Shai Gilgeous-Alexander Joins Elite Company with Historic MVP Season and NBA Title
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Michael Jordan. Shaquille O’Neal. For 78 NBA seasons, they were the only players to win league MVP, a scoring title, and Finals MVP in the same year. Now, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has joined them.
SGA capped off one of the most remarkable seasons in league history by leading the Oklahoma City Thunder to their first NBA title in the Oklahoma City era, earning the Bill Russell Finals MVP trophy along the way.
After dropping Game 1, Shai responded with a record-setting 72 points across his first two Finals games. He came up clutch again in Game 4, scoring 15 of his 35 points in the final minutes to even the series. He added 31 in Game 5 and closed it with 29 points and 12 assists in Game 7.
Shai averaged 30.3 points, 5.6 assists, 4.6 rebounds, 1.9 steals, and 1.6 blocks in the Finals, joining Hakeem Olajuwon as the only players to post those numbers in a championship series. Across the entire postseason, only LeBron James (2018) and now Shai have posted 650+ points, 100+ rebounds, and 150+ assists.
Shai also tied Kevin Durant’s 2014 MVP campaign with 86 games of 25 or more points this season and matched Michael Jordan’s 1988-89 campaign with over 3,100 points, 500 rebounds, and 600 assists in a season, including playoffs.
But Gilgeous-Alexander made sure the spotlight didn’t stay on him alone. After he received his Finals MVP trophy, he handed it to teammate Jalen Williams. Together, the duo scored 377 points in the series, surpassing Jordan and Pippen’s 1993 total for the second-most by a Finals pair in the last 50 years.
“Without Jalen, we don’t win this championship,” Shai said. “This is just as much his MVP as it is mine.”