Shai Gilgeous-Alexander won the NBA Clutch Player of the Year Award on Tuesday, a finish built on the same late possessions that turned Oklahoma City’s season into a 64-18 run. He received 96 first-place votes, one second-place vote and one third-place vote for 484 total points, beating Jamal Murray and Anthony Edwards, who did not get a first-place vote.
Gilgeous-Alexander said the award came down to the moments when games are decided, saying a player has to help his team win late and that winning games is what he is after more than anything. The Thunder guard became the fourth different recipient in four seasons, a sign of how quickly the honor has settled into the league’s annual debate over who is most reliable when the margin is gone and the pressure is highest.
The numbers behind the vote were blunt. Gilgeous-Alexander averaged 6.5 points in the clutch, the best mark in the NBA among players who appeared in more than one clutch game, and scored an NBA-high 175 clutch-time points in just over 125 clutch minutes. He made 27 go-ahead or game-tying shots inside the final two minutes of regulation or overtime, led the league with 17 go-ahead makes and converted 63.4 percent of those attempts. His 58.6 percent success rate on go-ahead shots helped separate him from a field that included Murray and Edwards, and he finished with 52 more points than Murray in the clutch.
That production mattered because the Thunder were tested almost every night in a season described as injury-ravaged, yet still finished 24-10 in clutch games and matched their star’s poise with a league-best record. The NBA defines clutch tracking data as the final five minutes of a game when the score differential is five points or fewer, a window where Gilgeous-Alexander repeatedly took over without making it look forced.
The clearest example came on March 30, when he scored 21 of his 47 points in an overtime win over the shorthanded Detroit Pistons between the fourth quarter and overtime without missing a shot. That was the kind of night that explains the vote more than any trophy plaque does. Jerry West, who died in 2024 at 86, was among the earliest figures to identify Gilgeous-Alexander’s potential while consulting with the Los Angeles Clippers, which selected him 11th in the 2018 draft. More than that, West’s name now sits on the award itself, and Gilgeous-Alexander’s first season winning it reads less like a breakout than a confirmation.
For Oklahoma City, the result is a clean reflection of what the regular season looked like when the score tightened and the rest of the league had to decide who it trusted most. For Gilgeous-Alexander, the answer was already on the court.
