Shai Gilgeous-Alexander's Drive to Be Great Shines New Light on Thunder's Title

Oklahoma City is attempting to break the current trend of parity around the NBA. The Thunder last June became the seventh consecutive unique winner of the Larry O'Brien Trophy, with the previous six failing to make it out of the second round of the playoffs much less defend their title.

The Bricktown Ballers retained 99% of their championship roster from a year ago, making them a populat pick to repeat as title winners despite this new era the league finds itself in for the first time ever.

Despite cruising to 68 wins in the 2024-25 regular season, staking claim to its second straight No. 1 seed in the Western Conference, the playoffs had no shortage of adversity for the OKC Thunder. They were pushed to seven games against the Denver Nuggets and Indiana Pacers in the Second Round and NBA Finals, respectively.

While you never apologize for winning a championship and surviving the grueling gauntlet that is the NBA postseason, and Oklahoma City's banner will hang in the rafters until the end of time, the Thunder are hoping to clean up some of their playoffs miscues this time around.

Superstar point guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who won the NBA MVP, Western Conference Finals MVP, NBA Finals MVP and led the league in scoring a year ago, shared his interesting mindset on the fact that the Thunder are ten games into their title defense.

"Honestly speaking, I didn't like the way we won, if that makes sense. I didn't think we won an NBA championship playing our best basketball," Gilgeous-Alexander said. "That was the first time being that far in the playoffs, so it was a learning experience for us. It takes another level of focus, discipline, assertiveness, aggression to be who we were in the regular season and be who we are in the postseason. We were definitely more dominant in the regular season than the postseason."

As the MVP points out, the Thunder had plenty of lessons to learn last postseason. In fact, many pointed to that youth and lack of experience as a reason to pick against the Bricktown Ballers being the ones to dance in the confetti come June. Somehow, they made their way out of it becoming the second youngest team in NBA history to win a title.

"There's just so many angles and ways you can give your team an edge to win a basketball possession, quarter and ultimately a game. Until I get a grip on all of those, which will probably be a very long time, I'd say pretty far away," Gilgeous-Alexander detailed. "I just felt like we could be better. We could've been better. Obviously, we were good enough. But I always go back to being good enough is never what I picked up a basketball for. I never wanted just to be good enough to make the AAU team, make the college take to get a scholarship. I wanted to be great."

The Thunder have started out 9-1 and this roster is playing some confident basketball with no signs of slowing down even as they battle through a short handed stretch that sees Oklahoma City miss the most games due to injury in the entire NBA.

Gilgeous-Alexander's drive to be great echoes through that entire locker room and it is a big reason why it is so easy to project consistent success for Oklahoma City now and in the future.