{"id":70798,"date":"2024-03-27T11:44:00","date_gmt":"2024-03-27T15:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=70798"},"modified":"2026-03-10T22:02:54","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T02:02:54","slug":"nba-mvp-candidate-reportedly-dealing-with-injury-shai-gilgeous-alexander-oklahoma-city-thunder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/03\/27\/nba-mvp-candidate-reportedly-dealing-with-injury-shai-gilgeous-alexander-oklahoma-city-thunder\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA MVP Candidate Reportedly Dealing With Nagging Injury"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In a postgame presser following the Oklahoma City Thunder&#8217;s victory against the Utah Jazz, star guard <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/g\/gilgesh01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-03-27_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Shai Gilgeous-Alexander<\/a> revealed he is dealing with a quad injury, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Rosslovelace\/status\/1772826045399417218?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1772826045399417218%7Ctwgr%5E072067e40e3102f46191af045970ae89f2fb2062%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fhoopshype.com%2Fteam%2Foklahoma-city-thunder%2F\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">yeah, little banged up in my quad. Happened in the Utah game.<\/a>&#8221; Furthermore, Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault said the team is &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/hoopshype.com\/rumor\/2787291\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">monitoring<\/a>&#8221; Gilgeous-Alexander&#8217;s injury:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>He\u2019s banged up, for sure. He\u2019s not 100%. We\u2019re monitoring it, but he\u2019s certainly not a hundred percent. I\u2019ll let him speak on it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>With a 50-21 record, the Thunder currently own the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference. Furthermore, they are just 0.5 games behind the Denver Nuggets for the Western Conference&#8217;s best record with 11 games remaining.<\/p>\n<h2>NBA MVP Candidate Reportedly Dealing With Nagging Injury<\/h2>\n<h3>Shai Gilgeous-Alexander&#8217;s MVP Candidacy<\/h3>\n<p>The 25-year-old combo guard is enjoying the best season of his young career in the NBA. In addition to his team&#8217;s impressive success this season, Gilgeous-Alexander&#8217;s individual performance has made him a top NBA MVP candidate. Currently, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2023\/10\/12\/top-25-nba-players-2023-24-no-12-shai-gilgeous-alexander\/\" target=\"_self\">Gilgeous-Alexander<\/a> (+225) only trails the Nuggets&#8217; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/j\/jokicni01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-03-27_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Nikola Jokic<\/a> (-150) as the betting favorite to bring home the MVP award this year. This season, Gilgeous-Alexander made it to his <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/01\/25\/nba-news-2024-all-star-starters-announced\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">second consecutive All-Star team<\/a>, and his first as a starter. In 70 games played so far, the Canadian native is averaging 30.4 points, 5.6 rebounds, 6.3 assists, and a league-leading 2.1 steals per game. Furthermore, he is shooting an impressive 54% from the field, including 36.7% from beyond the arc.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"tl\">SGA spin cycle \ud83c\udf00 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/6E9gAfivpU\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/6E9gAfivpU<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 OKC THUNDER (@okcthunder) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/okcthunder\/status\/1772787945646272658?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">March 27, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Recently, Gilgeous-Alexander spoke about being in the MVP race, saying it is an award he would &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/bleacherreport.com\/articles\/10114366-shai-gilgeous-alexander-talks-nba-mvp-race-chet-holmgren-and-more-in-br-interview\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">definitely want<\/a>&#8220;:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s a surreal feeling,&#8221; the Oklahoma City Thunder guard told Bleacher Report when discussing being in the MVP race. &#8220;You dream about it as a kid. I certainly have, wanting to be in the NBA my whole life. It&#8217;s something that I try not to put too much thought or emphasis on and let the chips fall where they may, but it&#8217;s something that I definitely want. If I achieve it and am blessed enough to get the award, I&#8217;ll be very happy.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Furthermore, NBA legend <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/o\/onealsh01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-03-27_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Shaquille O&#8217;Neal<\/a> recently endorsed the Thunder guard as his MVP for this season:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cThe MVP is SGA,\u201d said Shaq on TNT. \u201cHe meets my criteria and everybody else&#8217;s criteria. He\u2019s the baddest player in the game and their team is 49-21.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">\u201cThe MVP is SGA. Period. \u2026 He\u2019s the baddest player in the game and their team is 49-21.\u201d<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SHAQ?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@SHAQ<\/a> has his pick for MVP \ud83d\udc40 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/nPbCZGouob\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/nPbCZGouob<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 NBA on TNT (@NBAonTNT) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NBAonTNT\/status\/1772768458452652051?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">March 26, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h3>The Last Word on Shai Gilgeous-Alexander<\/h3>\n<p>Although it is not official yet, the Thunder should clinch a postseason spot soon. Because of this, the team may be cautious with Gilgeous-Alexander&#8217;s quad injury and rest him or shorten his minutes before the end of the season. However, if they are hoping to clinch homecourt advantage in the Western Conference for the playoffs, keeping the team at full force is another option. Regardless, the Thunder are in a good spot to bring a title to Oklahoma City this season. Gilgeous-Alexander has not missed a game following his quad injury and is still putting up MVP numbers. Clearly, the injury is not severe enough to force him to miss time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a postgame presser following the Oklahoma City Thunder&#8217;s victory against the Utah Jazz, star guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander revealed he is dealing with a quad injury, &#8220;yeah, little banged up in my quad. Happened in the Utah game.&#8221; Furthermore, Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault said the team is &#8220;monitoring&#8221; Gilgeous-Alexander&#8217;s injury: He\u2019s banged up, for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4631,"featured_media":70806,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,20,62,3,22],"tags":[72,1489,261],"class_list":["post-70798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-nuggets","category-nba","category-news","category-thunder","tag-nikola-jokic","tag-shai-gilgeous-alexander","tag-shaquille-oneal"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4631"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70798"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70798\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":180878,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70798\/revisions\/180878"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}