As The Athletic's Sam Amick correctly brought to light, OKC Thunder superstar Shai Gilgeous-Alexander "can’t go five years playing Luka‑style basketball" and expect to not negatively impact his longevity and overall durability in this league.
In more simplified words, should Oklahoma City continue to lean on SGA's isolation skills and depend on his heavy usage rate much longer, the long-time NBA writer suggests there's reason to believe wear and tear should eventually take its toll, as it's already done with the oft-injured Luka Doncic following his run-into-the-ground time with the Dallas Mavericks and, now, the Los Angeles Lakers.
Fortunately, Gilgeous-Alexander seems to already be well ahead of the curve on this front.
Earlier this summer, reports surfaced that the Thunder cornerstone had been working on his off-ball offensive game. To Gordie Herbert, Shai's headman for Team Canada Senior Men's Basketball, adding such a development to his bag of tricks should only make the two-time MVP even "tougher to guard."
Considering Gilgeous-Alexander is coming off a 2025-26 season where he ranked fourth in usage rate (minimum 60 games), his third-straight in which he's averaged north of 31.0 percent, and placed in the 92.6 percentile in isolation sets, such a shift should only benefit Oklahoma City's centerpiece.
Thunder have the makings of 'undergoing a very subtle shift' on offense
Fortunately, it seems the Thunder have the surrounding talent necessary to help accommodate this potential veering away from a Doncic-esque level of offensive dependency for Gilgeous-Alexander.
During a recent episode of the Kevin O'Connor Show, the eponymous host broached the idea that OKC could be in line to undergo "a very subtle shift" in the way they approach the offensive side of the game this coming year.
The premise of the argument was built around guys like Jalen Williams, Isaiah Hartenstein, Ajay Mitchell, and even rookie Aday Mara having the skills necessary to take over some serious self-creation duties, be it in the isolation scoring or distribution department.
Even if Gilgeous-Alexander is coming across more off-the-catch shot attempts this coming year, his historic level of efficiency shouldn't be negatively impacted in the slightest.
In fact, considering he sported an effective field goal percentage of 60.8 on catch-and-shoot looks last season, and averaged a ridiculous 65.3 percent effective field goal percentage and a long-range clip of 46.6 percent in such sets the year before, there's a case to be made that his efficiency could wind up benefiting from the hypothetical shift.
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