Shai Gilgeous-Alexander chases a third straight MVP, saying he is ‘more versatile’ than ever

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander starts his ninth NBA season one award away from a club only three players have ever joined, and the Oklahoma City Thunder star says the player chasing a third straight MVP is better than the one who won the first two.

Only Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain and Larry Bird have won the award three seasons in a row. Gilgeous-Alexander has taken more than three-quarters of the first-place votes in each of the last two races, and he gets his first chance to build a case on Tuesday, October 20, when the Thunder open in San Antonio.

A different kind of improvement

Asked by The Associated Press whether he had already hit his ceiling, the 28-year-old guard pointed to the breadth of his game rather than his scoring. “I feel like I’m a better basketball player, more versatile as a basketball player,” he said, adding that he arrived at camp in better physical shape as well.

That is a striking claim from a player whose scoring has been the league’s standard. Over the past two seasons he has averaged about 32 points a game, more than anyone else in the NBA. Last season, across 68 games, he put up 31.1 points, 4.3 rebounds and 6.6 assists with 66.5 percent true shooting, along with 1.4 steals and 0.8 blocks a night, numbers that ranked second in the league in scoring among 582 players who appeared.

His public goals stay plain. During preseason media sessions he kept the focus on the team, saying his job was to be the best version of himself for the Thunder and to win as many games as possible.

Leadership over trophies

Gilgeous-Alexander, the 11th pick in the 2018 draft who arrived in Oklahoma City from the Clippers in 2019, told the AP that becoming a father has changed how he leads a young, deep roster. He described leadership as something earned through behavior: “It’s hard to get people to follow you if you don’t do the right things,” he said, and he called that part of the job more important to him than any individual hardware.

The Thunder will lean on that example early. Chet Holmgren is uncertain for the opener after missing the whole preseason, and Oklahoma City just committed to Cason Wallace with a five-year, $139 million extension, a sign the front office is building around the guard core that surrounds its star.

What comes next

The Thunder visit the Spurs on Tuesday, October 20, at 9:30 p.m. ET, then host the Denver Nuggets on Thursday, October 22. Follow the opener live in the Game Center, and track his numbers all season on his player page and the Thunder team page.