OKLAHOMA CITY — 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.
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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.”
Here’s to Shai and the ones who never stop climbing.#SGA2MVP | #KiaMVP pic.twitter.com/71iZZcqAZb
— OKC THUNDER (@okcthunder) May 21, 2025
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.
“I always thought that I could be a really good player because I had seen what just putting your head down and working and controlling what you can control can do for you,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “I made tremendous strides, but I never (thought I’d be an MVP until) … I guess, once the conversation started a couple years ago. I never, like, thought this was going to happen.”
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Gilgeous-Alexander’s first season with the Thunder was part of a three-guard lineup with Chris Paul and Dennis Schröder. They had the sweet-shooting, slower-footed Danilo Gallinari at the power forward, so Gilgeous-Alexander’s scoring wasn’t his most relevant trait for that team. They needed him to defend wings and star scorers. His first two seasons were spent molding his role-playing skills.
“I dreamt about (winning MVP) as a kid, but as a kid, it’s a fake dream,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “As the days go on and you realize that you get closer to your dream, it’s hard to not freak out. It’s hard to not be a 6-year-old kid again. I think that’s what’s allowed me to achieve it.”
Presti hit the gas on a Thunder rebuild after Gilgeous-Alexander’s second season. He traded Paul, Schröder and Gallinari and handed the offensive keys of a low-pressure, low-stakes developmental situation over to Gilgeous-Alexander.
He went from 23.7 points per game to 24.5 to 31.4 as the Thunder went from 22 wins to 24 to 40 in a three-season span, leveling up his game as the talent grew around him. By the time that 2022-23 season wrapped, he’d become one of the league’s best scorers and the unquestioned centerpiece of an intriguing young core.
“If we were in a drought or if we were in a three-game losing streak — we had a 17-game losing streak at one point — there was always a light at the end of the tunnel if you do the right things,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “You trust the work and you stick with it, and I guess we’re all seeing that today.”
In a flash, they morphed from team on the rise to team to beat in the Western Conference, winning 57 games then 68 games the last two regular seasons, as Gilgeous-Alexander averaged 30.1 and 32.7 points, respectively, becoming only the fifth NBA player to average 30-plus points on 50 percent shooting three straight seasons.
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The others? Michael Jordan, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain and Giannis Antetokounmpo.
“All the moments I got cut, traded, slighted, overlooked,” Gilgeous-Alexander said when asked about the flashbacks this award gives him. He was reminded of the time he didn’t make his junior varsity team in high school.
Our MVP’s season through the numbers 📊#SGA2MVP | #KiaMVP pic.twitter.com/dfx9wucJgp
— OKC THUNDER (@okcthunder) May 22, 2025
“But also, all the joy, all the things that my family has comforted me in, all the life lessons,” he added. “Everything that’s turned me into the man and the human being that I am today.”
The entire Thunder organization attended the ceremony. Presti, coach Mark Daigneault and owner Clay Bennett were in the front row to his right. Gilgeous-Alexander’s family and management team were in the front row to his left.
All his Thunder teammates were seated on stage in new Rolex watches. Gilgeous-Alexander gifted them prior to the ceremony. He said they were on a team bus last season when his name first popped up in MVP conversations, and backup center Jaylin Williams asked what he’d gift the team when he won.
“A lot of guys on the team like watches. Who doesn’t like watches?” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “But this is nothing compared to what they’ve been to me. I would rather have the MVP over a Rolex every day of the week, and without them I wouldn’t have the MVP. So, this is in the slightest what they deserve.”
(Photo: Joshua Gateley / Getty Images)
