John Clay: Once again, NBA MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has proven the rankings wrong

John Clay, Lexington Herald-Leader on May 23, 2025

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LEXINGTON, Ky. — On Wednesday, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander became the first former Kentucky basketball player to win NBA Most Valuable Player honors.

Let’s go back to November of 2016 when the 6-foot-5 guard from Toronto decommitted from Florida and committed to play basketball for John Calipari.

Where do you think Gilgeous-Alexander ranked on the ESPN Top 100 class of 2017 list of recruits when he picked Kentucky over Syracuse, Texas and UNLV?

Answer: No. 44.

To be fair, Gilgeous-Alexander would end up at No. 35 in the Worldwide Leader’s final rankings.

Marvin Bagley finished at No. 1 that year, followed by Michael Porter, DeAndre Ayton and Mohamed Bamba.

So where do you think Gilgeous-Alexander ranked among Calipari’s No. 1 recruiting class that cycle?

Answer: No. 6.

That’s right, SGA was ranked behind Kevin Knox (No. 10), PJ Washington (No. 12), Nick Richards (No. 17), Jarred Vanderbilt (No. 19) and Quade Green (No. 24). (Jemarl Baker was No. 66.)

Next question: Of the 37 games Gilgeous-Alexander played during his one season with the Cats, how many did he start?

Answer: 24.

Green, the five-star prospect from Philadelphia, was considered a better point guard prospect than Gilgeous-Alexander, who played for Hamilton Heights Christian Academy in Chattanooga.

It wasn’t until a month or so into the campaign that it became obvious that Gilgeous-Alexander had to be in the starting lineup. And yet that was on a team that was upset by Kansas State in a semifinal game of the South Region in Atlanta, a region that was won by Loyola Chicago.

He averaged 14.4 points that season, second to Knox’s 15.6 points. He scored a season-high 30 points against Vanderbilt, and had 29 points in UK’s win over Tennessee in the SEC Tournament title game.

“I looked at our (players) and said, ‘You guys know who’s the best in practice? Who comes every day? Who brings it? He does,’‘ Calipari said back in 2019. “You know what? He’s making himself a lottery pick.”

By season’s end, Gilgeous-Alexander was exactly that, even if Knox was selected two spots (No. 9 by the New York Knicks) before Gilgeous-Alexander (No. 11) went to the Los Angeles Clippers.

(Knox played in just 14 games for the Golden State Warriors this season. He’s made 77 starts in his seven-year NBA career.)

Even so, it took just one season for the Clippers to trade Gilgeous-Alexander to the Oklahoma City Thunder in a complicated deal that featured Paul George being shipped to Los Angeles.

This isn’t to say that when Gilgeous-Alexander was a Wildcat you could have projected him as a future NBA MVP, but there was many things to love about the way he played the game.

He had a cool, clam demeanor about himself and an approach that had observers label Gilgeous-Alexander as an old-school player.

“Shai is not like a pure (point guard),” Calipari said at the time. “Shai can run the point. He’s good, but he’s more of a ‘I’m going to try and get some baskets. I’m going to break this off’ … He’s got kind of an old man’s game.”

And while there is so much focus now on 3-point shooting in the NBA, Gilgeous-Alexander owns the best mid-range game in the sport. That against-the-grain approach helped the Canadian average a league-best 32.7 points and become the second player from his home country to earn MVP honors.

And, Shai being Shai, he made sure to give Steve Nash a shoutout during his MVP acceptance speech Wednesday night.

“It means the world,” Nash, the 2005 and 2006 MVP, told the media on Thursday. “I don’t need it. And at the same time, there’s no better feeling than watching these guys thrive and them saying you had an impact on them. That makes it all worthwhile and special. And I don’t know if there could be very few compliments higher than that.”

And as for Shai himself?

“I always thought that I could be a really good player because I saw what putting your head down and working and controlling what you control can do for you,” he told NBA.com. “I made tremendous strides but I never thought this was going to happen.”

Back in 2016, not many did either.