Usually, NBA superstars are asked to carry the offensive load for their teams. That’s why when you sort through who’s logged the most minutes in any season, the top results are MVP-caliber players. But Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has a more unique set of circumstances that haven’t been seen since prime Stephen Curry.
The Oklahoma City Thunder had one of the greatest seasons last year. They went a historic 68-14 in the regular season with an NBA-record plus-12.9 point differential. That meant, more often than most, they’d blow a team out on the scoreboard.
It’d be a surprise when the Thunder didn’t win by double-digit points — much less lose a game. They went on to win the NBA championship. How have they followed up as an encore with mostly the same roster? Even more dominance.
The Thunder are off to a historic 15-1 start. They’ve one-upped their eye-popping point differential from last season to an all-time best plus-15.4. An even more impressive feat, considering OKC started the year with two 2OT wins.
It’s still early in the season, but the Thunder look primed to go back-to-back. Juggling injuries, one of the ways they’ve preserved Gilgeous-Alexander’s legs is by clocking out earlier than expected in most of his NBA shifts.
Gilgeous-Alexander has only played in the fourth quarter in seven of OKC’s 16 games. That means for over half of the games this season, the reigning MVP has relaxed on the bench in the final frame while the Thunder ran away on the scoreboard.
All that extra rest time adds up. Right now, he’s sat out the equivalent of a little over two games’ worth of regulation minutes. As the Thunder continue to be a winning machine, expect that number to rise the deeper we get into the regular season.
While Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault says they never enter a game with the explicit goal of sitting Gilgeous-Alexander out earlier than needed, it does have its long-term benefits.
“We’re just reading the games in those cases. It’s certainly not something that you plan on. You don’t know how a game’s going to unfold,” Daigneault said. “But when we get into a game in the fourth quarter where the game is in hand and we can sit him out and other guys. It’s not just about him. We’ve been able to preserve some of our higher-minute guys in those situations.”
Health might be the only thing stopping the Thunder from playing in the 2026 NBA Finals. That’s plagued the last couple of reigning NBA champions. It doesn’t get talked about enough, but playing high-intensity basketball into June is physically taxing.
That’s where the impromptu fourth-quarter rests could help the Thunder out. Not only for Gilgeous-Alexander, but also for other important starters like Chet Holmgren and Jalen Williams.
“We take advantage of those situations, not only for their health and freshness, but also for the development of the other players that we’re able to get minutes for,” Daigneault said. “There’s only so many games, there’s only so many minutes, and you can’t play everybody every minute.”
