Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the Legend of 'Winning Time'
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Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s professional career to this point has been a testament of hard work and consistency. The rampage he’s been on to start the 2022-23 season is enough to make NBA junkies rethink both the trajectory of the Oklahoma City Thunder, and his overarching career.
The rising star's body of work started long before he arrived in Oklahoma City, though. It started even before he was selected by the LA Clippers with the No. 11 pick in the NBA Draft. From Kentucky, to Los Angeles and finally to OKC, every stop Gilgeous-Alexander has made has redefined his ceiling and brought out more qualities that make the 24-year-old so special.
“When I first saw him, the length, the absolute stillness to his game… In other words there was no up-and-down — he just kept coming,” Kentucky head coach John Calipari told Inside the Thunder. “His ability to finish at the rim, his floater — his jump shot needed just a little bit of work.”
As a school known to send elite guards to the NBA, Calipari and the Kentucky coaching staff knew they had something special early. They had to figure out how to use him, though, as Gilgeous-Alexander’s game possesses a unique style and pace. If the uniqueness of SGA’s game wasn’t enough, it surely didn’t help that he ran the Kentucky offense just a year after De’Aaron Fox did.
If you aren’t super familiar with Fox’s game, it might genuinely fit the comparison for Gilgeous-Alexander’s complete opposite. Fox is one of the fastest, most explosive players in the modern NBA, while Gilgeous-Alexander plays at his own, slower pace at all times.
While his pace and style may seem slower, Calipari credits the point guard’s mind for the illusion. Gilgeous-Alexander’s thought-process is always one step ahead, perhaps what makes him so special.
“The thing with his pace of game — he can play fast, but his mind never plays fast,” Calipari said. “His mind was always slower. Some guys have a burst, and then their mind is moving a thousand miles an hour — not his. He’d have a burst and be able to read and see and make plays late, which are the hardest ones to guard. The skip, the lob, the float and the pull.”
When he arrived at Kentucky, Gilgeous-Alexander was part of the 2017 recruiting class that included six five-star prospects. He was a four-star, though, tabbed by ESPN as the 35th best player in the Top 100. Even though he wasn’t the top prospect of the class, Calipari and assistant coach Joel Justus knew what they were getting when recruiting him: a relentlessly hard worker with a strong desire to be the best. There’s a reason they fought hard to secure his commitment.
As the season continued, Gilgeous-Alexander’s game matured and his isolation skillset began to evolve. In late December, he recorded the first 20-point game of his young college career, which just so happened to be the first night he attempted more than ten shots. By the time conference play rolled around, he had fully earned the trust of the coaching staff. Similarly to how evident it was during his recruitment process, Gilgeous-Alexander’s work ethic helped him always stay a step ahead.
“So much of what sets him apart is the way he studies you know, the way he approaches the game,” Justus, who’s now an assistant coach at North Carolina State, said. “I mean, we would play a game on the road and he would come and sit next to me on the plane and re-watch the game on the iPad on the way home. As an 18-year old freshman in college, you know, a lot of these guys take their pizzas and go back there and fall asleep. He was the guy that routinely would come up and sit with me and re-watch the game on the iPad. You know, he just had a bit of an old soul, and a very serious approach to basketball at a very young age.”
When interviewing both coaches about Gilgeous-Alexander’s season at Kentucky, Calipari and Justus each specifically brought up the West Virginia game on Jan. 27 as a stand-alone moment in Gilgeous-Alexander’s evolution. Down the stretch, no matter what, the coaches wanted the ball in his hands.
That didn’t necessarily mean Gilgeous-Alexander was going to take every single shot, but it meant they trusted him to make the right play every single time. It’s a mirror-image of the clutch-time player Gilgeous-Alexander is today.
“I remember at West Virginia, we just put him in a high pick-and-roll and said ‘Figure it out'," Calipari said. “We won by 17.”
While the Wildcats only beat West Virginia by seven, Kentucky came back from a 15-point deficit and outscored the Mountaineers 50-28 in the second half. Calipari’s memory of the final score was a few numbers off, but his recollection of Kentucky’s style of play down the stretch was no exaggeration at all.
Gilgeous-Alexander figured it out.
“Obviously for us and Coach Cal, like, we knew that we wanted the ball in his hands,” Justus said. “You can go back to our game at West Virginia. I mean, he didn't score a ton at the end, but he got the ball to Kevin Knox. He got the ball where it needed to go and he played with tremendous poise the entire night. You know, when we were down by 17 (points) he was great in the huddles, settling everyone. He was never fazed that entire night."
Justus would go on to describe how special Gilgeous-Alexander is.
“And you just knew that everything was going to be okay with him out there," his assistant coach said. "When you give him the ball, two-and-a-half hours later, he gives it right back to you and there's no scratches, no dents, and no dings on it.”
Those words could be used to perfectly depict Gilgeous-Alexander’s current game in the NBA — only now, he’s mastering it. With the Wildcats, Gilgeous-Alexander’s flashes were strong — and towards the end of the season, he was one of the team’s best players. But in Oklahoma City, he’s scoring at an MVP-caliber level night in and night out, which is something nobody saw coming.
Later on during his lone-season in Lexington, as he blossomed into a starring role in Calipari’s system, Gilgeous-Alexander’s end of the year stretch helped his case for a lottery selection. No game was bigger than the SEC Championship against Tennessee. With Kentucky peaking at the perfect time, a win over Grant Williams, Admiral Schofield and the Volunteers would help solidify a higher seed in the NCAA Tournament and a conference championship.
Gilgeous-Alexander took advantage of the national spotlight and turned in his best performance of the season, pouring in 29 points, seven rebounds, three assists and two steals. He finished the game 10-of-16 from the floor and 2-of-3 from 3-point range.
“He was he was really, really good in that game,” Justus remembered. “And there were other games, too, that he just willed us to win. You know, even like the Vanderbilt game at home, I mean, he just willed us to victory in that game. You know, there was that game in the SEC Championship, or the NCAA tournament against you know, Davidson and then Buffalo, like he was phenomenal in both of those games.”
His late-game tendencies took over at the end of the season and helped Kentucky win five straight games, an SEC Tournament and reach the Sweet Sixteen. The clutch gene has been evolving ever since.
In hindsight, it’s odd that nobody saw this evolution coming, though. Every single year of Gilgeous-Alexander’s basketball career, from 2017 at Kentucky and now five years later with the Thunder, he’s gotten better. Every year, he’s improved exponentially from the season before. It’s a tendency that’s only noticeably evident in greats.
“I think that the best thing that I always noticed about Shai, and even from yesterday to today, is every time you see him he gets better,” Justus said. “I mean, that's been consistent from the first time I saw him until, you know, last night, I mean he's always getting better. I'm not shocked because I know how hard he works and I know the mentality that he has. I know he has the drive. But at the same time, the humble nature about him is going to always know that there's more out there for him to achieve and that's just what I've always noticed about him.”
His relentless work ethic is rare, and one of the main reasons we’ve seen such steady improvement. He identifies what he needs to improve, and makes it a point of emphasis to get better.
Even over the past few seasons, Gilgeous-Alexander has had to adjust and adapt his game to excel both on-and-off the ball. Oklahoma City's lack of perimeter shooting has forced SGA to work hard on his long-range jumper.
“No one was working harder in the weight room than him, he was our hardest working practice player, and he worked harder in the classroom than any of the other guys,” Calipari told Inside the Thunder. “And that’s why he became a lottery pick. And that’s why he’ll become an All Star — I can’t imagine if he’s not in the mix right now… Somebody better be playing really good if they get in there before him because he’s been unbelievable.”
Now, fast forward to Gilgeous-Alexander’s fifth season in the NBA, he’s generating All NBA chatter behind his best season yet. Sitting at 31.6 points, 5.7 assists and 4.8 rebounds per game, how much better can he even get?
Oklahoma City’s star buried a triple at the buzzer to sink the Wizards on the road, and followed it up by nailing a step-back jumper to beat the Blazers as time expired just a few weeks later. If it weren’t for a Brook Lopez miracle alley-oop, Gilgeous-Alexander would’ve had another game-winner to add to his tally.
After Lopez’s lone make at the free throw line, Oklahoma City eventually fumbled the lead in overtime. Gilgeous-Alexander’s shot was relegated from a game-winner to an elite highlight, but a telling quote from Thunder guard Tre Mann still stands out from that night in early November.
“It’s just crazy,” Mann said with a light laugh following that contest. “I knew he was going to make it. I didn’t know it was going to be a three, but I just knew he was going to make it. When games come down like that, I just look at him. He just has a look in his eye, his demeanor. I told him it’s winning time. He went out there, hit a shot, big shot, but that’s what he does. He’s that player.”
That phrase from Mann, "Winning Time," has been evident throughout Gilgeous-Alexander's game since his college days. Both Calipari and Justus clearly saw exactly what his Thunder teammate was talking about.
The next step, of course, is leading the Thunder to postseason wins when the timing is right. Suddenly, Gilgeous-Alexander is surrounded by lottery picks instead of filler players, and the roster looks more and more complete with every passing game. As he continues to redefine expectations, for both himself and Oklahoma City as a team, Gilgeous-Alexander’s ceiling is now nonexistent.
“I don't think that he does [have a ceiling],” Justus said. “And that's why I said I feel like he's a guy that puts that pressure on himself to work and to get better. You know, he's never been a guy that has allowed other people to judge his performance. He's been a guy that's judged his own. And that's why I think you see a guy like I said that that continues to progress the way he does because he's always wanting to do something better. He's wanting to learn how to do something different or if there's a better way. That's why you just continue to see the rise as a player like we’re seeing.”
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