‘A great start’: NBA crown just the beginning for Shai Gilgeous-Alexander

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander becomes just the fourth player in history to win NBA regular season and NBA Finals Most Valuable Player honours, as well as the league’s scoring title. PHOTO: EPA-EFE

UPDATED Jun 23, 2025, 03:55 PM

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Oklahoma City – Shai Gilgeous-Alexander believes Oklahoma City’s National Basketball Association (NBA) Finals triumph could be the beginning of a golden era for him and his youthful Thunder teammates.

The Thunder completed a 4-3 series victory over the Indiana Pacers on June 22, powering to a 103-91 win at the Paycom Centre to seal the franchise’s first title since moving to Oklahoma City from Seattle in 2008.

For Gilgeous-Alexander, the win completed a dazzling season that saw him become just the fourth player in history to win NBA regular season and NBA Finals Most Valuable Player honours, as well as the league’s scoring title.

“It’s hard to believe that I’m part of that group. It’s hard to even fathom that I’m that type of basketball player sometimes,” he said after Game 7. “I’m just glad and happy that my dreams have been able to come true.”

The 1.98m guard was the clear favourite to win the award if the Thunder captured the championship, averaging 30.3 points, 5.6 assists and 4.6 rebounds per game in the seven-game series.

Perhaps most significantly, the 26-year-old Canadian point guard is the offensive totem of a Thunder team, that, with an average age of 25.6, is the youngest to win an NBA Finals title since 1977.

Afterwards, Gilgeous-Alexander said the championship represented “a great start” for this Thunder generation.

“We definitely still have room to grow. That’s the fun part of this,” he told reporters. “So many of us can still get better.

“There’s not very many of us on the team that are ‘in our prime’ or even close to it.

“We have a lot to grow, individually and as a group. I’m excited for the future of this team. This is a great start. I’m really excited for this team. ”

Throughout a regular season campaign that saw them compile a franchise record 68-win season, the obvious bond between Oklahoma City’s players emerged as a feature of their march to the title.

Post-game television interviews on-court invariably became joyous, spontaneous team-bonding sessions, with Gilgeous-Alexander joined by several teammates as they celebrated yet another win.

“Our togetherness on and off the court, like how much fun we have, it made it so much easier,” Gilgeous-Alexander said.

“It made it feel like we were just kids playing basketball. It was so fun.”

The Thunder’s head coach Mark Daigneault – himself a relatively youthful 40 – said his team had successfully blended steel and selflessness.

“They behave like champions, they compete like champions,” Daigneault said. “They root for each others’ success, which is rare in professional sports.

“I’ve said it many times and I’ll say it one more time – this is an uncommon team and now they’re champions.”

Gilgeous-Alexander scored 29 points and handed out a career playoff high 12 assists and the Thunder’s swarming defense finally proved to much for a Pacers team that lost talisman Tyrese Haliburton to a leg injury just seven minutes into the contest.

Jalen Williams scored 15 of his 20 points in the second half and Chet Holmgren added 18 points, eight rebounds, a steal and five of the Thunder’s eight blocked shots.

Gilgeous-Alexander’s Finals-Regular Season MVP double puts him into an exclusive club of only 11 players to have achieved the feat which comprises LeBron James, Shaquille O’Neal, Tim Duncan, Hakeem Olajuwon, Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Moses Malone, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Willis Reed.

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Only three other players – Abdul-Jabbar, Jordan and O’Neal – have also added the league’s scoring title in the same season.

But for Gilgeous-Alexander, the individual milestones pale in comparison to the collective success.

“All the achievements and accolades and things, they don’t even come close to the satisfaction of winning with your brothers and people that you are so close to and want to succeed just as much as you want yourself to succeed,” he said.

“That’s been the most impressive and fun part of it – just to know that I have 15 brothers that I just experienced a once-in-a-lifetime experience with.

“I’ll never forget them, they’ll never forget me.”

The No. 11 overall pick by the Charlotte Hornets in the 2018 draft, the Canadian was traded on draft night to the Los Angeles Clippers. After his rookie season, the Clippers shipped the Kentucky product to Oklahoma City in a package for Paul George, tipping the first domino in what would become one of the league’s most successful rebuilds.

Gilgeous-Alexander was a fringe All-Star calibre player for three seasons, in two of which the Thunder won fewer than 30 games, until he burst into the forefront of the NBA in the 2022-23 season, averaging 31.4 points per game.

Last season, he was the runner-up for MVP gong while Oklahoma City fell short of a title in a second-round exit.

A year later, Gilgeous-Alexander hoisted the first Larry O’Brien and Finals MVP trophies that Oklahoma City has ever seen. AFP, REUTERS

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