NBA Finals 2025: SGA's legacy after Thunder's historic title run - ESPN

The Oklahoma City Thunder's 103-91 victory in Game 7 of the NBA Finals on Sunday was a collective coronation for the franchise, which won its first title since moving to OKC.

It was also a coronation for star guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who just capped one of the NBA history's most successful individual seasons with 29 points and 12 assists in the finale, becoming only the fifth player with a 20-10 performance in Game 7 of the Finals.

In the 2024-25 campaign, Gilgeous-Alexander won the scoring title, the MVP and the championship while leading his team to the best-ever point differential. And he could soon finish this wonderful year by signing a four-year, $293.4 million extension, which would give him the highest average salary in the history of the sport.

Gilgeous-Alexander is still just 26 years old, but he's rapidly rising the list of all-time greats. He and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar are the only players in NBA history to win MVP, Finals MVP and a scoring title by age 26. (Bob Pettit would have this trifecta, too, but the Finals MVP award didn't exist yet when he was the best player on the title-winning St. Louis Hawks in 1958.)

On the heels of his historic accomplishment and Oklahoma City's crowning moment, let's analyze Gilgeous-Alexander's surprising ascent, budding legacy and lofty statistical comps.

Gilgeous-Alexander faced long odds to reach this NBA peak. He was the 30th-ranked recruit in his high school class, behind 10 prospects who didn't make it to the NBA. In his lone college season, he wasn't even the highest-scoring freshman on his own team, finishing second behind future lottery bust Kevin Knox II.

And although Gilgeous-Alexander was himself a lottery pick, at No. 11, he was traded twice in his first year