The Thunder’s superstar remains the key to success. 

The Oklahoma City Thunder have been riddled with injuries this early in the season, and although it has halted OKC’s overall performance, it hasn’t stopped them. The Thunder have won two games in a row, as they beat the Cleveland Cavaliers Wednesday night, 124-116. 

The Thunder seemed to have found their footing once again after the sudden mirage of injuries, and it is mainly due to one player. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was expected to be the leader of this Oklahoma City team, but now he has become its only hope. 

He has taken this challenge personally after seeing the disaster of injuries, as he has scored over 40 points in his past two games. The back-to-back Most Valuable Player Award winner is now averaging over 30 points per game this season and will have to continue this trend if OKC wants to continue to compete. 

The Thunder would love to think that other players are going to step up in the moment and help Gilgeous-Alexander so he doesn’t have to drop 40 points a night to win, but sometimes that just isn’t the case. In the Thunder’s loss to the Rockets earlier this season, the superstar had 26 points, a solid night for anyone, but none of his teammates scored over 11 points that night. 

Ajay Mitchell has been trying his best to support the star, as he is almost averaging 18 points per game, but the level of contribution isn’t the same across the board with the absences of Jalen Williams, Cason Wallace and Chet Holmgren. 

This problem is supposed to get better in the future with Holmgren returning later in the season, but the team won’t be at full strength with Wallace and Williams projected to be out for most of it, not the whole year. This issue limited OKC in last year’s Western Conference Finals, and the Thunder would hate to see their season fall short due to injury. 

To sum it up, the Thunder don’t just need another MVP season from Gilgeous-Alexander; they need his best season yet. The guard has shown that he can take over every game he steps in, and he will have to do just that for the remainder of the season. While it isn’t just one player who makes the game as a whole, one player can be the impact OKC needs to get back to the top of the mountain, especially when that player is Gilgeous-Alexander.