Thursday night, OKC Thunder superstar Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has the opportunity to pass the great Wilt Chamberlain for the record of most consecutive 20-point games at 127.
Needless to say, coming anywhere close to, let alone accomplishing, such a feat is already a wild endeavor on its own, and the game's elite players have made this abundantly clear.
However, the way in which Gilgeous-Alexander has constructed such a streak is actually borderline unbelievable, and Yahoo Sports' Tom Haberstroh just proved it with his finding that the Thunder star has played in just 30 percent of fourth quarters during this ongoing streak.
Thunder star has barely needed fourth quarters to enter history books
Last season, former NBA Champion Nick Young made the claim that SGA's scoring production is heavily influenced by the Thunder keeping him "in the game during a blow out to get his numbers."
Even then, with this 20-point streak record nowhere on the radar, it was unanimously considered a blatant and baseless accusation.
Of course, with the feat now up for the taking, it's only become even more egregious, with Haberstroh finding that Gilgeous-Alexander has sat a total of 39 fourth quarters dating back to November 1, 2024, and has logged 36 or more minutes in a game just "a third of the time" along the way.
Along with these findings, the veteran sports analyst took things a step further in disproving the astonishingly fictitious Young claim by revealing that the Thunder star has scored 20 or more points by the start of the fourth quarter in 113 of the 126 games he's played, which equates to a ridiculous 89.6 percent success rate.
Throughout all of this, SGA has remained one of the most efficient scoring weapons not just in the modern era of the game, but of all time.
As things currently stand, the 27-year-old is on pace to become the first player to have four-straight 30-point-per-game seasons since Michael Jordan, is en route to hold the second-highest true shooting percentage in a 30.0-plus point-per-game season behind only Steph Curry, and to lead the league in 30-point games for the fourth time, with only Chamberlain and MJ having more.
On top of all this, he's closing in on becoming one of only a handful of players to average 30.0 or more points a game on 50.0 percent shooting from the field (31.7 points-per-game on 55.1 percent shooting).
If this season doesn't make him the second unanimous MVP winner, it's hard to figure out what will.