This Shai Gilgeous-Alexander Stat Could Define OKC Thunder Season

On Wednesday, the Oklahoma City Thunder saw superstar Shai Gilgeous-Alexander make his preseason debut ahead of the 2026-27 campaign. The back-to-back NBA MVP, who is the driving force of one of the league's biggest title favorites, hardly needs the preseason practice run to be ready for the regular season. However, that doesn't mean the first 18 minutes of action this season.

In his half of play against the Milwaukee Bucks, it was not hard to miss a glaring difference in the way the team's offense functioned. After a summer defined by the buzzword "re-imagine" and Gilgeous-Alexander himself demanding to play off-the-ball for Team Canada's offense in the FIBA World Cup Qualifiers, perhaps Wednesday was a glimpse of what changes to expect from this Thunder squad.

Gilgeous-Alexander didn't want to tip his hand at media day when this scribe asked him if the Team Canada practice would be preached in Bricktown, "Every season, and every off-season, I use it to try to find ways to become a more well-rounded basketball player. And that was just an area of the game where I felt like I could be a better basketball player. And some summers, it's defense; some summers, it's off-the-dribble shooting; some summers, it's posting up. And yeah, nothing more than that. Just try to become the best basketball player I can be when it's all said and done," Gilgeous-Alexander simply explained two weeks ago.

But slowly, the evidence has started to mount that the OKC offense could look different. From top executive Sam Presti discussing a re-imagined unit, to Gilgeous-Alexander's summertime session, and even seeing the superstar work on off-ball shooting drills long after training camp practices had concluded this week. It all culminated in Wednesday's affair, where three of the back-to-back MVPs' five shot attempts were via catch-and-shoot chances.

All three of those catch-and-shoot looks were beyond the arc, going perfectly from 3-point land to capitalize on high-level ball movement and put defenses in compromised positions. “I thought in both preseason games we let the defense tell us what to do in terms of the decisions we made. Guys played with great intentions. We were aggressive," Daigneault said at practice on Friday. Gilgeous-Alexander catch-and-shoot 3-point attempts are the stat to watch this season. If the team can get him more looks in that setting, it changes the ceiling of Oklahoma City's scoring attack.

It wasn't just a three-play sample size. The entire night –– which spanned over 20 possessions –– never saw Gilgeous-Alexander bring the ball across the timeline unless in a live-ball transition chance. This is so jarring for a ball-dominant guard that posted a jaw-dropping 33.4% usage percentage a year ago.

Trying to sell the reader that Gilgeous-Alexander will exclusively –- or even primarily –– play off the ball is as difficult as selling beachfront property in Kansas. Though the team doesn't have to shake things up to that degree to see big results.

The Oklahoma City offense could be the best in team history if the back-to-back MVP takes another leap off the ball. It would unlock a new level for everyone, including arguably the best player in the world.

If Gilgeous-Alexander can perform away from the ball, it likely signals he is shooting at or better than 40% from the 3-point line, making him an even more lethal scorer. This would be in line with the superstar's personal goal of a 50/40/90 season he is striving for, as he revealed at the end of this past season.

Oklahoma City could allow him time away from the ball to not only save miles on his legs but also open the floor for its best player. It becomes much harder for teams to put Gilgeous-Alexander in traffic if he is roaming the half-court away from the ball. Either teams have to dedicate a primary defender and keep a second close to double at the catch point –- which would in turn open up driving lanes for the likes of Ajay Mitchell and Jalen Williams on the ball –- or play Gilgeous-Alexander straight up, where the Superstar would be able to attack away from help, and the best isolation scorer in the NBA gets to enjoy that setting a lot more often without further attention.

Especially with how talented Gilgeous-Alexander is scoring in the mid-range and at the cup even with defenders in his face if he can force oppositions to pick him up hgiher, even off the ball out of respect for the 3-point shot he can get to the spots more comfortably that made him a back-to-back MVP.

It also allows for the Santa Clara product and Mitchell to get going early. This isn't an entirely foreign concept to Oklahoma City. In Game 4 of the NBA Finals, the Thunder saw Williams keep the offense afloat for three quarters. By the time the final quarter rolled around, it was the No. 2 scoring option on the ball the majority of the time, with Gilgeous-Alexander setting screens for Williams to get the weaker matchup in Nesmith on the scoring champion en route to a 15-point fourth quarter that evened the series at two games each to avoid the Pacers growing a commanding 3-1 lead in the 2025 NBA Finals that the Thunder eventually won.

While the League MVP got the headlines for that game, it was Williams' scoring prowess that commanded respect from the Pacers' defense and opened up Gilgeous-Alexander to have the legacy-defining fourth quarter on his way to the NBA Finals MVP award.

The team didn't get to explore this path much a year ago, as the All-NBA Swingman product spent most of the season in street clothes. Now, after an offseason of work away from the ball for Gilgeous-Alexander and an exciting preseason debut, the heights this offense can reach in the 2026-27 season can largely be defined by the balance and efficiency of the ball being out of its superstar's hands.

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