The Oklahoma City Thunder have drastically accelerated their timeline toward contention, emerging as a legitimate Western Conference power in 2023-24. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, shocker, has led that charge or his young team, following up a breakout First Team All-NBA campaign with a start to the regular season that puts him on the short list of MVP frontrunners.
Gilgeous-Alexander is posting a gaudy career-high 63.0 true shooting percentage and has substantially upped his assist while lowering his turnover rate, a rare double-dip of increased playmaking and ball security. He's leading the NBA with 2.8 steals per game, too, the most obvious evidence of the major strides Gilgeous-Alexander has taken defensively. There's really no debating it by this point: The Thunder's franchise player is the best two-way guard in basketball.
Why wouldn't that distinction earn Gilgeous-Alexander a perfect ‘100' rating in NBA2k? That's the question fellow organizational cornerstone and potential Western Conference All-Star Chet Holmgren posed on social media Thursday night, after Oklahoma City beat the Kawhi Leonard-less Los Angeles Clippers 134-115 at Paycom Center.
“I just realized shai isn’t a 100 on 2k, what r we doing,” Holmgren wrote.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander's place among NBA elite
Holmgren's dry wit and affable sarcasm has quickly made him a must-follow on social media among league die-hards. He knows full well that 2k doesn't dole out a perfect ‘100' rating for any player in basketball. Nikola Jokic and Joel Embiid are currently the highest-rated players at 98 overall, with Giannis Antetokounmpo a point behind them. Kevin Durant, Luka Doncic, LeBron James and Stephen Curry come in next at 96 overall.
Gilgeous-Alexander? He's currently rated 95, tied with Devin Booker for the game's fourth-highest rating, but behind the seven luminaries listed above.
Beyond Embiid and Jokic, no player in the league has a definitively better MVP case this season than Gilgeous-Alexander. The Thunder join the Boston Celtics and Philadelphia 76ers as one of three teams to rank top-seven in offensive and defensive rating, his fingerprints are all over that two-way prowess.
Oklahoma City scores 11.6 more points per 100 possessions with Gilgeous-Alexander on the floor, per Cleaning the Glass, in the 96th percentile league-wide. His presence on defense yields 5.1 fewer points allowed per 100 possessions, in the 81st percentile. Gilgeous-Alexander's +10.0 Estimated Plus Minus (EPM) ranks second among all players to Embiid; he's fifth in offensive EPM and first in defensive EPM, per Dunks & Threes.
Gilgeous-Alexander definitely isn't the best defender in basketball. But he's clearly an abject positive on that side of the ball now, a long, quick, ever-strong ball hawk who can defend at least three positions and is just as disruptive off the ball as he is on it. Other than Embiid and possibly Antetokounmpo, no high-usage superstar in the NBA has consistently made his presence felt defensively this season better than Gilgeous-Alexander.
Does that mean he deserves the mythical ‘100' from NBA 2k? If peak LeBron never earned that distinction, it's safe to say Gilgeous-Alexander doesn't warrant it, either. But Holmgren's quip only affirms what's been obvious to anyone watching Gilgeous-Alexander and Oklahoma City in 2023-24. Not only are the Thunder poised to compete for titles for years, but Gilgeous-Alexander is already a perennial MVP candidate, too.
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