Shai Gilgeous-Alexander isn’t backing off his Drake take.
The Oklahoma City Thunder star has made it clear he thinks Drake is the greatest rapper ever, even if that opinion gets plenty of pushback from his teammates and other older listeners. In a video for Spotify, Gilgeous-Alexander doubled down on the stance and said he was especially high on Iceman, one of Drake’s three releases that dropped the same day.
“Whenever I say Drake's the greatest rapper of all time, all the older guys go crazy, but that's about it,” he claimed. “I think Iceman is the best album of 2026.
[For] one, I think it has no skips. And then, two, the whole storyline and the back and forth, and to produce [that] after what the narrative was and what it is now, it speaks for itself in greatness.”
He also talked about Drake mentioning him on the album. Gilgeous-Alexander said he was stunned when he first heard it and had to run it back to make sure he caught it correctly. In his view, the line was both “great” and “genius.”
SGA says Drake is the greatest rapper of all time 👀
— NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) November 12, 2026
(Via @Spotify ) pic.twitter.com/TOWgkR87H9
Drake’s been busy this year, putting out Iceman, Maid of Honour, and Habibti on May 15. Those were his first albums since 2023’s For All the Dogs, and he’s also set to hit the road on the Fear of Missing Out Tour.
For Gilgeous-Alexander, the music talk comes after a massive stretch on the court. He and the Thunder are a year removed from winning the championship in June 2025, and he was named NBA Finals MVP for his work in that run.
That season stood as the best of his career. He won the first of back-to-back NBA MVP awards, finished it off with a title, and kept stacking honors along the way.
From 2023 to 2026, he made four straight All-Star teams and earned All-NBA First Team recognition each of those years. Gilgeous-Alexander began his NBA career with the Los Angeles Clippers before being traded to the Thunder in 2019.
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