He Has Delivered When It Matters Most
The Most Valuable Player (MVP) race remains too close to call, with only weeks remaining in the National Basketball Association (NBA) regular season. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Nikola Jokić have put together dominant, season-defining performances, leading their respective teams to first and second seeds in the Western Conference. Both players have excelled in different ways: Jokić with his unmatched offensive versatility, and Gilgeous-Alexander with his elite scoring, defensive impact, and leadership on the Oklahoma City Thunder—the runaway favourites to enter the postseason as the number one seed in the Western Conference. With this head-to-head competition to win the most coveted individual player award at its peak, it is time to take a closer look at why Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has a legitimate case to win the 2024-2025 NBA MVP.
A Historic Scoring Season
Gilgeous-Alexander is averaging 33.0 points per game this season, a number that puts him on pace to find himself amongst the most prolific scorers of the modern era. Only Kobe Bryant, James Harden, and Luka Dončić have managed to average more points per game in a single season this century. While these three players are all NBA greats in their own right, there is something that separates Gilgeous-Alexander’s 2024-25 season from these current and future Hall of Famers: efficiency. This season, he is shooting 52.8 per cent from the field, putting him ahead of all three of these players. Dončić came the closest to this mark in last season’s campaign but still fell over four per cent short—a substantial deviation. For further context, no other point guard in NBA history has averaged more points per game while shooting with a higher efficiency from the field than Gilgeous-Alexander this season. What makes this even more impressive is the versatility of his scoring ability.
Gilgeous-Alexander’s ability to attack the rim is unmatched, averaging the highest efficiency scoring on drives for players who take over eleven per game, while also leading this group in volume on a per-game basis. His ability to finish at the rim using elite change of pace and unmatched body control makes him arguably the best finisher at the rim amongst guards in the NBA. Gilgeous-Alexander’s mid-range game has also been a fresh breeze from the past, reminding NBA fans of icons like Demar DeRozan and Kevin Durant, who dominated the 2010s with their space creation and shot-making abilities from inside the arc. Gilgeous-Alexander’s ability to create space, hit tough shots, and draw fouls at a high rate using elite footwork adds yet another bag of tricks to his scoring arsenal.
At a time when perimeter players are increasingly reliant on scoring from outside the three-point arc, Gilgeous-Alexander has shown that elite scorers can still dominate the league without overly relying on their three-point shooting abilities—which he still possesses, averaging 2.0 made three-pointers per game on above-average efficiency. His ability to score at a historic rate while maintaining high-level efficiency numbers from all areas of the court has made him the most dominant offensive guard in the NBA this season. While scoring is not the only metric used to assess an MVP candidate’s season, Gilgeous-Alexander has indisputably produced an MVP-worthy scoring performance this season.
A Defensive Contributor
Luckily for Gilgeous-Alexander, he is not only a scorer but also happens to be one of the best defenders at his position in the NBA. At six-foot six-inches tall, boasting a seven-foot wingspan, Gilgeous-Alexander has the size and length to be a disruptor defensively—and it shows on the stat sheet. Gilgeous Alexander ranks top five in both offensive and defensive ratings, highlighting that he shows up on both sides of the ball. He also averages 1.8 steals a game, putting him third in the NBA in that category while leading all point guards with 1.1 blocks per game.
Gilgeous-Alexander’s defensive abilities may be the deciding factor for winning the MVP in May. Jokić is notoriously a weak defender, making the defensive side of the ball an area where Gilgeous-Alexander has separated himself from his main competitor who has put up similarly impressive stats on offense.
Best in the West
Team success is always a factor in the MVP discussion. While both Oklahoma City and the Denver Nuggets have been some of the top teams in the league this season, the Thunder currently hold an eleven-game lead over the Nuggets at the top of the Western Conference. Boasting a 56-12 record as of writing, the Oklahoma City Thunder are on pace to win sixty-seven games this season. This would make the Thunder one of only thirteen other teams to achieve this feat in NBA history. I would be amiss not to mention that their current record has them placed in second in the entire league, but another historic season being played by the Cleveland Cavaliers does not take anything away from what the Thunder have achieved so far this season, let alone Gilgeous-Alexander’s MVP case.
What makes the Thunder and Gilgeous-Alexander’s season even more impressive is that all their achievements have come with arguably their second-best player, Chet Holmgren, sitting out injured for most of the season. Even with their premier lob threat and defensive anchor on the side-lines having only played twenty games this season, the Thunder have still boasted the best defensive team rating in the NBA. They also hold the highest net rating, outscoring opposing teams by an average of 12.4 points per game, on pace for second highest all-time, only trailing Michael Jordan’s 1995-1996 Chicago Bulls. Gilgeous-Alexander has led his team to an incredibly impressive season thus far, ensuring that his team’s performances have matched his own to further support his case for MVP.
Resting His Case
With the National Football League offseason in full swing and the NBA playoffs fast approaching, this is the time of the year when the NBA has the full attention of sports fans in North America and across the globe. It is also the time when MVP candidates need to deliver their strongest performances for voters. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has done exactly that.
While Jokić has had his own impressive games recently—highlighted by an NBA record-breaking 30-20-20 game—Gilgeous-Alexander has put together some of the most dominant performances of the season over these past few weeks. In the first week of March alone, he put up fifty-one points against the Houston Rockets, forty-one points against the Memphis Grizzlies, and forty points against Jokić and the Nuggets in a decisive win. A week before that, he dropped thirty-seven and thirty-nine points on the Minnesota Timberwolves, last year’s Western Conference finalists, on back-to-back nights.
At this stage of the season, every game carries more weight. MVP candidates do not just need great numbers—they need signature moments. They need games that define their season and separate them from the competition to show voters that they deserve to be recognized as the undisputed best player in the league. Gilgeous-Alexander has delivered these games time and time again, and as an NBA fan, it is clear that he is putting on a show at this point in the season to rest his case as the 2024-2025 MVP.
A Moment for Canada
If Shai Gilgeous-Alexander wins MVP, he will become only the second Canadian in NBA history to do so, following Steve Nash’s back-to-back MVP awards in 2005 and 2006. Unlike Nash who built his case on his next-level playmaking abilities, Gilgeous-Alexander has built his case based on elite scoring, historic efficiency, and his impact on both sides of the ball. In a tight MVP race, he has delivered when it matters most, proving that he belongs at the very top.
For Canada, this would be a defining moment. Gilgeous-Alexander has already established himself as the best contemporary player from the country, but winning the MVP could propel him onto the path of being one of—if not the—greatest to ever come out of Canada. As the country continues to produce more and more elite NBA talent, from NBA Champions like Jamal Murray and Andrew Wiggins to rising stars like Shaedon Sharpe and Bennedict Mathurin, Shai’s rise to the top would further cement the country’s growing reputation as a basketball powerhouse. With more eyes on Canadian basketball than ever before, this could be a historic moment that inspires the next generation of players.