Here's where Shai Gilgeous-Alexander ranks in every major outlet's player rankings

The OKC Thunder head into the 2024-25 campaign viewed as the main threat to the reigning champion Boston Celtics in their quest to win back-to-back NBA Finals.

After becoming the youngest team in league history to claim the number one seed in a conference standings and to win a playoff series, many are confident in Oklahoma City's ability to take yet another step forward coming into the upcoming season. This is thanks to their new-found experiences and bolstered talent pool following an offseason full of shakeups.

And while the ball club's depth has been a major talking point of late when it comes to why their odds of contending for the Larry O'Brien Trophy this year are so high, simply put, the driving force in their lofty title-favorites status is franchise cornerstone Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.

Since arriving in Loud City in 2019, the guard has managed to improve upon his game with every passing season.

Now, five years into his Thunder tenure, SGA has turned himself from a young, promising stud to a bonafide superstar, and, if his two consecutive All-Star and All-NBA nods or his recent MVP runner-up standing wasn't enough, then his high-end placement on virtually every recent player rankings list certainly will.

Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander ranks top-5 for all major outlet

With the regular season right around the corner, all major sports news outlets have constructed their own power rankings for players slated to be in the association in 2024-25.

To no one's surprise, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander found himself slotting inside the top-five on every substantial publication's list, though not always in the same arrangement.

Here's where the Thunder star stacked up:

Interestingly enough, in each of the mentioned publications' lists, the top-three went as follows: Nikola Jokic, Luka Doncic, and Giannis Antetokounmpo.

In the lone case where Gilgeous-Alexander was found residing outside of the top four, Sporting News slid Joel Embiid (No. 5 on every other list) right ahead of him, with writer Gilbert McGregor highlighting the fact that "He averaged a shade under 35 points" in 2023-24, posted 33.0 points over six playoff games "despite being clearly hobbled," and that he's managed to slim down this offseason.

Of course, these were registered with the big man playing in a mere 39 regular season games due to him being impacted by lower leg injuries yet again.

Meanwhile, the Thunder star dropped over 30 points per night (30.1) for the second season in a row and stuffed the stat sheet with 6.2 assists, 5.5 rebounds, 2.0 steals, and just shy of a block on 53.5 percent shooting from the floor and 35.3 percent shooting from deep all while registering the third greatest offensive standard deviation rate in league history through 75 games played.

Oh yea, and led his team to the top-seed in his respective conference.

But, hey, perhaps Sporting News isn't of the mindset that one of the best abilities a player can have is availability...