Is Shai Gilgeous-Alexander Oklahoma City Thunder's next core franchise star?
Saturday 2 November 2019 08:21, UK
The Oklahoma City Thunder lost a franchise player when they traded Paul George to the LA Clippers. But they may have uncovered another in their return for 'PG13' in the form of young guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, writes Mark Deeks.
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Through the first five games of the Oklahoma City Thunder's season, sophomore guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is averaging 21.6 points, 7.0 rebounds and 3.2 assists per game. Considering he is better on defense, this is quite the volume of offensive production.
Notwithstanding the very small sample sizes on the young season thus far, take note of Gilgeous-Alexander's 2.7 Defensive Box Score Plus/Minus rating of +2.7. DBPM, as it is known, is a statistic designed to capture a player's overall defensive impact more adequately than blocks and steals per game, relied upon for so long, have ever done.
It is limited in the sense that it too relies upon the basic counting statistics of a box score to draw its conclusions; all defensive metrics are somewhat limited by the fact that things such as good rotations and controlled close-outs are very hard to count. Small sample size anomalies are also very possible at this point.
But when it is considered that a list of the top four players in DBPM this season to date includes Giannis Antetokounmpo and two-time defending Defensive Player of the Year Rudy Gobert, it can be seen how it does an adequate job.
Among all the guards in the NBA this season, Gilgeous-Alexander is fifth in this category, behind only Josh Richardson, Ricky Rubio and two Thunder team-mates in Terrence Ferguson and Dennis Schroeder. And 'SGA' has had a large part in carrying those two to that level.
A description of Gilgeous-Alexander will contain a lot of the important defensive buzzwords today. He is big for a guard, especially at the point guard position that he came up playing. He has incredible length for the wing position, which allows him to defend multiple positions in one-on-one situations. It also allows him to hold his own when switched onto bigger guys, allowing the Thunder to do a lot of various switching schemes within the defense. He covers ground well across the perimeter, playing with a good motor and winning possessions.
Gilgeous-Alexander is rarely flashy and always controlled, exhibiting a potent combination of flexibility, versatility, timing, discipline, length, motor and reads. That's defensive buzzword bingo right there!
What may elevate him to the lofty status of being an NBA franchise player however is the offensive developments that he has demonstrated in the short season to date.
The same control with which he plays on defense has always been manifest offensively as well, but it would appear that with a summer of development in his skills, body and confidence, plus the empowerment that may have come from his trade, Shai has taken on a new level of offensive responsibility.
Again on this end, he is not flashy. He is not going to dunk over people in semi-transition like the 'Greek Freak', nor pull up from just inside the car park like Stephen Curry, nor drop three-pointers while running sideways on one leg like James Harden now likes to do.
Well, not yet, anyway. Given Gilgeous-Alexander's quick rate of improvement, though, maybe go-to half-court offensive moves are still to come. For now, it is his probing, slithering, intelligent game that has seen him grow so quickly, as well as getting greater opportunities to show it.
In improving his decision-making out of the pick-and-roll, Gilgeous-Alexander is able to get to where he wants on the court right now and pick opponents apart. And it is not as if that decision-making was ever bad.
Without being explosive, Gilgeous-Alexander snakes to the rim. He is truly sneaky, reminding defenses that in a league that invariably showcases the world's best basketball-playing athletes, one can still get to the rim with body control and smart usage of angles around screens than with mere first-step dynamism. Gilgeous-Alexander sees the floor, loves a skip pass, has plenty of guile and is always able to slow the game down to his pace.
Although a decent shooter at this point, he is not taking or making tough outside looks consistently. Rather, he is hitting a few from long range, hitting most from mid-range, and more importantly getting beyond the first line of defense. He is collapsing it, pulling up, finishing at the rim and throwing incisive passes to all areas while barely turning the ball over.
At this point, at the age of only 21 and without the name recognition and history behind him, he is playing like Scottie Pippen did in his Portland Trail Blazers days.
Or, say, like Paul George did at age 23.
Gilgeous-Alexander was included by the Thunder in the trade from the LA Clippers that sent George to Los Angeles to pair up with Kawhi Leonard this summer. The Clippers figured this was a price worth paying in order to pair two of the best two-way players of this century, including one who was just the best player on the title-winning Toronto Raptors team. They may well have been right. But they knew it was a big price to pay.
In his first NBA season, Gilgeous-Alexander had already flashed all those defensive buzzwords, and in doing so while aged only 20, offensive growth was surely forthcoming. It seems as though it has come quite quickly.
While we tend to forget it in our analysis both immediate and retrospective, all parties to a trade are supposed to win the deal. How they win can be very different, and normally are; two teams with similar aspirations for a large degree of immediate success tend not to make good trade partners, because both want to keep their good players.
Yet both sides can win, even if it rarely seems to be the case that they do. And in picking up a player as good as Gilgeous-Alexander seems to be becoming, the Thunder are set to win on this trade, even notwithstanding the myriad other useful pieces they received the package.
This is not to say that Gilgeous-Alexander will or could rival or surpass George in terms of overall quality. Because he lacks the burst almost always required for the superstars of the game, particularly in the back-court, Gilgeous-Alexander's upside may be capped at that of fringe All-Star.
Especially since defense - which hopefully remains the strongest part of SGA's game even as he continues this offensive development - still is never quite captured properly by any metric yet invented.
Gilgeous-Alexander does not need to be superstar-level good for the trade to be a success. For a wantaway player, the Thunder have landed a potential core franchise player, with the added garnish of many future first-round picks still to come.
If the Clippers win a title this year, next year or indeed any year with their current core, the trade was successful for them even if they gave up plenty to do so.
The Thunder meanwhile may be looking at one of the best hauls for a superstar player via a trade that has ever been seen.
Gilgeous-Alexander looks to be a large part of the reason why. We will just have to check back in in 30 games time.
