{"id":754473,"date":"2026-06-07T01:27:20","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T01:27:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/754473\/"},"modified":"2026-06-07T01:27:20","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T01:27:20","slug":"the-okc-thunder-will-go-as-far-as-shai-gilgeous-alexander-takes-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/754473\/","title":{"rendered":"The OKC Thunder will go as far as Shai Gilgeous-Alexander Takes Them"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-0\" class=\"mt-[18px] md:mt-0 mb-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6t\">Oklahoma City\u2019s star has his own throne to keep next season.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6w\">The Oklahoma City Thunder are now setting their sights on next season after falling short in the Western Conference Finals. While the Thunder as a whole didn\u2019t reach its end goal, the team had multiple players who had phenomenal individual performances this season.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-2\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6z\">The one who tops the list is, of course, the back-to-back MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Gilgeous-Alexander once again took the lead by storm, averaging 31.1 points per game, 6.6 assists and 4.3 rebounds. This earned him his second MVP trophy and got him named to the All-NBA First Team unanimously.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-3\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"72\">This might have been another monster season from the world\u2019s best player, but he will be the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/nba\/thunder\/onsi\/shai-gilgeous-alexander-tabbed-okc-thunder-season-a-failure-01kt25vem437\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">first one to tell you<\/a> that the season is only successful if the team reaches its end goal of a championship.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-4\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"75\">As the Thunder are looking to come back revamped next season for their revenge tour, they will need their best player to continue his tagline of consistency.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-5\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"78\">Gilgeous-Alexander isn\u2019t a stranger to dominating seasons, as he has now averaged over 30 points in four consecutive seasons. He has been the heart of the Thunder\u2019s offensive production and will have to continue to be for OKC to be successful.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-6\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7b\">It hasn\u2019t mattered how much talent the Thunder have walked into the season with; Gilgeous-Alexander has always been the one to lead the way. He\u2019s had a teammate make one of the All-NBA teams in both of his MVP seasons, with Jalen Williams in 2025 and Chet Holmgren this past year.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-7\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7e\">These two stars have both allowed Gilgeous-Alexander to help distribute the ball in the offense and help the star create shots for himself with the floor spread out. The Thunder will be looking for their big three to benefit each other once again next year, led by Gilgeous-Alexander.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-8\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7h\">Next season will be a pivotal year as OKC <a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/nba\/thunder\/onsi\/the-thunder-s-championship-window-hasnt-started-shutting-quite-yet\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">will be fighting for its chance to take the throne back<\/a>. Some things for next season are still unknown, as the Thunder\u2019s<a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/nba\/thunder\/onsi\/shai-gilgeous-alexander-will-leave-okc-thunder-offseason-to-sam-presti-01kta7jh1k4t\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"> front office will be working <\/a>to finalize contract deals and put the best team on the court they can.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-9\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7k\">No matter who ends up on the court, they will have the comfort of knowing they are playing with the best player in the world in Gilgeous-Alexander. The Thunder have multiple players who can step up when the MVP doesn\u2019t have a great night, but OKC\u2019s season will only go as far as Gilgeous-Alexander takes it.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"22\" height=\"22\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.minutemediacdn.com\/platform\/google_discover_icon.svg\" class=\"shrink-0\"\/>Add us as a preferred source on Google<a aria-label=\"Follow si.com on Google News\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=si.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" class=\"flex h-[30px] w-[30px] shrink-0 items-center justify-center rounded-full bg-primary font-group-large text-sm font-medium text-white transition-colors hover:bg-secondary focus:bg-secondary md:w-auto md:gap-2.5 md:px-4 md:py-[5px]\">Follow<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oklahoma City\u2019s star has his own throne to keep next season.\u00a0 The Oklahoma City Thunder are now setting&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":754474,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3783],"tags":[7,6,310,475,179,3966,3965,312],"class_list":["post-754473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oklahoma-city-thunder","tag-basketball","tag-nba","tag-oklahoma","tag-oklahoma-city","tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","tag-oklahomacity","tag-oklahomacitythunder","tag-thunder"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116706230040289716","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/754473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=754473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/754473\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/754474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=754473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=754473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=754473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}