SGA finally gets chance to `run the team'
The season was only a month old, but t here were already questions as to why Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the Thunder's point guard of the future, wasn't playing point guard.
“I would tell those folks to just chill ,” Doc Rivers said before a Thunder- Clippers game in mid-November at Staples Center.
Rivers coached Gilgeous-Alexander in his rookie season with the Clippers, and Rivers was set to face his former player for the first time.
“I like him better now, personally,” Rivers said. “Because when you watch Shai in the games, he still has the ball in his hands a lot. The responsibility of bringing the ball up the floor every time is hard, and he has a lot of time for that. He'll have that at some point.”
That ti me has arrived, at least temporarily.
With Dennis Schröder gone from the bubble for the birth of his second child, Gilgeous-Alexander will get a chance to run the Thunder offense by himself.
Chris Paul will still start at point guard, with Gilgeous-Alexander playing off the ball, but Thunder coach Billy Donovan will have to stagger the minutes of Paul and Gilgeous-Alexander without
a third point guard available.
“We're going to at ti mes only have one of t hem out there,” Donovan said. “Shai's gonna have to run the team. I feel like Shai's prepared for that, can handle it and he'll do a great job.”
Gil geous- Alexander was the only Thunder point guard on the floor for 13 minutes Monday in an overtime loss to the Nuggets. That number might go up Wednesday against the Lake rs, as Gil geo us-Alexander dealt with foul trouble against Denver.
Including Monday, Gilgeous-Alexander has only played point guard for 91 minutes this season, according to Basketball Reference's estimate. That accounts for 4% of his playing time. He played shooting guard or small forward 96% of the time.
Gil geo us-Alexander regularly shared the floor with either Paul or Schröder, or often both to close games. The Paul/Gilgeous-Alexander/ Schröder lineup was the most lethal three- man combination in the NBA by net rating, outscoring opponents by 28.6
Three things to know
• The Lakers clinched the No. 1 seed in the West with a 116-108 win against the Jazz on Monday. The Lakers last made the playoffs in 2012-13, and they'll enter as the No. 1 seed for the first time since 2010.
• Lakers star LeBron James leads the NBA with 10.4 assists per game. James ranks second among active players in career assists (9,319) behind Thunder point guard Chris Paul (9,622). Russell Westbrook (7,283) is third. • The Thunder ranks sixth in the NBA in fewest turnovers per game (13.6), but Oklahoma City has averaged 18 turnovers in its first two games of the restart. points per 100 possessions.
That lineup will be shelved until Schröder returns.
Paul and Gil geo usAlexander will likely share the court to start and end halves, but in between it will be one or the other running the offense on his own.
“That' s not something that's super foreign to me,” said Gil geo us-Alexander, who's averaging a team-high 19.4 points per game. “I've been a lead guard my whole life. I'll just be getting back to what I'm used to.”
The 22- year-old has the size at 6- foot- 6 to play on the wing, but point guard was always his position until this season. It's what he primarily played in his rookie year with the Clippers, in college at Kentucky and as a heralded high school prospect.
But Gilgeous-Alexander was forced to adapt when he joined a Thunder roster that included two established veteran point guards in Paul and Schröder.
“It wasn't the easiest thing to do, but I can honestly say it' s made me better ,” Gil geo us-Alexander said. “And it'll make me into the player I want to be. If you look at all the great teams, and the great players, in order for them to win they had to be able to play multiple positions and not only stick to one. And that's the player that I ultimately want to be when I'm done with this game.”