There are different motivations for different people. For Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, it's a strong desire to continually improve that personally drives him forward.
In season two of Netflix's Starting 5, the superstar was quite candid about this mentality right out of the gates, as he revealed in episode one that while he's "obsessed" with the game of basketball, more than anything, he's "obsessed with the feeling of getting better at something."
"I'm not here for the fame. I'm here for the glory, the championships, and the rings," Gilgeous-Alexander said.
Obsession of 'getting better' clearly led Thunder star to MVP win
Over the last three seasons, Gilgeous-Alexander has found himself finishing inside the top five in MVP voting. In 2023-24, he wrapped up as a close second to Nikola Jokic, an outcome that Shaquille O'Neal was rather taken aback by.
Finally, in 2025, the Thunder cornerstone was able to take home the prestigious honor, edging out Jokic in the voting turnout by 913-787.
Without question, this win was largely due to his ability to get better from his previous campaigns.
Through 76 games played, Gilgeous-Alexander dropped career-highs of 32.7 points (led the NBA) and 6.4 assists per game to go along with 5.0 rebounds, 1.7 steals, and 1.0 blocks while pacing all players in the association with a minimum of 50 games played in plus-minus (+12.1) and net rating (16.7).
Along the way, he also became the only player outside of the Michael Jordan to average 30.0 points per game on 50.0 percent shooting from the field in three straight years and the fourth player ever to win the scoring title, regular season MVP, and Finals MVP all in the same season.
Now, heading into his eighth season with the 2025-26 campaign, there are serious debates over who between him and The Joker should be tabbed as the best player in the league. More often than not, it seems that pundits have the latter reigning supreme in such a conversation.
Fortunately, the mindset shared by Gilgeous-Alexander in the Netflix Docuseries should have Thunder fans confident that, even after attaining all the accolades and reaching the mountain top of the NBA, there's still plenty of room for the 27-year-old to improve. Hopefully, this will eventually lead him to become the unquestioned top option in these individual power rankings.
Already, there's a case to be made that SGA is the most untouchable player in the game today.
Excitingly enough, even with such a label, the Thunder star is presumably still not completely satisfied.