Report: OKC Thunder Superstar Inks Deal With Nike

The Oklahoma City Thunder have watched Shai Gilgeous-Alexander develop into a full-blown superstar. When he arrived in Bricktown back in 2019, the NBA world was more enamored with the historic draft capital that went to Oklahoma City in the Paul George trade rather than the all-rookie point guard.

After learning from Chris Paul in a surprise playoff apperance in 2020, the keys were tossed fully to Gilgeous-Alexander to lead the Thunder franchise.

The Kentucky product worked his way from being a fringe All-Star, to solidified mid-winter classic participant and All-Star starter. Many thought that was the height of Gilgeous-Alexander's game. Then, he became the back-to-back NBA MVP with four straight seasons as a top-five NBA MVP award finisher.

This, mixed with his Western Conference Finals MVP, NBA Finals MVP and delievering the first championship to Oklahoma City in tream history has made him one of the biggest stars in basketball. Gilgeous-Alexander's effortless ability to drop 30 points a night on great efficicency helping lead the Thunder to back-to-back 60 win campaigns and three straight seasons of the Thuner being the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference.

Along the way, the Oklahoma City Thunder superstar has released his first signature shoe the SHAI 001s in partnership with converse. It started with the Shai butters colorway, and each round of the NBA Playoffs for the last two seasons have featured new colorways racking up a ton of new looks with sales seemingly off the charts to revitalize the Converse basketball brand.

On Tuesday night, it was announced that Gilgeous-Alexander would be making an off the court move. Shifting from Converse to Nike. While this appears to be a big change, Nike owns Converse, so it might be best to view this as a business repositioning.

The Thunder superstar is instantly the biggest face of Nike's next generation of stars with LeBron James and Kevin Durant on the back nine of their respective careers.

“We are thrilled to welcome Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to the Nike Basketball signature family. Coming after back-to-back MVP seasons, we are excited to build on Shai's incredible impact with Converse as one of the most creative leaders in the game," Nike said in a statement on Tuesday night.

Time will tell what the future of Gilgeous-Alexander's on court footwear will look like. Perhaps it is as simple as slapping a Nike logo on the SHAI 001 model. Perhaps a new signature shoe is in the works. But it was made clear on Tuesday night the Thunder superstar is moving to Nike.

CONFIRMED: Nike has officially added Shai Gilgeous-Alexander as a Signature Swoosh athlete.

“Coming after back-to-back MVP seasons, we are excited to build on Shai's incredible impact with Converse as one of the most creative leaders in the game.” https://t.co/Jj8CtJ6eOk
— Nick DePaula (@NickDePaula) June 16, 2026

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