The Canadian won his first most valuable player trophy of the season with the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Photo: EFE – Gerald Leong
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The Canadian Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, star of the Oklahoma City Thunder, received his first prize for the most valuable player (MVP) of the regular NBA season overcoming the other favorite, the Serbian Nikola Jokić (Denver Nuggets).
Gilgeous-Alexander, 26, was the top scorer of the regular phase with 32.7 points per night and led the young Thunder to the best balance of the North American Basketball League with 68 wins and 14 losses.
The base received a total of 913 points by the voter panel, formed by a hundred members of the media.
The second place was occupied by Jokic, with 787 points, and the third the Greek Giannis Antetokounmpo (Milwaukee Bucks), with 470.
No player born in the United States has received this recognition from James Harden in 2018.
Jokic, who signed a historic campaign with averages of 29.6 points, 12.7 rebounds and 10.2 assistance, aspired to a fourth MVP award with which he had matched LeBron James and the mythical Wilt Chamberlain.
His amazing mean of a triple double per game, never previously achieved by a pivot, was insufficient at the unstoppable progression of Gilgeous-Alexander, who last year has already completed in second place after Jokic.
“I used my second place last year as motivation. This year I wanted to change the course of the story, and did a good job,” the TNT chain base told the announcement.
Gilgeous-Alexander, second Canadian to obtain the award after Steve Nash (2005 and 2006), quickly thanked the support of his classmates but acknowledged that this individual success was one of his great goals in the NBA.
“You try hard throughout the season not to think about it and just worry about playing basketball, improving and trying to win games,” he said. “But as a competitor, like a child who dreams of the game, he is always at the bottom of your mind and I am very grateful to be on this side of the vote.”
After the steps of Durant and Westbrook
This year, the NBA delayed the announcement of the winner of the award until the end of the semifinals of the West Conference between the Jokic and the Thunder of Gilgeous-Alexander.
The base, also known for his initials 'SGA', was winning the duel leading Oklahoma City to his first conference final since 2012, in which they face the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook, leaders of the Thunder in 2012, are the only stars of the franchise that the MVP had received.
In addition to its 32.7 points, Gilgeous-Alexander also shows socks of 5.0 rebounds and 6.4 assists, in addition to a formidable defensive average of 1.7 robberies and 1 cap.
Only Michael Jordan had previously averaged more than 32 points and 6 assists with an effectiveness greater than 50% in field shots.
In an obsessed NBA with the outer launch, SGA has reached the top perfecting the art of the entrance to the basket and the medium distance shot, while an effective defender thanks to a unusual height (1.98 m) in its position.
Transferred by clippers
Born on July 12, 1998 in Hamilton, on the outskirts of Toronto, the Base inherited its physical qualities of its mother, Charmaine Gilgeous, who competed in the 400 flat meters of the Olympic Games of Barcelona-1992 on the Caribbean island of Antigua and Barbuda.
The Canadian moved to the United States to finish his high school studies and played a season at the prestigious University of Kentucky.
In 2018 he was chosen in the eleventh place of the Draft and played his rookie year with Los Angeles Clippers. In 2019 it was included in the monumental transfer by which the clippers were made with Paul George, nine times All-Star.
With the perspective of time, the operation ended up being a fiasco for the Californian franchise, which did not compete for the title and at the same time let out a MVP future.
In Oklahoma City, SGA has been the cornerstone of the patient reconstruction of the franchise and, without the media attention of other young stars, their average annotation has not dropped from the 30 points in the last three seasons.
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