If people thought the Oklahoma City Thunder were too reliant on Shai Gilgeous-Alexander for their offensive production last season, wait until they get a load of this 2025-26 approach.
While they may only be two games into the new campaign, OKC has been riding its superstar guard extremely hard to provide any semblance of consistent scoring production.
His usage rate is up roughly five percentage points compared to last season at 38.8 (second to only Giannis Antetokounmpo's 45.3), while his total minutes logged pace all players to this point at 93, averaging out to 46.3 a night.
For virtually any player, this is an obscene level of dependency. However, for someone who just wrapped up a hard-fought title run that consisted of two seven-game playoff series and was followed up by the shortest offseason at just over three months, it's truly troubling and could theoretically lead to serious problems if this continues.
Thunder can't keep up level of dependency on Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
Granted, the idea of him shouldering a heavier scoring load early on in the season was something that many were expecting, particularly due to the fact that his co-star, Jalen Williams, is still far from fully recovered from offseason wrist surgery.
Once he returns to action, the hope is that the Thunder will be able to entrust the recently minted All-NBA forward with close number two scoring duties as they did last season.
Until then, however, it appears SGA will be far and away the only truly reliable weapon coach Mark Daigneault has at his disposal, which is rather shocking considering the hype surrounding big man Chet Holmgren heading into year three of his career.
Though it may only be a small sample size, the 23-year-old has been far from the breakout star fans and pundits were hoping to see him become this year, especially after Thursday's bout against the Pacers where, instead of seamlessly sliding in as the unquestioned second option alongside Shai, he finished with a mere 15 points on 4-of-12 shooting from the floor and 0-of-6 shooting from deep.
To make up for this lackluster performance, Gilgeous-Alexander was forced to drop a new career-high of 55 points on 31 attempts in 45 minutes played during the club's 141-135 double overtime win.
Clearly, the Thunder star is more than capable of excelling when used in this highly involved manner. The problem, however, is that even though he may be capable, this shouldn't become the norm for OKC moving forward.
Over the last 365 days alone, we've seen plenty of players in their primes sustain serious, long-standing injuries stemming from excessive wear and tear (Tyrese Haliburton, Jayson Tatum, etc.).
With the way Oklahoma City is choosing to use him to kick off the season, the risk of Gilgeous-Alexander inching closer to such a potential happening only increases.