Eleven years ago, the Oklahoma City Thunder staged their first MVP ceremony. Kevin Durant delivered a memorable speech across town at the team’s old practice facility, which now houses their G League team.
Durant’s path to basketball coronation was the more typical type. Elite prospect. No. 2 draft pick. Rookie of the Year. Twenty-points-per-game scorer immediately. Scoring champion. MVP.
Wednesday night, the Thunder hosted a third MVP ceremony. Following in the footsteps of Durant and Russell Westbrook, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander became the third Thunder player to win the league’s top individual award. The organization relocated to Oklahoma City in 2008 and are already one of only five NBA franchises with three different MVPs, joining the Boston Celtics, Los Angeles Lakers, Houston Rockets and Philadelphia 76ers.
“Any conversation, when it’s particularly (Durant and Westbrook) but guys who get this award, is hard to even wrap your head around,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “Those guys have done amazing things with the game, changed the game in ways you couldn’t see coming. To even be in the same breath, it’s hard to even put into words.”
Nikola Jokić, a second-round pick (No. 41) in the 2014 NBA Draft, probably has the most unforeseen rise to league MVP. But Gilgeous-Alexander, who edged out Jokić to prevent the big center from winning his fourth MVP, has an atypical path when compared to giants like Durant, Westbrook or James Harden, all drafted top four by Thunder general manager Sam Presti.
Gilgeous-Alexander was a decent rookie. The LA Clippers selected him with the 11th pick in the 2018 NBA Draft. He averaged 10.8 points per game his rookie year and profiled as a future secondary scorer and versatile defender at the guard position. That’s what made it difficult for the Clippers to part with him when Presti asked during the Paul George trade negotiations in the summer of 2019.
But nobody was labeling Gilgeous-Alexander a future star at the time. Including himself.
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For Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and his NBA MVP rise, a childhood dream became reality
