Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has risen as one of the NBA’s biggest stars, but along with his rise to stardom has been the label he’s received as a ‘free-throw merchant.’ Fans on social media have given that label to SGA due to his ability to draw free-throws. But during the Thunder’s 117-100 win against the Atlanta Hawks on Saturday, SGA showed that he does not need free-throws to be an effective scorer in the NBA.
In the Thunder’s win against the Hawks, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander finished with 30 points on 12-of-17 shooting from the field while taking only four free-throws the entire game. He also did not play the entire fourth quarter, and his free-throws came off of and-ones or when the Thunder were in the bonus.
The free-throw merchant label for Shai never had any bearing, and with the exception of the 2022-23 season, he’s always averaged under double figures in free-throw attempts.
The clamor was loud though during the Thunder’s first two games of the regular season. Against the Houston Rockets on opening night, Gilgeous-Alexander shot 14 free-throw attempts en route to scoring 35 points. He followed that up with a career-high 55 points against the Indiana Pacers in an NBA Finals rematch, and shot 26 free-throws in that game.
Since the first two games of the season skew his average on the higher side, Gilgeous-Alexander is currently averaging 14.7 free-throw attempts per game. It’s likely that as the season goes on, that average will drop closer to his career mark of seven to eight attempts per game. In other words, nothing earth-shattering.
Gilgeous-Alexander is coming off his first MVP award as well as his first NBA championship. The way the Thunder look so far early in the season, he is probably a favorite to win the MVP this year, and the Thunder look like the favorite to repeat as champions.
Last season, SGA appeared in 76 games for the Thunder at a little over 34 minutes per game. He averaged a league-leading and career-high 32.7 points, 5.0 rebounds, 6.4 assists and 1.7 steals with splits of 51.9 percent shooting from the field, 37.5 percent shooting from the three-point line and 89.8 percent shooting from the free-throw line.
