‘He didn’t change one bit’: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander remains Oklahoma City’s humble superstar

SAN FRANCISCO – Shai Gilgeous-Alexander filled his own to-go box with orange chicken and Chow mein after scoring 38 points against the Golden State Warriors. He could have asked someone from the Oklahoma City Thunder to do it for him, as some star players are known to do.

The newly minted $285-million man then patiently waited for fellow star teammate Jalen Williams to finish taking questions from the media before taking his turn.

Even with an NBA title, an NBA Finals Most Valuable Player award, an NBA MVP award and a $285-million contract all in hand since May, 27-year-old Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is, by all accounts, still the same humble star.

“That’s just how I was raised,” Gilgeous-Alexander told Andscape after a 124-112 win at Golden State on Dec. 2. “I’ve just never had that temperament about me. Never. I just don’t ever think I’m better than anybody because I put the ball in the basket. I don’t think it gives me a pass to be arrogant or think that I’m above certain things just because I’m half decent at basketball.”

Said Thunder guard Lu Dort to Andscape: “He didn’t change one bit.”

It’s laughable to consider Gilgeous-Alexander “half decent” in basketball, considering the MVPs and title that has vaulted the 6-foot-6 point guard atop the basketball world. Additionally, the Thunder rewarded him with a record four-year, $285 million maximum contract extension. The Canadian averaged 32.7 points, 6.4 assists, 5.0 rebounds and 1.7 steals in 76 games last season en route to his first NBA MVP season. The Thunder also won a franchise-record 68 games last season.

So far this season, he is on par with his MVP campaign, averaging 32.8 points, 6.4 assists and 4.7 rebounds in 23 games. A Thunder victory in the NBA Cup quarterfinals against the Phoenix Suns on Wednesday will tie for the best start by a franchise in NBA history. The 2015-16 Golden State Warriors opened their season with a 24-1 record before winning a record 73 games.

“Every game in the NBA is going to look different every night,” Gilgeous-Alexander said during the news conference after the Warriors’ win. “And I think it’s a skill that you have to learn and develop as a team to just roll with the punches. To take whatever the game, whatever the team, whatever the night gives you and figure out how to come out on top. …

“We’ve gotten really good at finding a way to win every night. Whether we are down a man. Or the other team is down a man. Whether they want to run. Don’t want to run. Make shots. Miss shots. Not making excuses and going to get the job done is something that translates to winning on the highest level.”

Thunder head coach Mark Daignault said the only change he’s seen from “SGA” is that he is still “evolving” as a player.

“He is 99.9 percent the same,” Daignault said. “He is always evolving. He’s changed over time. But the bones of that guy are the exact same. But I think the thing he’s changed is he’s definitely improved as a playmaker this year. Manipulating the game, he’s touched that at times. But he is done that more consistently this [season] than he ever has.”

The arrival of NBA Cup quarterfinals evokes memories of the last time Gilgeous-Alexander and the Thunder were truly on the losing end in a major way.

The Thunder lost 97-81 to the Milwaukee Bucks in the championship game of the 2024 NBA Cup in Las Vegas. Also lost by the Thunder was a prize of $500,000 for every team member with an NBA Cup title. Gained was playoff intensity experience for a young team that would later win Game 7s in the second round of the postseason and in the NBA Finals to earn their title.

“It definitely helped. It for sure helped. Losing in general helps all the time,” Gilgeous-Alexander said about losing the 2024 NBA Cup finals. “It’s easy to learn from losing. It definitely just showed us the formula for losing. The way we played that night, we didn’t give what the game required and it showed us that.

“And I think that prepared us to go into the playoffs having to play for something. It showed us before the schemes, before the scouting report, before the making shots, missing shots, the personnel, you’ve got to bring a certain level of intensity, focus and fight to the game if you want a chance to win.”

The Thunder celebrated their title big on the night in the arena and in the streets of Oklahoma City after they won Game 7 of the NBA Finals, and then days later during a parade in the city. But it wasn’t until “a couple weeks” into his offseason that Gilgeous-Alexander came to the realization of what he had done.

“I was telling my wife that for the longest time that it didn’t feel real,” said Gilgeous-Alexander about the title. “Just like growing up watching Kobe [Bryant] win rings and all these guys win rings, it didn’t feel (real). I guess it was just crazy to me to wrap my head around the fact that I was in that same position and won the championship. Yeah, it took a minute for it to settle in for real that I’m the NBA champion.”

Said Dort: “Everything happens so fast that I wonder if he realizes how much attention he is getting with all that he is accomplishing around the court now. He’s the same around us. Same in the locker room. Same on the court. Always has the same approach and that is his mentality. Just by seeing that I can tell that he wants more.”

Daignault said that while Gilgeous-Alexander wants to be “one of the greats, but he also wants to be one of the guys.”

Dort said Gilgeous-Alexander didn’t make a motivational speech to his team when training camp started because the entire team was “on the same page” about not being complacent and being focused on winning.

So, when Gilgeous-Alexander took the night off Sunday for rest, the Thunder were still great without him. They won their 15^th straight game with a 131-101 blowout road win against the Utah Jazz.

“I felt like this group of guys are very motivated, young,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “And we honestly all are just such competitors. I didn’t think it would get in the way of anything. We honestly just love playing basketball and love competing. So, I think because that’s where it all starts for us, that the winning and the losing doesn’t deter that.”

Gilgeous-Alexander played in the Sweet 16 of the 2018 NCAA tournament for the University of Kentucky, 46 career playoff games, and he suited up in the 2024 Paris Olympics for his native Canada. But of all his basketball experiences, he said nothing was more intense than playing against the Indiana Pacers in a maximum seven-game 2025 NBA Finals.

And it was that level of intensity that accounted for the only true change for Gilgeous-Alexander after winning a title.

“It has changed me for the better, genuinely experiencing that level of basketball. It was just so intense for us,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “It’s just the most intense basketball I played. And it’s a three-month span that you can only get that level if you go through it. It’s very hard to replicate that type of intensity, that type of pressure. No matter what we tried to do [on this night against Golden State], it was never going to feel like how a Game 7 felt [in the Finals], or how being down (entering) Game 4 two games to one felt.

“Those type of experiences you can’t recreate. So, just going through those, whether I won or lost, made me a better player, for sure. And then just learning through all those experiences, the good and the bad.”

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