Twelve days before Oklahoma City opens the 2026-27 regular season at the Spurs, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander planted a flag. In an interview with TIME published Thursday, the Thunder guard said the title of best player in the NBA already belongs to him.

“I think I’m the best player in the NBA. I think the production that I have night in and night out is best-player-in-the-NBA production.”

“I think the efficiency that I do it at is best-player-in-the-NBA efficiency.”

He went straight to the trophy case to back it up.

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“I think everybody picks up a basketball or a soccer ball or a football or a tennis ball to win the game, the match, whatever it is. And I’ve done my fair share of winning in these past couple years.”

Gilgeous-Alexander has back-to-back MVPs and the 2024-25 championship on that résumé. On the ballot last season, he took 83 of 100 first-place votes, with Nikola Jokic second on 10 and Victor Wembanyama third on five. Wembanyama went on to win Defensive Player of the Year as the first unanimous selection in the award’s history.

‘The MVP waited until Game 7’

The declaration arrived without a clean season behind it. Oklahoma City’s title defence ended in a 111-103 Game 7 loss to the Spurs in the Western Conference Finals, and Gilgeous-Alexander did not spread the responsibility.

“The MVP of the league waited until Game 7 to have a good game. I don’t think it’s on Chet. I carry a lot of the weight.”

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He shot 37.9% from the field and 26.1% from three across the first six games of the series before dropping 35 points in the decider, Yahoo Sports reported. Chet Holmgren, Oklahoma City’s centre, averaged 10.7 points per game in the series against 27.3 for Wembanyama.

Wembanyama’s ‘ethical basketball’ line

Wembanyama is the only opposing player who turns up in the TIME piece by name, and he does so as the voice behind the loudest critique of Gilgeous-Alexander’s style. After a Spurs win last December, the San Antonio centre said he was glad his team played “pure and ethical basketball”. The jab landed on a Gilgeous-Alexander game built around drawing contact and getting to the line.

The MVP has not changed the formula. He has finished top-three in the league in free-throw attempts per game in each of the last four seasons, per Bleacher Report, and he waved off the social-media noise around it.

“Playing this game has done amazing things for my and my family’s life. And if a narrative on social media is the worst that comes from this game for me, well, I’d take that a million times out of a million times.”

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The 2026-27 regular season tips off on Tuesday, 20 October, with the Thunder visiting the Spurs on NBC. It will be the first regular-season meeting between the two teams since Game 7.

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