Over the past few years, the OKC Thunder offense has grown incredibly reliant on Shai Gilgeous-Alexander's on-ball dominance and elite isolation skills.
Last season, the superstar recorded his fourth-straight 30-plus point-per-game season while hoisting up nearly 20 shots per game and registering in the 92.6 percentile in iso sets.
Now, heading into 2026-27, it appears the club could be in line to flip the switch completely.
During a recent episode of The Kevin O'Connor Show, the eponymous host publicly pondered the idea of Oklahoma City potentially "undergoing a very subtle shift in the way in which they play on the offensive end," specifically highlighting the abundance of creators the club currently has, coming both in the form of green and seasoned talents.
Though it may have come a bit too few and far between due, in large part, to team necessity, last season Shai showcased just how lethal a decoy he can be when on the hardwood, particularly during OKC's deep playoff run.
O'Connor is suggesting the Thunder may want to explore such sets on a more consistent basis this coming campaign.
Thunder set up to lean less on Shai Gilgeous-Alexander's iso skills
The defensive gravity Shai creates is matched by few others in the association, which, as a result, often leads to double and even triple teams, creating wide-open opportunities for his teammates.
This coming campaign, O'Connor seems to have a slight expectation that guys like a presumably healthy Jalen Williams, Isaiah Hartenstein, Cason Wallace, Aday Mara, Bennett Stirtz, and many others could be more heavily relied upon to generate offensive looks for themselves and others rather than consistently rely on Gilgeous-Alexander to carry all the load.
As the Thunder have clearly experienced over the past few years, injuries can pop up at any given time and create unexpected hardships.
The last thing they want is to see their cornerstone succumb to a debilitating health-related ailment. If they keep using him at the rate they do, podcast guest and The Athletic senior NBA writer Sam Amick fears that "going five years playing Luka-style basketball" could seriously hurt him from a longevity and durability standpoint, as it clearly has with Doncic.
With this all in mind, perhaps a strategic approach for this Thunder team moving forward could be to use SGA as a distraction on a more consistent basis in an effort to set his running mates up for more self-created offensive success.
Doing so with the reigning two-time MVP and one of the most dominant scoring threats in league history could very well make Shai the greatest on-court decoy of all time.
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