Shai Gilgeous-Alexander named SI's 2025 Sportsperson of the Year

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Last June, with the confetti still being swept off the Paycom Center floor, a blue-clad crowd gathered inside the Broadway 10 Bar & Chophouse to celebrate Oklahoma City’s NBA championship. Surrounded by friends and family (and a healthy number of their friends and their families), Thunder players, coaches and staffers partied deep into the night. Guests picked at buffet tables lined with steak medallions and crab cakes. Against a wall, the Larry O’Brien trophy rested as a prop for pictures. Champagne that went largely untouched in Oklahoma City’s locker room—what do you expect from a title winner led by a bunch of early-20-somethings who needed help figuring out how to pop the cork?—flowed liberally into glass flutes. A few freshly shotgunned beer cans littered the floor. In the middle of it all was Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the NBA’s MVP, scoring champion and Finals MVP, the fourth player ever to complete that trifecta in one season. In between hugs and high fives, Gilgeous-Alexander was overheard offering a promise: I can be so much better.

Sports Illustrated