LeBron James reveals the scary reason every team became obsessed with stopping SGA

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May 21, 2026 - 19:48

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LeBron James reveals the scary reason every team became obsessed with stopping SGA originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander just put the league on notice and Los Angeles Lakers legend LeBron James acknowledged it.

The Oklahoma City Thunder guard claimed his second consecutive Kia NBA MVP award after finishing the regular season with 31.1 points per game on a career-best 55.3% shooting, while averaging a career-high 6.6 assists. Under his leadership, Thunder went 64-18, posting the league's best record for the second straight year.

Remarkably, he never scored below 20 points in a single game all season. The 27-year-old also became the 14th player in NBA history to win back-to-back MVP trophies, receiving 83 of 100 first-place votes to finish comfortably ahead of finalists Nikola Jokic and Victor Wembanyama.

Then came the playoffs and a series with James only reinforced why SGA sits at the top of every opponent's game plan.

Oklahoma City swept the Lakers 4-0 in the second round, going 8-0 in regular and postseason games against Los Angeles this year combined. James, 41, averaged 23.2 points, 6.7 rebounds and 7.3 assists across the four games, putting up a real fight against the defending champions. But SGA and the Thunder were simply the better team at every turn.

On the “Mind the Game” podcast with Steve Nash, King James called Gilgeous-Alexander fully deserving of the back-to-back hardware and explained exactly what makes him so impossible to game-plan around.

"I think he's very deserving and nobody can sit here and be like, 'How the hell did Shai win again?'" James said. "He does things to a defense, does things to opposing teams that you have to simply account for. He's number one and two and three on that scouting report, you know, and he's the head of the snake."

https://x.com/NBA__Courtside/status/2057461531067969937

SGA also praised James after the series, saying, "His size gave us issues at times. He was the top of the scouting report all series. He was impressive out there. I'm not sure we'll see anything like that again, his longevity and his greatness."

During his two MVP seasons, Gilgeous-Alexander had 92 games with at least 30 points, 21 games with 40-plus points, and five games with 50-plus points. Only he and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar have reached those point thresholds during back-to-back MVP years.

He also broke Wilt Chamberlain’s record for consecutive 20-point games, reaching 140 games by the end of the regular season.

He is already chasing the next milestone, trying to become just the fourth player in NBA history to win back-to-back MVPs and back-to-back championships, joining Michael Jordan, Bill Russell, and LeBron James on that exclusive list.