Thunderclap in Maple Key: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander Signs a Double MVP Season for the Ages
The clocks stopped in Oklahoma City when the scoreboard froze at 103-91 and the Paycom Center caught fire in slow motion. Seventh game, seventh heaven. The Thunder—ranked closer to curiosities than contenders last autumn—claimed their first title. And in the eye of this prairie cyclone stood a 26-year-old Canadian with a handle as smooth as prairie wind: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
“It doesn't feel real. It's been so many hours, so many moments, so many emotions, so many nights without being able to imagine this, so many nights imagining it. It's incredible to be here, but this group has deserved it. We've worked for this. We've earned it.”
A Double Crown rarer than Halley’s Comet
SGA becomes the first player in twelve seasons to sweep the Regular-Season MVP and the Finals MVP, a feat last seen in 2013. He’s only the 11th man admitted to that pantheon—where Jordan (4), LeBron (2), Bird (2), Magic, Kareem, Shaq, Hakeem, Duncan, Moses and Willis Reed keep the guestbook.
Add league scoring title and a ring in the same campaign, et voilà : the club shrinks to four—Kareem, Jordan, Shaq… and Shai. Factor in 3 000-plus points across 82 games, and it leaves just two: Jordan (four times) and Kareem, vintage Milwaukee.
The numbers that howl
49 games at 30+ points—only Kobe Bryant and James Harden have matched that over the last dozen winters.
68-14 record, four wins shy of Jordan’s Bulls ’96, five from the Warriors ’16 sun.
3 000+ points in the regular season, 688 in the playoffs, topping Durant ’18 and Giannis ’21.
The youngest Finals team in three decades shepherded by a guard who, two seasons ago, survived a 22-win tundra. Trust that Process.
Jokic, Haliburton and other hurdles
The road asked first to outrun Nikola Jokic, triple laureate of holistic hoops, then to outlast the Indiana Pacers of Tyrese Haliburton, who started the year as long-shots and finished it biting at Oklahoma’s ankles until the last tick.
Game 7: the final movement
In the decider Shai conducted: 29 points, 12 assists, 5 rebounds. He averaged 30.3 pts, 5.6 ast, 4.6 reb, 1.9 stl for the series, passed 30 points in five of seven nights, and opened the Finals with a 38-point overture. The Bill Russell trophy never had a second candidate.
Northern lights over the plains
Gilgeous-Alexander is the first Canadian to hold the Finals MVP, a maple-leaf milestone echoed by the five Canadiansdressed across both rosters—second behind the U.S. alone. His poise off court equals his pulse on it; leadership has found new tailoring in dreadlocks and soft-spoken diction.
From Kobe-esque scoring binges to Jordanesque hardware, SGA just wrote a chapter that belongs under museum glass. Yet he leaves us with a shrug as gentle as prairie grass: trophies are earned, but storms are summoned. And sometimes—when a young man lifts a paratonnerre into June’s sky—the lightning does exactly what it’s told.
