If you remix those slightly—or maybe just a couple more threes fall down—we’re looking at someone averaging nearly 33 points per game on 50/40/90. But, if you rightfully pay more attention to marks like true shooting, you don’t even have to entertain such an exercise; his 63.7 TS% mark is 6.1 percentage points better than league average. Of the players averaging more than 25 points this season, only reigning MVP Nikola Jokić maintained a better TS%. 

On its own, a 32.7 point, 5 rebounds, and 6.4 assists stat line on Stephen Curry-esque efficiency is pretty ridiculous. But then, when you throw in his Dwyane Wade defensive marks, it becomes the stuff of inscrutable myth. When SGA wasn’t helping make sure Canada Goose jackets were out of stock, he was 10th in the league in stocks (a player’s combined blocks and steals total); he averaged 1.7 blocks and a steal per game. Throughout the season, he collected more blocks than Draymond Green, Bam Adebayo, Giannis Antetokounmpo, a significant accomplishment when you consider that the squad’s most singular rim protector, Chet Holmgren, missed 51 games this season.

He’d shown signs before, but this year, the box score and advanced numbers aligned with his physical and mental tools; the league’s best scorer had become one of its best defenders, too. On the season, OKC had the best defense in the league, and SGA was a major part of it. 

SGA’s offensive and defensive capabilities led to one of the most productive—and efficient—seasons … well, ever.  His 30.7 Player Efficiency Rating exceeds Dwyane Wade and Kobe Bryant’s career highs. Out of all guards in NBA history, only Stephen Curry (31.5) and the Jumpman (31.7) have done better. They’re also the only guards that best his .309 win shares per 48 minutes. Although Jokic is the advanced stats darling, there are areas where SGA surpasses him. As noted by Real Plus Minus creator Jeremias Engelmann, SGA had the best Real Adjusted Plus Minus (RAPM)—an impact metric that attempts “to measure how a player impacts the game in points per 100 relative to an average player”—of any player since the 1996-1997 season. This season, SGA also led the league in Actual Estimated Plus Minus, slotting one spot ahead of Jokic. 

SGA’s strong 7.7 on/off mark might look paltry compared to Jokic’s 20.1, but we shouldn’t penalize him for being on a better squad; the closer you are to the top of the mountain, the less you have to climb. In the league, aside from home court advantage, you don’t get extra credit once you’ve secured the top record in the league, which OKC did by going 68-14 (the NBA’s seventh-best regular season record ever). But if you did, it would look like the Simple Rating System (SRS), which rates individual teams by their average point differential while adjusting for strength of schedule, OKC sits at 12.7, easily giving them the best mark of this season. Or any season. 

They’ve got the best SRS ever. For reference, the 2015-2016 Golden State Warriors (73-9 record), had an SRS of 10.76. OKC’s 2.2 net rating when SGA sat—that of a top 10 or so team in the Association—is proof their team success wasn’t a carry job. Returning to a vertical jump metaphor I used before, Jokic might have jumped the highest, but SGA touched the highest rung on the Vertec. Technically, no one’s ever reached higher. 

Whether you were using the eye test, which he’ll always pass, or the numbers alone, SGA has been nearly as good as anyone’s ever been. As a result, so was his team. 

In an era that demands both dominance and distinctiveness, SGA is the singular player who defines both. Through a mix of careening drives, mystical scoring barrages, and savvy defensive plays, SGA swashbuckled his way into NBA history… And he looked cool AF while doing it.