Is Shai Gilgeous-Alexander the NBA's newest superstar?

Shea Gilgis Alexander is currently fourth in the NBA in scoring, averaging nearly 31 a game at the midway point of the season, and he has taken a leap this year that has people wondering just how good he is right now. Over the last three seasons, Shea has been the unofficial driving king of the NBA, finishing first in drives per game according to tracking data. One of the reasons for that is that over the years, he's added a ton of strength, filling into his frame, and now he uses that extra size to control defenders or bounce right off of them. He's stronger in his lower body too, which means he's more explosive vertically, and he has better burst off one leg on his change of pace moves. He drives off that back leg into space, then elongates his strides to finish with the left. Because he's pretty long in the limbs, Gilgis Alexander is a prolific Euro-stepper, ball-faking mid-stride here as he jumps off the wrong leg, and these kinds of moves require sturdiness and a ton of balance. For instance, his spin moves cover a ton of ground now, whereas a few years ago, that was a more stationary spin just to reposition himself and start a drive. He's also quite slippery and creative at the rim, blasting through contact before somehow slithering this under the defense with his offhand. Only six players in the league average 20 drives per 36 minutes, so Shea's game is really built around these slithering attacks in the middle of the floor, and only Luka Doncic and Zion Williamson are more efficient among the highest volume penetrators. Obviously, Shea has a nice handle, and I love this change of pace he uses between his legs, where he explodes mid-dribble to catch defenders off guard. The between the legs is designed to relax the defender, and he goes as the ball is coming back to that right hand, and that's yet another left-handed finish. His increased burst from a standstill makes this move work, and this time it's great body control and a floater. Gilgis Alexander is also a prolific mid-range scorer, taking about half of all his shots between 4 and 15 feet from the basket. His size and added strength also help him carve out shots around the paint like this, and he's jumped up to a mind-bending 91% from the free-throw line this year, and compared to when he first came in the league, his shot looks smoother and tighter to me from his feet up to the release, with his elbow tucked in more, and he's quicker to bring the ball to his shooting pocket instead of moving it across his body. He also hops around in short spaces like a pogo stick to create separation, bursting away from defenders by moving backwards or sideways to find cleaner looks. And last but not least, he decelerates really well, and even though his feet fly everywhere here, his upper body mechanics stay the same. When you put everything together, it explains why he's averaging 31 a night. He's in the middle of the floor, explodes mid-dribble, takes the contact, spots the help defender, so he stops on a dime for a step back, but he's crafty enough to send RJ Barrett to upfake school for the and one. Brilliant. He'll also throw a little post-up game at you sometimes, going to a fadeaway over either shoulder, or using his size to set up those creative finishes down low. Of course, all that scoring in the middle of the court opens up scoring opportunities for teammates, and Shay's paint touches set up a bunch of drive and kicks out to three-point shooters. But this is where things get interesting, because I would describe him as a score-first passer, meaning he's trying to set up his shot first, and then the passes are a secondary decision. This is its own type of heliocentrism, where Shay operates in his office, the corner skip is already open, and if he can't find the right shot, then he looks to playmake. Take this play, where I think the best playmakers hit one of the three-point shooters right now, but Shay instead looks to eurostep around defenders, then kicks it out, and that allows a defender to eliminate the corner three, and it turns into a weird 28-footer. I'd describe Shay as a pretty good passer, he likes this live-dribble pocket pass that can lead to good offense, and his ability to snap passes off the bounce is definitely a nice little asset as a playmaker. He doesn't really probe around looking to manipulate defenders, that slick dribbling collapses the defense, but instead of thinking about one of these cutters, he hits the basic kickout instead. His live-dribble trigger means he can react to passing windows quickly when he sees them, snapping off that beauty to a cutter, and I love the idea on this one, where he sees Ludort diving, and uses the dribble to try to squeeze it in, but it's a little off the mark. Lobs or passes over the top aren't a huge part of his game right now. The lob is open for a while and after upfaking, he finally finds the dunk. So this Shay-centric offense creates plenty of shots for teammates, but all shot creation isn't the same, and that's a subtle but important factor to consider when playing smarter and faster defenses in the playoffs. One clear area he can improve going forward is looking to pass early as he feels the defense collapse. There's a pretty advanced lob off the corner, but even just skipping it as this defender slides down creates a big advantage, but Shay's still fairly reactionary with his passing. His defense is even more interesting to me. Glance at some of his metrics, and he looks pretty good, but take a deeper dive and things get more complex. Let's start with his footwork, which is often choppy and heavy. Ludort loses him here, and the help saves it at the rim. When he's moving laterally, he doesn't really slide, but instead turns his hips and runs, and that can get him into some weird positions, reaching with his inside hand here before a teammate saves a layup. A few years back I talked about Klay Thompson succeeding with a similar on-ball technique, so it's not an inherent problem, but Shay's movement patterns are a little different than Klay's, and he can end up in really weird spots, like this giant step across his body with the right leg. That's not an ideal position for a basketball defender, and he almost recovers, but ends up reaching and spinning around as his man lays it in. If Shay's feet are a little wonky, his hips make up for it. This is like a slinky unwinding as he twists back in the other direction, and this time he stays with the ball and uses his size well. And that's the thing with Shay. He can string together really nice looking possessions, sliding, recovering, and using his big frame, and that size means he, theoretically, can guard bigger players like Franz Wagner, going all out on this clutch possession, holding his own, and contesting well at the end. But you can also find possessions like this, where after a close out, he hangs out on the bench, then slowly jogs back into the play, and I'm not sure if that's straight up fatigue in the first quarter, but they do often put Shay on weaker scores, probably not to overtax him after all his heavy lifting on offense. Here's a play where he's more engaged, hugged up on his man, and ready to chase him around screens, and he does a pretty good job and ends up back in front of him to shut him off. And I'd say he's decent at getting around picks in general, despite some of the issues he has at the point of attack. That size gives him some value around the basket that most smaller guards don't have. Victor Oladipo has to adjust his shot here, and he'll even block a few around the rim, sliding off the corner to swat CJ McCollum. By the way, Shay's block numbers are up, but a lot of those are from swipe downs that are curiously being called blocks, because he's generally not a big vertical presence in the paint. I also get the sense that Shay understands the dynamics of defense. He's early rotating to the roll man here, then immediately Xs out to the top in textbook fashion. This play made me laugh a bit. As the Thunder are recovering, Josh Giddee tells a teammate he's supposed to pick up the big man, they start arguing about it, so Shay just picks up the threat, but he's a little too small to stop it. At the same time, he also has these spacey moments out there where he's ball watching and completely loses track of his man. On this play, he's actually processing a ton of weak side action, but that leaves his mark unguarded under the hoop. These little lapses can also hurt him on closeouts. He's positioned closer to the ball here, but he's not really ready to recover and heads in the wrong direction, and that leads to a breakdown, and sometimes this compounds his lateral weaknesses, taking a weird angle on this one and a huge step toward the ball, which opens up a driving lane to the right and a big dunk. I do wonder how many of these defensive lapses are from fatigue or even disengagement. He doesn't seem to have a high motor on that end, but he also has the tools and, I think, the general feel to be a positive defender, despite any athletic shortcomings. Impact Metrics view Shay as a strong all-star right now, because even with that leaky defense, he's one of the better offensive weapons in the league with that nice floor-raising package. My biggest question with him is what he'd look like on a better team, next to other ball-dominant weapons, where everything doesn't revolve around his dribble game in the middle of the floor. He's somewhat idle away from the ball right now, but I think he could be perfectly fine as a cutter. He's actually been a good wide-open point shooter over the last few seasons, and even if he's a bit deliberate at times, he can certainly attack an advantage created by a teammate with those penetration skills. So, even if he wouldn't average 31 a game on a higher-quality offense, I still think he'd bring a lot of attacking value to better teams, and, just maybe, that could free up some energy to help his defense. Either way, it's been awesome to watch him continue to grow over the last few seasons, and I view Shay Gilgis-Alexander as a strong all-star or even borderline all-NBA player right now. If you want more content, check out Patreon.com slash Thinking Basketball. A lot of these stats you see in these videos and here on our podcasts come from our daily updating boards for our deluxe members. Let me know what you think of Shay and the Thunder down below. Thanks, as always, for watching this one all the way through, and, of course, I do hope you're having a great day.