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With half a million people parked at Scissortail Park, the Oklahoma City Thunder slow-drove around downtown in celebration of their 2025 NBA championship. The yearly tradition is a literal victory lap of every franchise's ultimate dream.
The Thunder are fresh off one of the greatest seasons the NBA has ever seen. They went 68-14 in the regular season and were mostly a buzzsaw in the playoffs. A Game 7 2025 NBA Finals win captured them the Larry O'Brien trophy.
As the Thunder gathered on stage, OKC Mayor David Holt snuck in a hot take in his rally speech that forced everybody to blink twice to make sure they heard right. He called Shai Gilgeous-Alexander the greatest Thunder player ever. The opinion exceeded the outside temperatures in pure heat, which had several attendants get IVs near EMTs.
Is Gilgeous-Alexander really the best player to ever put on a Thunder uniform? Over NBA legends like Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook?? I mean... It's easy to argue for it.
Gilgeous-Alexander is fresh off one of the greatest individual seasons ever. He ran away with the MVP award, won the Western Conference Finals MVP and captured the NBA Finals MVP. The 26-year-old had one of the greatest 30-plus point seasons. If you ask ESPN's Brian Windhorst, it's the fourth-greatest season ever.
As the 2025 Thunder inched closer to the 2010s Warriors and 1990s Bulls with each blowout win, Gilgeous-Alexander was the headliner. He was the best floor raiser. He single-handedly made the Thunder from an upper-echelon offense to the bottom of the barrel when he's off the floor.
What Gilgeous-Alexander did this season, Durant and Westbrook never did. All three are tied in MVP awards, but Gilgeous-Alexander has more 30-point campaigns than Durant and more All-NBA First Team selections than Westbrook. It was an interesting debate during his surprising ascension into one of the NBA's best players, but a championship ring completely reforms the context.
While Durant and Westbrook enjoyed team success on the Thunder, they never reached the heights of Gilgeous-Alexander. They made four Western Conference Finals and an NBA Finals trip, but never brought home the trophy. Gilgeous-Alexander did in much less time. And there's a decent chance he could add more rings to his fingers when it's all said and done.
Thunder fans will always have a soft spot for Westbrook. He stayed with them when doomsday arrived after Durant left. Heck, Holt started his one-time holiday traditions with Westbrook when he re-signed with OKC. But Gilgeous-Alexander brought home a championship. That's the ultimate iron-clad counterargument.
It's the whole reason why we follow sports. If you bring home a championship, you cross off the top item of every fan's bucket list. Every member on the roster will forever be immortalized. Even when the youthful Thunder players turn into retired middle-aged adults two decades from now, they'll always have a spot in OKC to feel loved and appreciated.
At 26 years old, Gilgeous-Alexander still has plenty of runway to surpass Durant and Westbrook in most Thunder statistical categories, but you don't need to wait that long to make an argument he's the greatest OKC player in franchise history. In fact, I think most folks would agree with that who aren't poisoned by nostalgia.
This article originally appeared on OKC Thunder Wire: Why Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is the greatest OKC Thunder player ever
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