Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, despite all his accolades and success, is often overlooked in favor of guys like Victor Wembanyama and Nikola Jokić.
As the 2026-27 season is about to tip off, Oklahoma City Thunder superstar Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is once again being undervalued. It’s the part of the summer when people are looking towards the beginning of a new season and putting together lists of the best players in the league. Many have Gilgeous-Alexander as low as number three behind guys like Victor Wembanyama and Nikola Jokić.
While both Wembanyama and Jokić are players who deserve to be in everyone’s top three, Gilgeous-Alexander is the best player in the league and deserves that distinction. Gilgeous-Alexander is the back-to-back regular-season MVP, the 2024-25 Western Conference Finals MVP, as well as the Finals champion and Finals MVP. With accolades like that, it’s hard to imagine him being underrated, but that’s where we find ourselves before the season.
There’s no doubt that some of the points people make when defending a lower ranking of Gilgeous-Alexander are real. He does see a drop in efficiency in the playoffs from the regular season. In the 2025-26 season, his average field goal percentage was 55.3% before dropping to 46.3% in the postseason. While that’s a significant drop, it’s very typical for efficiency to drop somewhat across the board in the playoffs.
It’s clear that Gilgeous Alexander’s postseason offense doesn’t come as easily as it does in the regular season, but by no means is he a playoff shrinker. Look no further than his performance in the fourth quarter of Game Four of the 2024-25 Finals, when he scored 15 of his 35 points in the final minutes to help Oklahoma City come back and tie the series before it shifted back home. Sure, he has had some unimpressive playoff games at times, but that’s true for every star in the NBA.
Nikola Jokić is coming off one of his worst playoff series of all time, which largely contributed to the Denver Nuggets first round exit. On top of that, Jokić, while being elite on one end, struggles on the defensive end of the court.
Wembanyama, on the other hand, did lead his team to the NBA Finals, but he isn’t the polished player that Gilgeous-Alexander is. Wembanyama has the highest upside of any player in the league, but ranking him above Gilgeous-Alexander is premature, as his offensive game isn’t developed enough to take over in late-game situations. This ultimately is one of the main reasons why the New York Knicks were often able to take control of games late in the Finals.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, while struggling from an efficiency perspective, is still the reason the Oklahoma City Thunder have won a title and are perennial favorites to do it again. While no one should have him in a tier of his own and significantly above the likes of Jokić and Wembanyama, he is the best player in the NBA and should be given that distinction until someone clearly proves they have surpassed him.
