Shai Gilgeous-Alexander enters Oklahoma City’s new season with a third straight MVP within reach, but the Thunder guard is keeping his focus on a reshaped rotation and the work in front of the team.
The Thunder are coming off a 2025 NBA championship and a Game 7 loss to the San Antonio Spurs in last season’s Western Conference Finals. They remain among the league’s leading title threats, even after a salary-driven roster shakeup moved out starter Lu Dort and reserves Isaiah Joe and Aaron Wiggins.
Gilgeous-Alexander said his offseason confirmed rather than changed his view of his own game. He believes he improved, but did not point to one particular discovery from the summer.
The personnel losses carry weight beyond the box score. Dort, Joe and Wiggins were part of the group that built Oklahoma City’s identity, and Gilgeous-Alexander stressed that their relationships will outlast the transactions.
“They were major parts of what we did on the floor and of the bond we had away from it,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “They are still a phone call away, and I’m the same for them. But this is the NBA. Nobody keeps every teammate for an entire career.”
MVP chase can wait
Gilgeous-Alexander averaged 31.1 points per game last season while collecting his second consecutive MVP award. Another win would put him in rare company: Larry Bird was the most recent player to claim three straight MVPs, doing so from 1984 through 1986. Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain are the only other players to accomplish it.
For Oklahoma City’s lead guard, though, the award conversation is premature with a full 82-game schedule ahead.
“MVP is 82 games down the road,” he said. “It is not something you win during opening week. My job is to give this team the best version of myself and help us win as much as we can. That approach has worked for me before.”
Williams returns to the mix
Oklahoma City’s biggest internal boost is the return of Jalen Williams, the All-Star from two seasons ago who missed more than half of last season because of injuries. His availability restores another high-level two-way option alongside Gilgeous-Alexander and Chet Holmgren.
“We get an All-NBA-level player who can score and defend every position from one through five,” Gilgeous-Alexander said of Williams. “That makes things easier for me and everybody else. More than anything, I’m happy that Dub gets to be back out there.”
Holmgren is coming off career highs of 17.1 points and 8.9 rebounds per game, earning his first All-NBA and All-Defensive selections. With Dort, Joe and Wiggins gone, Jared McCain, Ajay Mitchell and Cason Wallace are expected to absorb larger jobs in the Thunder’s nightly rotation.
Alex Caruso said the task is not to reinvent the team that has been near the top of the West, but to make the new pieces fit into its established defensive and ball-movement principles.
“At the core, we are still the Thunder,” Caruso said. “We want to preserve the way we play and the principles that got us here. We have plenty of returning players, and it is not as if our top three scorers disappeared. Now we have to work out how the new group comes together.”
