Is Shai Gilgeous-Alexander having the greatest NBA season ever?

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander won MVP and Finals MVP last season while leading the league in scoring. He’s been even better this season while leading the Thunder to a 24-1 start without much of his supporting cast for big chunks of time. Yet somehow, what might be the greatest season in modern NBA history has gone largely uncelebrated, if not overlooked.

Don’t take it from me. The advanced numbers all agree that we’re witnessing something unprecedented. Estimated Plus/Minus is the most well-regarded all-in-one stat publicly available. Shai’ +11.0 EPM is the highest in its database, which goes back to 2001-02. BBall-Index’s LEBRON metric only goes back to 2014, but SGA has the highest score ever on there, too. Win Shares per 48 minutes? Number-one ever (just ahead of Nikola Jokic this year and two Kareem Abdul-Jabbar seasons), and that one goes all the way back to the 1950s.

With Shai, all conversations start with his proprietary blend of bucket-getting. SGA is putting up arguably the greatest combination of volume and efficiency of the modern era. 32.6 points per game is both wildly impressive and dramatically underselling just how dang good he’s been, so let’s put it in context.

To compare across years, we can look at per-possession scoring data (to normalize for pace and playing time). For efficiency, we can look at Basketball-Reference's relative True Shooting, which shows how much better a player’s TS% is compared to league average at the time.

Here’s something fun. Only five players in the modern era have put up 40 or more points per 100 possessions and posted a rTS% of at least 115 (meaning 15% higher than league average):

Notice the names that aren’t there. No Michael Jordan. No LeBron James. No Kobe Bryant (whose best scoring season was 45.6 points per 100 and best rTS% was 107). No Joel Embiid or Giannis Antetokounmpo. (Wilt Chamberlain led the league in points and field goal percentage simultaneously in four different seasons, so he likely would make the list, but we don’t have per-possession data from his heyday to know for sure).

Jordan and Bryant are the common stylistic comparison points for their sublime midrange game. But at Shai’s age, the two legends were muscular high-flyers, birds of prey living among pigeons. Gilgeous-Alexander is different, all quicksilver and poison. You think you have him locked up, but he palmed the key before you even got the cuffs on:

Shai is the most well-rounded superstar in the league. He’s even fixed the one flaw in his game from last season, an inconsistent three-pointer, to become one of the league’s deadliest shooters - 45% from deep on five attempts per game. The stepback to the left is no longer a weapon of last resort. Now, it’s a knife of first opportunity:

And, oh yeah, he can go right now, too. Happy learned how to putt:

Shai’s shot chart this season (courtesy of Statmuse) is hilarious:

Of course, Shai’s superpowers aren’t limited to the flashy stuff. It’s not all olive-oil jumpers and velvet stepbacks. His greatest strength is distinctly unsexy - he simply never turns the ball over. Gilgeous-Alexander has just 43 turnovers in 24 games, good for a turnover rate of 7.1%. You know how many people have had a season scoring at least 40 points per 100 possessions with a turnover rate of less than 8%? Two; Shai and Michael Jordan (twice). But Shai is scoring more and turning it over less than even Jordan did:

While Jokic could fight Gilgeous-Alexander for the honor of the greatest individual offensive season ever, given his advantages as a passer and offensive rebounder, SGA brings far more value on the defensive end. Gilgeous-Alexander received All-Defensive Votes last season, and to my eyes, he’s been even better this year. He’s always had the length for steals and blocks, but he’s been putting the clamps down one-on-one even against physical freaks like Amen Thompson:

Through the first part of the season, the Thunder have put together the best defensive performance of modern NBA history. Shai isn’t a bystander; he’s an active contributor. Look at him fight over the screen, chase Kon Knueppel, and poke the ball away with his Jack Skellington arms:

This season, only two players - Gilgeous-Alexander and Antetokounmpo - are in the 95th percentile or above for both offensive and defensive EPM, but Giannis’ combined EPM of +8.6 (third in the league, mind you) doesn’t even approach Shai’s +11.0. The Canadian is in a league of his own.

So Shai is putting up one of the greatest scoring seasons of all time, turns it over at historically low rates, and is a major contributor to the greatest defense the league has ever seen. It’s a big if, but if the Thunder win three of the next five NBA titles, he could go down as a Top 10 player of all time.

Just for fun, let’s expand further. If we look at his last three years of scoring productivity vs. some of the all-time great perimeter scorers’ consecutive three-year peak, we see that almost nobody else can compare:

Right now, you’d probably give a slight edge to Steph Curry’s incredible run from 2015 to 2017 as the best perimeter combination of points and era-adjusted efficiency we’ve ever seen (and that’s before we get into the halo effects his shooting gravity had on his team). A 119 rTS% over three seasons, particularly given the degree of difficulty of Curry’s shots, is simply unthinkable, a museum-worthy masterpiece.

And other players, like Luka Doncic and James Harden, brought far more as a passer, which we don’t capture here. Heck, 1988-1990 was Michael Jordan’s best stretch as a pure scorer, but he also won four MVPs and six championships outside this window!

(It’s also interesting that of the four champions on that list, only Curry and SGA actually won rings during their scoring peak.)

But purely through this lens, there’s a strong argument to be made that Shai’s three-year scoring peak has been as good or better than almost any perimeter player in modern NBA history.

(For a more thorough look at GOAT peaks, check out HoopsHype’s work on five-year peaks from last season.)

Online, most of the non-statistical commentary about SGA’s game is complaints about his foul-drawing (a habit shared by virtually all of his superstar peers). Despite his MVP season last year, he was just the ninth-best-selling jersey in the league. OKCians love him; does anyone else?

It might not matter. The Thunder are young and feel destined for sustained success. This could be the start of a true-blue dynasty like we haven’t seen in a decade or more. After another few seasons of historically great play, even compared to other MVPs, his place in history will be unquestioned.

And with Shai just 27 years old, this season, perhaps the greatest year of basketball ever seen, might not even be his apex. And if that didn’t send shivers down your spine, you’re a braver human than I.

For more bad jokes and good analysis, check out BasketballPoetry.com.

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This article originally appeared on Hoops Hype: Is Shai Gilgeous-Alexander having the greatest NBA season ever?

Reporting by Michael Shearer, HoopsHype / Hoops Hype

USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect