Since he was 6 years old, the Oklahoma City Thunder guard has dreamed of becoming the NBA's best player. His mom always made sure he looked the part. This season, he's finally able to play it.
Twenty-four hours earlier, the Thunder had become the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference, fueled by their young Big Three in Gilgeous-Alexander,. The Suns, behind their own Big Three, were tied for sixth, just a game out of the play-in tournament. Two teams on opposite trajectories -- one fighting to play the part of an NBA contender, the other fighting just to stay in the show.added another one. Possession after possession, the Suns' onslaught continued unabated.
This season Gilgeous-Alexander has improved at just about everything: scoring , defense and learning how to control and win games like the one against the Suns in which he scored 11 of his game-high 35 points in the final six minutes. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Chris Paul played one season together on the Thunder during the 2019-20 season. "You OK?" she asks Paul, figuring he'd only be calling her during the season if something was amiss.
She never made a lot of money as a social worker, she says. The family had to move around often. There were constant pressures. At the time, she was just thinking about guiding her boys to college and then steady jobs. But she didn't tamp down on any of the lofty dreams they had about being the next Kobe Bryant or Cristiano Ronaldo or Kevin Durant.
"I don't play about how you look," she said."My kids could run amok in my house, but when they stepped out that door, you better, as we say, 'fix up.'"Growing up we'd always try to dress and look the part," Gilgeous-Alexander said."That was very important. When we left the house, it was like, make sure your collar is down, make sure your shirt is not wrinkled. Make sure there's no boogers in your nose. Make sure there's nothing in your eyes.
"We would stay up for hours talking about what we want to accomplish, where we wanted to go," Alexander-Walker said."I remember him saying it then, too."Sam Presti likes to tell a story about a call and a visit he had with Jerry Krause, the architect of Michael Jordan's For Presti, the"electric moment" with Gilgeous-Alexander came during that 2019-20 season when he saw him playing against Paul during a practice. There was just something about the way Gilgeous-Alexander was competing, Presti said, something about the way he was finishing baskets that made him think he'd found the next face of his franchise.a decade and a half earlier and was at the beginning of what he hoped would be a similar rebuild around Gilgeous-Alexander.
But the foundation of the giant leap Gilgeous-Alexander and the Thunder were about to take were there for all to see.coach Mark Daigneault visited his star player in his hometown two summers ago, it was as if he'd been invited by a project manager who wanted to show his colleague how he'd optimized every part of his day.
"There was nothing to do so I tried to be as strict and as organized as I could," he said."I tried to be on more scheduled times." His handwriting is exceptionally neat. His clothes always fashion-forward and sleek. He drives a Cybertruck around town and it is always clean.
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