Shai Gilgeous-Alexander Called His MVP Season a “Failure” After Thunder Lost in Game 7
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander just won back-to-back MVP awards and the Kia Clutch Player of the Year. He averaged 31.1 points during the regular season, dragged the Thunder to 64 wins, and went for 35 in a Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals.
And he called the whole season a failure.
“It was a failure,” Gilgeous-Alexander said after the Spurs eliminated the Thunder 111-103 in Game 7. “I failed at my goal. I didn’t achieve what I wanted to achieve.” That is the kind of quote that ages well. SGA is not a guy who deflects. He owns the result, even when the result was not really on him.
The Thunder were the defending champs. They had Wembanyama’s number until they didn’t, and they ran into a buzzsaw in San Antonio in the second half of Game 7. SGA shot 12-of-21 from the field and 9-of-11 from the line in the loss. He was the best player on the floor for most of the night. He still lost.
That is the cruel math of the modern NBA. Even the MVP doing MVP things isn’t enough when the other team has a 7-foot-3 unicorn who can switch onto guards. Wemby just kept beating the Thunder to spots, and at some point the OKC offense stopped getting the looks it needed.
What SGA did after the game matters more than what happened during it. He immediately credited the Spurs (“they were just the better team tonight, from start to finish”), declined to make excuses, and told reporters he expects to learn from this loss the same way he has learned from every other one in his career.
“Through my experiences, I learn the most about myself and I make the great amount of increases I have in my career when I fail at my goal and don’t get what I want,” SGA said. That is a 27-year-old superstar talking like a 35-year-old veteran. That is also why the Thunder are going to be terrifying again next year.
The roster is mostly young, mostly cheap, and mostly under contract. Chet Holmgren is 24. Jalen Williams is 25. Sam Presti has draft capital coming out of his ears. The Thunder lost a Game 7 against the eventual Western Conference champ, and they are still the favorite to come out of the conference in 2027.
What this means is OKC is not in crisis mode. They are in regroup mode. There is a difference. SGA wins another MVP in 2026-27 if he plays the same way, and the Thunder are going to enter next season with a chip the size of Wembanyama’s wingspan.
The harder question is what happens to Holmgren. He has shown flashes of being a defensive cornerstone and stretches where the offense vanishes. Presti is going to have to decide if Chet is the second star or a fancy role player on a contender. That answer probably defines the next three years of Thunder basketball.
For now, SGA gets to sit at home for the Finals while the guy who beat him plays for a ring. He’s already said he plans to use it. The rest of the league should believe him. The Thunder will be back, and they will be angry.
This was failure. He said so himself. The next time anyone calls it a failure, SGA is going to want to be the one holding the trophy.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
