Satisfaction is the brother of complacency and the cousin of disappointment.
The Oklahoma City Thunder will keep that at the front of their mind throughout the 2025-26 regular season. Chasing basketball immortality, this upcoming year will be about keeping their seat on the NBA throne.
Opening Night is finally here. Nearly four months since they captured the Larry O’Brien trophy, the Thunder will have one final celebration before beginning a new journey. The annual pregame ceremony will see their championship banner dropped and rings handed out.
After Shai Gilgeous-Alexander had one of the greatest individual seasons ever, how does he follow up on that? The reigning MVP wants the encore to be a one-up.
“I wasn’t perfect last year. I can be a lot better in specific areas. But essentially, just evolving as a player. Continuing to be humble, to grow, to work on my weaknesses,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “I don’t feel like in the playoffs last year, I was the best version of myself. That’s what I’m focusing on.”
Scary to think about what tangibles Gilgeous-Alexander feels he could be better at. He’s already admitted on Netflix’s ‘Starting 5’ documentary that scoring just 30 points is a bad game for him. Perhaps there was a tongue-in-cheek style involved, but the 27-year-old is smack-dab in his prime.
If the Thunder hope to become repeat NBA champions, they will need Gilgeous-Alexander to continue to be a walking 30-point bucket. He’s one of the best players in the league and has everything in front of him to remain one of the NBA’s faces of the 2020s and beyond.
