He has his team — in the tougher conference — head and shoulders above everyone else in the NBA.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander can smell his first Most Valuable Player honor of his career. He leads the league in scoring (32.6 ppg) and Oklahoma City will enter the playoffs as the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference. SGA would be discussed more if he was in a bigger market, yet he is focused on winning an NBA Championship. The former Kentucky star has a style that is smooth and effortless on the court. He is efficient in getting buckets, totaling 30 points a game from December 2024 to March of this year.
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Media members and former players are starting to give Alexander his flowers.
Carmelo Anthony provided an overwhelming endorsement to SGA on his 7PM in Brooklyn podcast.
The latest member of the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame Class for 2025 compared the former No. 1 to a trio of athletes. Anthony said Alexander is ‘an evolution of James Harden, Dwayne Wade, and Penny Hardaway.’ Wade was a three-time NBA champion, Harden is one of the best players in the league, and Hardaway was destined to be a champion until injuries came.
“He’s the evolution of a Penny Hardaway, of a D-Wade … and he’s James [Harden] a little bit.”
Melo’s high praise for Shai evolving into an MVP frontrunner reminds him of a few NBA legends ???? pic.twitter.com/wB8MA39MFh
— 7PM in Brooklyn (@7PMinBrooklyn) April 3, 2025
“This is the beginning of a run for him,” Anthony said about Alexander. “It is a different confidence, it is a different step, it is a different walk. He has found his groove. We are going to see this over the next couple of years playing at this level. He has a little D-Wade in him. The shiftiness, the pace … you are not going to speed him up. Once you find your pace, it is hard for somebody to speed you out of that pace. He is efficient and effective. And he is playing on a great team, that is hard to do.”
SGA is a ‘modern day of something different,’ per Anthony.
We are all going to see how that looks in the playoffs.
Stephen M. Smith is a writer for Ball Exclusives. You can follow him him X via @CoachingMSmith.
