Bleacher Report’s pick-by-pick exercise for the best NBA Draft selection of the century at every first-round slot put Shai Gilgeous-Alexander in a familiar place: right at the center of the conversation.
At No. 11, the field has been strong enough to make the choice worth debating. Since 2000, that slot has produced players like Domantas Sabonis and Myles Turner, giving teams plenty of value in the middle of the lottery. But for writer Joey Akeley, the real showdown came down to Gilgeous-Alexander and Klay Thompson.
That’s a reasonable fight on paper. Thompson is a future Hall of Famer with five All-Star selections, four NBA championships and the fourth-most made three-pointers in league history at 2,899. He has a résumé that would usually make this kind of discussion pretty simple.
But Gilgeous-Alexander has pushed the argument into another tier.
At 28, the Thunder star has already become the 14th player in NBA history to win back-to-back MVPs and the 11th to win league MVP and Finals MVP in the same season. The only players to have matched those combined feats at his age are Michael Jordan and SGA.
And the numbers keep stacking up. Over his last four seasons in Oklahoma City, Gilgeous-Alexander has averaged 31.3 points per game while posting a 64.0 true shooting percentage. This past season, he scored 31.1 points per night and made 55.3 percent of his shots, the highest field-goal percentage ever for a guard averaging more than 30 points per game.
Thompson was a monster in his prime, but Gilgeous-Alexander has built a level of production and consistency that has separated him from the rest of the No. 11 class. Akeley’s view has moved beyond calling him the best 11th pick of the 21st century. In his eyes, Gilgeous-Alexander is now the greatest No. 11 pick ever, ahead of Thompson and even older legends such as Reggie Miller.
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