Shai Gilgeous-Alexander didn’t mean to define an all-time great NBA career with a throwaway line after a regular season win two years ago. It just worked out that way.
“My whole life is consistent,” Gilgeous-Alexander said in front of ESPN’s cameras following a March 2024 win over the Miami Heat. “Everything I do. From what I eat, to when I sleep, to my recovery, to my loved ones, everything is consistent. It’s a routine for me at this point.”
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Gilgeous-Alexander’s comment became a meme as his teammates began hooting and hollering in the background. At the time, he was just starting to enter the MVP race, and the Thunder were in their first year as an elite team. While that season would end in disappointment in the second round of the playoffs, SGA and OKC would both get the salvation they were looking for the next year: his first MVP award and the franchise’s first NBA championship.
It’s easy to think back to Gilgeous-Alexander’s suddenly infamous quote after he broke an impossible NBA record on Thursday night. As the Thunder beat the Boston Celtics in a possible 2026 NBA Finals preview, SGA scored 20 or more points in his 127th consecutive regular-season game to break the NBA record held by Wilt Chamberlain. While basically no one was aware of Chamberlain’s record before SGA threatened to break it, it’s a remarkable feat from a remarkable talent who feels suddenly feels like he’s surpassed Nikola Jokic for the mythical title of Best Player in the World.
How wild is Shai’s record? Consider this:
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Michael Jordan’s longest streak of scoring 20+ is 72 games.
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LeBron James’ longest streak of scoring 20+ is 49 games.
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Kobe Bryant’s longest streak of scoring 20+ is 63 games.
In fact, Gilgeous-Alexander hasn’t even needed all four quarters to get to 20 points in the vast majority of his games. About 89 percent of the time, SGA has reached 20 points before the fourth quarter.
Gilgeous-Alexander is peaking at an all-time high level at 27 years old, and he’s about to force some uncomfortable conversations. He’s lapped Jokic in my preferred all-in-on advanced metric EPM (which estimates a player’s total impact on team performance per 100 possessions): SGA leads the league at +9.6 right now, Jokic is second at +8.9, and Victor Wembanyama is third at +7.6.
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That’s just the start of it. SGA is the best player in the world right now, but he’s also quickly becoming one of the best guards of all-time. Here’s how SGA rates against some of the greats by DPM, which again measures a player’s impact on team performance per 100 possessions. He’s the blue line in this graph, and only trails Steph Curry:
Gilgeous-Alexander’s peak has clearly surpassed Kobe and James Harden, and just about lines up with Chris Paul and Dwyane Wade, who I didn’t include for the sake of clarity. Play with the tool yourself here.
Shai is better than ever this year, too. Long known as a mid-range assassin with a special ability to get to the foul line, he’s now added a newly improved step-back three that makes him even harder to guard. He’s had multiple three-point daggers to win games this year, including one earlier this week to beat the rival Denver Nuggets.
Some fans like to reduce SGA’s success to flopping, but that’s crazy talk. Yes, he gets a lot of free throws, but so does every all-time great. Luka Doncic averages one more free throw per game than Shai, but he doesn’t get called a flopper nearly as often. If you go by free throw attempts per 36 minutes, SGA is tied with Deni Avdija. Yes, he does regularly exaggerate contact to get to the line, but that’s not why he’s so great.
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This is a guard in complete mastery of his game: his handle is extremely tight, his mid-range game is money every time, and he’s a solid defender. At 6’6 with a 7-foot wingspan, Shai has the same measurements as Michael Jordan, and it gives him a shot that’s extremely hard to contest when he rises and fires. Like MJ, SGA is also sneaky strong and can discard defenders when he needs to. Like MJ, he’s quickly becoming known for a push-off.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is the NBA’s Joe DiMaggio with this streak, but he’s even more than that. He’s becoming one of the best we’ve ever seen, and that will be more apparent if OKC can break the NBA’s parity era to become the first team to win back-to-back championships since Kevin Durant’s Golden State Warriors in 2017-2018.
There’s no reason to diminish what SGA is doing right now. It should be celebrated at the highest level. If Wilt Chamberlain was playing against plumbers and milkmen when he set the streak in 1961-1963 — which isn’t true, either — what SGA is doing at an average NBA height is just absurd, historical stuff. Appreciate his greatness while you can.
