Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Thunder show Raptors fans why they're must-see TV

TORONTO — You know when you have camera crews from Netflix following you around, you’re pretty good, and your team might have a story to tell, too.

There are plenty of ways to measure the growing respect that Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the Oklahoma City Thunder are generating this season as they make the official leap from ‘up-and-coming’ to ‘arrived’ as a contender for an NBA title.

But one of them is when your best player has been designated as one of the featured athletes for the second season of Starting Five, the NBA documentary series on the streaming giant that goes behind the scenes with the league’s biggest stars.

The camera was following Hamilton's Gilgeous-Alexander around Toronto for the OKC star's one visit to the Golden Horseshoe this season.

Everyone loves a good homecoming, Gilgeous-Alexander included. The cameras saw him greet everyone from his dad to Drake, sign autographs and shred the Raptors defence with equal ease. The soundtrack was trademark SGA chill.

“It’s amazing playing in front of people who are from where I’m from, who grew up where I grew up, who have seen the things I’ve seen.” he said Thursday, his post-game fit featuring designer sunglasses, a diamond encrusted crucifix and a shaggy black fur coat that could have been from a woolly mammoth. “It’s like a little connection we share, even if we’ve never met. It’s cool. I’m proud to be Canadian.”

The Netflix cameras and the crowd at Scotiabank Arena saw first-hand why the story they elected to tell might have a dramatic ending, such as the Thunder and Gilgeous-Alexander competing for an NBA title in June with, say, Jaylen Brown of the Boston Celtics, who is one of the other featured players this season.

The Thunder very much look like they could be Finals bound, and it should make for good TV.

For Toronto, it made for a long night as the NBA’s best defensive team held them to 35.2-per-cent shooting on their way to a 129-92 blowout loss, the 37-point deficit the largest of the season for the 7-16 Raptors. It was decided roughly when the 17-5 Thunder headed into halftime with a 25-point lead, having accumulated more steals and blocks (nine of each) than the Raptors had made field goals (15 on 46 attempts). In the end, the Thunder accumulated 14 steals and 11 blocked shots. The Raptors did make 32 field goals, but it took them 91 shots, and Toronto's 19 turnovers translated into 28 Thunder points.

The Raptors got second-year wing Gradey Dick back after missing five games with a bruised calf. That was positive as Dick was one of the Raptors' more effective players, finishing with 15 points on five-of-nine shooting in 23 minutes. But the Raptors were without centre Jakob Poeltl due to illness and the size-starved team missed its only reliable big man.

The Thunder were never threatened – they led by 10 after four minutes, 17 after the first quarter and 34 to start the fourth quarter. This is how a team accumulates the NBA’s largest point differential.

The Raptors' stars struggled against the Thunder’s swarming defence, which collectively has been holding teams to just 103.2 points per 100 possessions, nearly 10 points better than the league average. Scottie Barnes had just 12 points on five-of-13 shooting and was two-of-seven from three without attempting a free throw. He had 12 rebounds and eight assists, but four turnovers. RJ Barrett had 17 points on five-of-16 shooting including one-of-seven from three, to go with 11 rebounds.

The Thunder likely could have won by more, and Gilgeous-Alexander could have had more than the 30 points he finished with were he not 1-of-10 from three, but that was a choice. The Thunder star has made three-point shooting a bigger part of his arsenal, taking 6.1 a game, nearly doubling his average number of attempts from years past. It’s a long-term play as he works to develop a counter to defences that pack the paint to defend against his ability to drive the basket, a skill at which there are none better in basketball.

“It’s very fun,” he said of his three-point experiment. “The process of getting better and adding something is like the best feeling to me. And when it’s all said and done, I want to be a basketball player with no holes in my game.”

For the Raptors, the attention Gilgeous-Alexander is getting is something to aspire to. No one was paying attention to the Thunder three or four seasons ago when they won 22 and 24 games, respectively. People began to take notice in the 2022-23 season when the Thunder won 40 games and Gilgeous-Alexander had his breakout season, finishing fifth in the MVP voting.

But win 57 games, earn the first seed in the Western Conference as OKC did last season, and you’re firmly on the map. Gilgeous-Alexander finishing second in the MVP voting was proof. This season the Thunder are playing under the weight of expectations, having been declared favourites after adding wing defender Alex Caruso and big man Isaiah Hartenstein in the off-season.

“I think there is a difference, but not inside our building,” said Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault, who has been on-court architect of the Thunder’s steady rise. “I think everybody else is different and the noise is different, and the tone around the team is different, and we respect that. We don't try to ... shield our players from it, or act like it doesn't exist. But we also know that when it comes to competing and when it comes to improving, it's pretty irrelevant, and it's a distraction. And so we have to keep that in its proper place if we want to be the most competitive, growing team that we can be, which is what we want to do.”

It helps that the Thunder's longest-standing citizens share the same view. Lu Dort, a fellow Canadian men’s national team star from Montreal, is in his sixth year with the Thunder, tied in seniority with OKC to Gilgeous-Alexander.

The transition from also-ran to up-and-comer to contender feels like a natural progression. They are comfortable being the hunted. “We don’t really pay attention to that,” Dort said after helping lock down Barrett with his trademark physical on-ball defence.

“Our main thing is go out there and compete. It’s nice to be in the position we’re in, yes, but really don’t really pay attention, we just try to win games.”

It should all serve as a blueprint for the Raptors or any team hoping to make the journey from also-ran to relevance. Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic certainly hopes his team took note as they were being tossed aside by a deeper squad that played harder, even if the competition probably meant they could have taken their foot off the gas a little bit and earned a similar result.

“They are a really good team, and they are a team built for now,” said Rajakovic, who started his NBA coaching career as an assistant with OKC. “Obviously if you have a player like Shai who is one-for-10 from three and still has 30 points, that helps a lot … but there is a lot for us to learn from that team.”

From where Gilgeous-Alexander sits, the lesson is to keep doing the little stuff and the big stuff – a crack at an MVP award, an NBA title, a spot in a Netflix documentary – will ideally follow.

“It doesn’t feel different at all,” he said. “We’re the same group of guys with a couple of additions who have blended in very well. We just take it a day at a time, try to get better with every game, every opportunity and hopefully by the end of the year we’re where we want to be.”

Thanks to Netflix, we’ll all be able to go along for the ride.