Editor’s word: This story initially posted on April 8, 2024.
WITH 6:56 LEFT within the third quarter of what ought to have been a reasonably routine sport in early March, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander knocked down an 18-foot jumper to provide the Thunder what ought to have been an insurmountable 84-60 lead over Kevin Durant and the Phoenix Suns. Oklahoma Metropolis, because it had been all season, was cruising.
Twenty-four hours earlier, the Thunder had turn out to be the No. 1 seed within the Western Convention, fueled by their younger Large Three in Gilgeous-Alexander, Chet Holmgren and Jalen Williams. The Suns, behind their very own Large Three, had been tied for sixth, only a sport out of the play-in event. Two groups on reverse trajectories — one preventing to play the a part of an NBA contender, the opposite preventing simply to remain within the present.
Then, with their season teetering, Durant, a former MVP and two-time champion, answered with a 3. Forty-six seconds later, Grayson Allen added one other one. Possession after possession, the Suns’ onslaught continued unabated. For 5 minutes, the Thunder did not reply, could not reply. By the top of the third, Oklahoma Metropolis’s lead was all the way down to 4.
A minute into the fourth quarter, it was gone fully. It was the type of sport younger groups just like the Thunder lose.
Along with his staff down 5, Gilgeous-Alexander reentered the sport with 8:27 left within the fourth quarter and calmly took over, powering an 18-5 run and main the Thunder to a 118-110 win. It allowed OKC to stay atop the Western Convention standings for the second day this season — precisely two days longer than anybody predicted for the league’s second-youngest staff.
The Thunder have turn out to be a contender this season forward of even probably the most optimistic predictions as a result of their 25-year-old MVP candidate continues to defy each expectation — besides his personal.
This sport, and the run that got here to outline it, is however one instance of an inconceivable 20-year journey that started within the Toronto suburb of Hamilton, Ontario, prolonged to the bluegrass of Kentucky and continued to the NBA, during which Gilgeous-Alexander has been making an attempt, planning, auditioning, to turn out to be the most effective basketball participant on the planet.
“It has been the story of my life,” Gilgeous-Alexander mentioned. “I’ve all the time simply gotten higher.”
He did not make his highschool’s varsity staff as a freshman. He did not begin till halfway via his freshman season in faculty or as a rookie within the NBA. The Thunder did not even suppose he’d be this good once they traded for him in 2019 as a part of the deal that despatched Paul George to the LA Clippers and began what has became a fast rebuild.
This season Gilgeous-Alexander has improved at nearly all the things: scoring (30.4 PPG, third within the NBA), protection (a league-leading 2.1 steals per sport), and studying easy methods to management and win video games just like the one in opposition to the Suns during which he scored 11 of his game-high 35 factors within the last six minutes.
“It is a mentality,” Gilgeous-Alexander mentioned. “The talent stuff I simply hammer away at. However what makes a terrific participant is how they carry that to the court docket. How they management fourth quarters and win video games.
“LeBron [James] is LeBron as a result of for 20 some odd years he is managed video games.”
Gilgeous-Alexander was by no means ordained for greatness like James, whom Sports activities Illustrated anointed “The Chosen One” on the age of 15.
But he mentioned he all the time believed he would get there sooner or later — his mom made certain of that.
THE PLAYER WHO has mentored Shai Gilgeous-Alexander probably the most, and made probably the most influence on him, is somebody he performed with for simply 17 months.
Nearly instantly upon his arrival in Oklahoma Metropolis, Chris Paul noticed qualities and values within the then-21-year-old that mirrored his personal: the unrelenting devotion to routine, the virtually compulsive eye for particulars, the flexibility to see the longest view.
Gilgeous-Alexander was continually over at Paul’s condominium that yr, making an attempt to soak in as a lot as he might from one of many best level guards of all time. They educated collectively. Ate breakfasts and dinners collectively. Went to G League video games and talked hoops for hours.
“Shai is only a basketball junkie,” Paul tells ESPN. “Even now, we is perhaps on the cellphone watching a sport, simply speaking about what we see.”
However simply as Paul is about to proceed describing a participant he now considers household, he stops.
“You can not write this story with out speaking to his mother,” he says. “Maintain on. I will name her.”
He patches her in.
“You OK?” she asks Paul, figuring he’d be calling her in the course of the season provided that one thing had been amiss.
They’ve turn out to be shut over time. So shut that she makes some extent to attend Paul’s video games in Toronto annually, irrespective of which staff he is on.
Paul assures her all the things is okay. That he simply desires to verify her position in elevating her son is totally understood.
Charmaine Gilgeous introduces herself as “a sprinter.” And certainly she was — competing within the 400 meters on the 1992 Summer season Olympics in Barcelona for Antigua and Barbuda.
However she’s referring to a mentality, not simply her résumé.
“I by no means ran something over 400 meters,” she says. “Which means I do know what the purpose is, and I do not do something till I get the purpose. That is how I am oriented. And I knew I wanted my youngsters to be like this. I needed to elevate them that method.”
She by no means made some huge cash as a social employee, she says. The household needed to transfer round usually. There have been fixed pressures.
“Regardless of how horrible a state of affairs seemed, if I needed to cry or scream, I might wait till they went to mattress,” she says. “They’d by no means see me sweat. They’d by no means see me pissed off.”
That is the place Gilgeous-Alexander will get his self-discipline, he says. That is why he appears so unflappable on the court docket.
“If his mother,” Paul says, ” him.”
SINCE IT OPENED with a lavish, $75-per-person occasion in 1979, the Holt Renfrew retailer on Bloor Road in Toronto has been the place to go for individuals who like to decorate to impress. It’s a huge retailer. 4 ranges, a elaborate chocolate store inside, marble flooring, a whole bunch of luxurious designers and types.
Charmaine Gilgeous used to take her sons, Shai and Thomasi, there to window-shop, spending leisurely afternoons dreaming in regards to the type of life they could sooner or later lead in the event that they labored arduous and let nothing get in the way in which of their objectives.
On the time, she was simply eager about guiding her boys to school after which regular jobs. However she did not tamp down on any of the lofty goals that they had about being the subsequent Kobe Bryant or Cristiano Ronaldo or Kevin Durant.
So Gilgeous took them window-shopping Saturdays. It was their routine. Forty-five minutes every method on the subway.
They’d put on polo shirts and slacks, have a look at all of the Guccis and Versaces, seize a chew to eat at a restaurant within the metropolis’s so-called Mink Mile, then head again to Hamilton.
As a single mother, Gilgeous had a couple of nonnegotiables for her sons. Homework needed to come first. Meals needed to be wholesome. And it doesn’t matter what was occurring of their lives, they might all the time gown properly.
“I do not play about the way you look,” she mentioned. “My youngsters might run amok in my home, however once they stepped out that door, you higher, as we are saying, ‘repair up.’
“You higher get it collectively.”
“Rising up we would all the time attempt to gown and look the half,” Gilgeous-Alexander mentioned. “That was crucial. After we left the home, it was like, ensure that your collar is down, ensure that your shirt just isn’t wrinkled. Be certain that there isn’t any boogers in your nostril. Be certain that there’s nothing in your eyes.”
This was about imaginative and prescient, not self-importance. About wanting the half even when you’re not in a position to play it but. About establishing routines, habits, a imaginative and prescient for the longer term.
Costume for the life you need to have, not the place you’re.
“You step out of the home, you look the half. You are representing the household,” Gilgeous-Alexander mentioned. “And that type of transferred into what it’s now.”
What it’s now could be what Gilgeous-Alexander all the time believed it may very well be: That he might sooner or later be on the quick record for the NBA’s Most Worthwhile Participant.
Gilgeous-Alexander has mentioned he has dreamed of successful an MVP since he was 6 years outdated. In highschool, he and his cousin, Minnesota Timberwolves guard Nickeil Alexander-Walker, would discuss their NBA goals late into the night time.
“We might watch for hours speaking about what we need to accomplish, the place we needed to go,” Alexander-Walker mentioned. “I keep in mind him saying it then, too.”
THUNDER GENERAL MANAGER Sam Presti likes to inform a narrative a couple of name and a go to he had with Jerry Krause, the architect of Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls.
Krause was older and never in nice well being, however he needed to get to know Presti and discuss with him about his philosophies. Presti accepted the invitation.
“This man was a baseball scout, too,” Presti mentioned in 2023. “He took it so critical, and he was speaking about these, he referred to as them ‘electrical moments’ whenever you’re scouting a participant and also you see one thing.
“It is a glimpse of one thing, and also you rise up and also you go searching and also you go, ‘I hope that nobody else noticed that.'”
For Presti, the “electrical second” with Gilgeous-Alexander got here throughout that 2019-20 season when he noticed him enjoying in opposition to Paul throughout a apply. There was simply one thing about the way in which Gilgeous-Alexander was competing, Presti mentioned, one thing about the way in which he was ending baskets that made Presti suppose he had discovered the subsequent face of his franchise.
Presti had skilled that feeling earlier than. He had famously drafted and developed Durant, Russell Westbrook and James Harden a decade and a half earlier and was at the start of what he hoped can be an analogous rebuild round Gilgeous-Alexander.
Recognizing these “electrical moments” is only one a part of the method, nonetheless. Creating the correct setting for excellent gamers to thrive is much more vital.
“I do suppose that is one factor that generally within the league as we speak is lacking,” Presti mentioned in 2023. “Individuals are not difficult.
“A relationship cannot be constructed on appeasement, at the very least no relationship that I’ve seen achieve success that method. … You need to problem and regularly elevate the bar.”
The assertion largely went unnoticed on the time. Gilgeous-Alexander and the Thunder had simply wrapped up their season with a loss to the Timberwolves within the play-in event. The remainder of the league was centered on the playoffs.
However the basis of the enormous leap Gilgeous-Alexander and the Thunder had been about to take had been there for all to see.
It was time to cease window-shopping. He had spent lengthy sufficient wanting the half. It was time to play it.
WHEN OKLAHOMA CITY coach Mark Daigneault visited his star participant in his hometown two summers in the past, it was as if he’d been invited by a undertaking supervisor who needed to indicate his colleague how he had optimized each a part of his day.
Every morning, Gilgeous-Alexander would textual content his buddies, telling them when he’d be by to choose them up. Round 9 a.m., they’d arrive at a neighborhood church gymnasium to play. After that they’d come again to his home and elevate kettlebells for hours. He did not have a lot gear and it was arduous to get something new into the nation on the time, so he’d do pushups, pullups and no matter else he might with resistance bands.
“They’re all in sync with one another,” Daigneault mentioned. “He exhibits up and all of the rebounders are in there. They know the drills. Then he drives to the home and the trainers are there. The storage door opens, and so they begin coaching. Then they go house and the chef is there getting ready their lunch and the canine runs to the door.”
He started this routine in 2020, Gilgeous-Alexander mentioned, after the season shut down for 4 months because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“There was nothing to do, so I attempted to be as strict and as organized as I might,” he mentioned. “I attempted to be on extra scheduled occasions.”
The Thunder had been surprised at his physique’s transformation when the staff reconvened on the bubble in Orlando, Florida, in July.
“He was on a mission,” Daigneault mentioned. “We had three weeks of apply earlier than we began enjoying video games. I used to be an assistant coach on the time, and we had been enjoying in opposition to one another for a bunch of time. Dennis Schroder and Chris Paul had been on one staff and he was on the opposite, and that was the primary time you had been like, ‘Whoa.’
“He had the ball slightly bit extra, and he wasn’t making an attempt to slot in as a lot with these guys. He was simply type of rocking, and it was additionally on the heels of all that work. So the convergence of these two issues … . All people acknowledged that perhaps there’s one other gear right here.
“He wasn’t this good once we traded for him. He is cast himself into this participant.”
Gilgeous mentioned her son has all the time been set in his routines. If mattress time was 9 p.m., he would not reply a FaceTime at 8:45 as a result of it was going to mess along with his timing. He has all the time thrived, she mentioned, on construction and order and had no hassle adhering to it.
His handwriting is exceptionally neat. His garments all the time fashion-forward and smooth. He drives a Tesla Cybertruck round city, and it’s all the time clear.
His teammates discover little issues just like the purple apple he eats earlier than each sport and the pregame routines he adheres to religiously. However nobody sees each element. And Gilgeous-Alexander is not about to name consideration to himself. That is not how his mom raised him.
“I do not like overhyped youngsters. I am unable to stand cocky individuals,” she mentioned. “I elevate assured individuals. I do not elevate cocky individuals or loud individuals. The loud ones, you guys are doing an excessive amount of. You’ve got received an excessive amount of insecurity. The assured, non-public individuals, you are good, however you simply do not want credit score from anyone else.”
Daigneault marvels at Gilgeous-Alexander’s consistency.
“None of it is sophisticated,” Daigneault mentioned. “It is the diligence and dedication with which he does it. That is what makes it distinctive.”
And distinctive it’s.
Think about this season’s stats: Gilgeous-Alexander ranks second on the staff in miles traveled per sport however has the second slowest common velocity doing so, each transfer purposeful and deliberate. He has scored between 30 and 34 factors in 34 video games, probably the most in a season in NBA historical past. He leads the league in drives per sport at 23.7, the fourth-highest whole since monitoring started in 2013-14. The one participant he trails? Himself, in three prior seasons. He leads the league in isolation effectivity, scoring 1.24 factors per isolation possession, the very best amongst gamers to have run 250 or extra such performs since monitoring started.
And he is on tempo to be the third participant to common 30 factors per sport, 2 steals per sport and 50% taking pictures in a season since 1973-74, becoming a member of Stephen Curry and Michael Jordan.
Gilgeous-Alexander is getting all types of consideration and credit score for the Thunder’s success this season. However there’s little doubt he has already thought via easy methods to recalibrate to optimize his efficiency with the challenges that may come.
That mentality has been on show each night time he takes the court docket this yr. He is lastly enjoying the half he dreamed of all these years in the past, strolling via the flowery division retailer.
“It is like I am hooked on the sensation of getting higher,” Gilgeous-Alexander mentioned. “I’ve made it this far. I’ve labored this difficult. And I can solely do it for 10 extra years, if I am fortunate.
“So why not, these subsequent 10 years, give them my all the things and see what I could be?”
