Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has spent the last two seasons dealing with injuries, and now, he will start training camp sidelined by a grade 2 MCL sprain. The OKC Thunder will re-evaluate SGA in two weeks.
The Oklahoma City Thunder have had an interesting offseason, starting with a bang at the 2022 NBA Draft lottery which saw them leap to the 2nd overall pick, with the Clippers pick owed to OKC remaining at 12. Then, OKC traded multiple future first-round picks for the 11th overall pick which was used to select Ousmane Dieng. OKC walked out of the 2022 NBA Draft with four new players headlined by future cornerstone Chet Holmgren.
Mix that with the OKC Thunder re-signing defensive star Lu Dort, key rotational piece Kenrich Williams, and veteran presence Mike Muscala and it looked as though Sam Presti pulled off the perfect offseason leading into the 2022-23 NBA season.
Then, the injuries happened. First Chet Holmgren was shelved for the entire season with a Lisfranc injury suffered in a Seattle Pro-Am event. Now, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander will miss the start of training camp, which tips-off September 27th with a Grade 2 MCL Sprain.
The Oklahoma City Thunder see Shai Gilgeous-Alexander sidelined for the start of training camp, to be re-evaluated in two weeks
Look, the National Media is going to continue with their poor and lazy narratives. But there are no deep dark conspiracies here, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is hurt. He has Grade 2 MCL sprain which will be re-evaluated in two weeks and might hold him out anywhere from two to six weeks.
There is no reason for this to be a “fake injury” or for this to be a “tanking move”, the OKC Thunder need Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to play this season, and you do not start sitting guys to tank until the last ten games of the season, if ever.
Not to mention OKC comes out of the gate with their hardest 11-game stretch of the season which the Thunder will likely only be favored in one of the matchups if any.
Even if the budding star played in these games, it would be incredibly hard for the OKC Thunder to pull out a ton of wins as a young team in the incredibly tough Western Conference. Forgetting the wins and losses, and the draft positioning, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander needs to play a lot of basketball for the Thunder to allow the organization to properly evaluate the young players around him.
While he might miss the OKC Thunder season opener on October 19th, I do not think he will be sidelined much longer than that. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has played a lot of basketball this summer to get ready for the season, and we will see where he is at in two weeks.
Oklahoma City Thunder General Manager Sam Presti is set to talk to the media Thursday morning, and of course, will go into more detail on Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the plan for this season.