ONE DAY IN the early stages of their relationship, Thunder general manager Sam Presti asked Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to stop by his office to pick up a book.
"I was expecting some long book, like full of pages and stories and a bunch of chapters and wisdom and stuff like that," Gilgeous-Alexander told ESPN on the eve of his season-opening win over the San Antonio Spurs.
"Have you ever read 'The Tortoise and the Hare'?" Presti asked Gilgeous-Alexander, who was a bit confused by the question.
Surely, Presti couldn't have been referring to the classic childhood fable originally composed by the ancient Greek storyteller Aesop. Gilgeous-Alexander figured there must have been "a real book for, like, grown-ups" with the same title.
No, Gilgeous-Alexander told Presti, he hadn't read that book. Then Presti pulled out a children's book.
"Wait, what? Of course I have," Gilgeous-Alexander said.
Presti proceeded to explain how the moral of the book's story applied to Gilgeous-Alexander's development and the GM's vision for the Thunder's evolution into a contender. The gift was a plea for patience from Presti and a promise to travel a slow, steady path to NBA prosperity together.
"My journey resonates a lot with that," Gilgeous-Alexander said. "It just kind of made sense."
It was a message that particularly applied after Gilgeous-Alexander's second season in Oklahoma City, which was the frustrating first year of Presti's full-blown rebuilding plan.
Gilgeous-Alexander had spent much of that season as a spectator, sitting out the second half of the season because of a lingering case of plantar fasciitis while the Thunder took a cautious approach to his treatment and limped to a 22-50 record and lottery pick. His status as the new face of the franchise in Oklahoma City meant he was toiling in national obscurity.
Meanwhile, a pair of guards selected before him in the 2018 draft class were thriving on playoff teams. Dallas' Luka Doncic was already a two-time first-team All-NBA selection, and Trae Young had been an All-Star and just led the Atlanta Hawks to an Eastern Conference finals appearance. Memphis' Ja Morant, who was taken in the next draft, had just made his playoff debut and also was widely viewed as an ascending superstar.
Gilgeous-Alexander quietly viewed himself as a peer of those other young guards, believing he had just as much potential, a minority opinion at the time but one that Presti shared. Presti reiterated that the Thunder couldn't take shortcuts on the journey to becoming a sustainable contender.
As Presti told Gilgeous-Alexander when he gifted him the children's book, "Slow and steady wins the race."
During the 2021 offseason, Gilgeous-Alexander and Presti agreed to a five-year, $172 million maximum extension of his rookie contract. Unlike the extensions signed by Doncic and Young that summer, Gilgeous-Alexander's deal did not include a player option, an indication of his allegiance to an OKC franchise that had acquired him along with a historic haul of first-round picks in the Paul George trade with the LA Clippers a couple of years earlier.
The contract symbolized the mutual commitment between Gilgeous-Alexander and Presti, a player determined to prove himself and an executive resolute in executing a long-term plan.
Five years later, Gilgeous-Alexander is the reigning back-to-back MVP and a 2024-25 championship banner hangs in the Paycom Center rafters. In that hindsight, Gilgeous-Alexander's rookie extension ranks as a remarkable bargain entering the contract's final season before a four-year, $279 million supermax extension begins.
At the time, that contract was a calculated gamble that a player who had not yet been an All-Star would blossom.
"I just believed wholeheartedly and had trust in just like the human being Sam was," Gilgeous-Alexander said. "In this business, that's another thing that you just can't control -- who runs your organization. I've been lucky to be placed with a guy like Sam. It's been amazing.
"It feels like a partnership. I don't work for him. He doesn't work for me. We're in this thing together."
GILGEOUS-ALEXANDER SAYS he still feels the sting of being cut from his junior varsity team as a high school freshman in his hometown of Hamilton, Ontario. But he doesn't blame his coach.
"There were so many people, like so many people that were in ninth grade at that time that were better than me in basketball," Gilgeous-Alexander said.
At the time, he was a skinny kid who had yet to hit his growth spurt and didn't get much playing time on his AAU team.
A year later, he earned a starting role on both the varsity squad and his AAU team. He received his first Division I scholarship offer the following summer -- "Binghamton -- never forget it," Gilgeous-Alexander said of what felt like a breakthrough moment. As a senior, Gilgeous-Alexander chose Kentucky over several other offers from high-major programs and was part of Canada's national team program.
"I've just been able to outlast and keep getting better, and it's allowed me to get here today," Gilgeous-Alexander said. "And then that formula, I've just kind of just tried to emulate. When I'm not where I want to be or guys that are the same age or around the same class or whatever it is or doing things that I want to do, I just always try to remember that.
"It's a long race, just stay down."
Gilgeous-Alexander didn't start his career at Kentucky at the front of the pack, either. He was the sixth highest-ranked recruit in the Wildcats' freshman class, behind five top-25 players. He opened the season as a reserve, backing up fellow freshman Quade Green.
"There was a list of guys to go see, and he wasn't in the top half of that list coming into the season," Presti said, recalling trips to scout a Kentucky team that eventually sent seven players to the NBA. "But it was funny because you go to see him so many times and he was always the most consistent player. ... I thought that was pretty loud."
He ended his lone season at Kentucky as the SEC tournament MVP and a lottery prospect, landing at the No. 11 pick, a few slots behind teammate Kevin Knox II.
The Thunder didn't have a first-round pick in 2018, having traded it to the Utah Jazz three years earlier, but Presti still spent plenty of time that season evaluating potential picks. Those evaluations were part of the calculus when Presti brought Gilgeous-Alexander to OKC along with veteran forward Danilo Gallinari and a bundle of draft picks as part of the blockbuster trade that sent George to LA.
The Clippers needed to acquire George to seal a free agency commitment from Kawhi Leonard, positioning Presti to cash in on the value of a reigning Finals MVP without ever having his rights. The deal eventually backfired on the Clippers and built the foundation of the Thunder's championship roster. And though the headline of the return was the unprecedented package of draft capital -- five first-rounders and a pair of swaps -- Gilgeous-Alexander represented promise coming off a second-team All-Rookie campaign in which he averaged 10.8 points.
"No one could have anticipated what has transpired," Presti said recently, referring to Gilgeous-Alexander's historically elite production as the Thunder morphed into a perennial contender. "So I don't want to make it sound like we knew any of that."
ON GILGEOUS-ALEXANDER'S FIRST night in Oklahoma City, Presti poked his head out of his office at the Thunder's practice facility. He had been holed up for hours, negotiating the final touches of the trade that would send Oklahoma City legend Russell Westbrook to the Houston Rockets and working on an op-ed he was writing for The Oklahoman detailing the franchise's decisions and future plans. It was an emotionally exhausting night for Presti, but the sounds of a basketball bouncing and sneakers squeaking provided a bolt of energy. He peaked out onto the court and saw Gilgeous-Alexander going through a workout with members of his inner circle.
Presti took comfort in catching that glimpse of Gilgeous-Alexander's serious approach, thinking it might be symbolic that the franchise had already found a worthy successor to Westbrook. It gave him hope that his new point guard could grow into a franchise cornerstone, a gut feeling that has since been reinforced time and again by Gilgeous-Alexander's relentless work ethic.
"I have a lot of respect for him as a person," Presti said. "Obviously as a player, it's one thing, but I really respect the way he goes about his craft. When you see somebody that dedicated to the process itself, it makes you want to really advocate for them. It makes you want to help him achieve the things that you know he's capable of achieving. That's built over time."
There was just one problem with that scene in late July 2019: Gilgeous-Alexander wasn't wearing official Thunder gear. It had yet to be issued to him, since he hadn't yet held his introductory news conference. It's the sort of seemingly trivial matter that matters a lot to Presti. He still winces when recalling it.
Gilgeous-Alexander saw Presti's meticulous attention to detail soon after he stepped onto the court that night. He noticed that every basketball on the ball rack was perfectly placed, connecting the "Spalding" logos in long, continuous lines. It impressed Gilgeous-Alexander that the organization put so much care into such a tiny detail, planting a seed in his mind that Oklahoma City was a place that he could chase his potential.
"The greatest of greats obsess over the little things like everyone else does the big things, and it allows them to create a gap," Gilgeous-Alexander said. "The little things over time just keep stacking up, stacking up. All together, the little things become big things."
That growth mindset is an essential element of Gilgeous-Alexander's character, which Presti valued as much as his talent. Presti wanted to invest in Gilgeous-Alexander in large part because of "gifts that amplify or make his athletic abilities that much more transcendent," citing intelligence and emotional awareness of others in the organization and community.
"Shai puts the wind at everybody's back with the way he operates," Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said. "There's literally no facet, no corner of the building that he doesn't put in a position of strength because of the way that he operates as a superstar player. He can act however he wants to act, as we've seen in the NBA and other sports, and he chooses to act with unbelievable humility and character. It puts everybody in a position of strength, including Sam. With Sam, obviously that's a two-way relationship."
THE TORTOISE FOUND a turbo button during the 2022-23 season, the first year of Gilgeous-Alexander's second contract.
His scoring soared to 31.4 points per game, an increase of almost seven points from the previous season while improving his efficiency, and he earned his first All-Star bid and All-NBA selection. The Thunder's record improved by 16 games to 40-42, even though No. 2 pick Chet Holmgren sat out the season because of a broken foot. Jalen Williams, selected with a lottery pick acquired from the Clippers, was the Rookie of the Year runner-up. Oklahoma City's foundation was set.
With Holmgren healthy, the Thunder made another double-digit win jump the next season, finishing 57-25 to become the youngest No. 1 seed in NBA history. Presti remained patient, opting not to use any of his arsenal of first-round picks to make a splashy trade to expedite the process of constructing a championship team. Gilgeous-Alexander finished second in MVP voting to Nikola Jokic.
After a second-round playoff exit to Doncic and the Mavericks in the 2024 playoffs, Presti pounced to acquire a pair of veteran role players as finishing pieces, trading Josh Giddey for title-proven defensive menace Alex Caruso and signing center Isaiah Hartenstein in free agency. The Thunder took another double-digit leap in the win column the next season, going 68-14 as Gilgeous-Alexander claimed the scoring title and his first MVP award before leading Oklahoma City on a championship run.
Gilgeous-Alexander hadn't only caught his peers who seemed to have such a big head start only four years earlier. He had put himself into legendary company, joining Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Michael Jordan and Shaquille O'Neal as the only players to win a scoring title, MVP and Finals MVP in the same season.
A statue of a tortoise sits alongside those trophies in Gilgeous-Alexander's Oklahoma City home. That was a gift from Presti, a token of gratitude for going on the journey together.
"I honestly just believe things had to work out," Gilgeous-Alexander said, adamant that his mind never wandered even while other franchises wondered if he might eventually ask to be traded as losses were piling up in Oklahoma City. "Everybody was just doing the right things to succeed. There was no other universe in my brain. ... But this fast is crazy."
Gilgeous-Alexander repeated as MVP last season, becoming only the 14th player to win the award in back-to-back seasons, as Oklahoma City again had the league's best record. The Thunder, weakened by injuries that sidelined Williams and emerging young guard Ajay Mitchell, were eliminated by the Spurs in a Western Conference finals that felt like the first chapter of the league's next epic rivalry.
That was a sour start to what the Thunder knew would be a difficult summer for Presti and the front office, simply because of the team's soaring payroll with rookie maximum extensions for Williams and Holmgren kicking in this season.
"I will give zero input," Gilgeous-Alexander said after the Thunder's Game 7 loss to the Spurs when asked about personnel decisions on the horizon with Oklahoma City faced with a $213 million luxury tax bill if the roster stayed intact.
That was a bit of a white lie. Gilgeous-Alexander respectfully and privately offered his opinion to Presti, particularly lobbying for the Thunder to keep defensive stopper Luguentz Dort, his Canadian countryman and the only other player who remained from his first season in Oklahoma City. But Gilgeous-Alexander understood when Presti made cost-cutting trades to part with a trio of beloved title-winning teammates (Dort, Isaiah Joe and Aaron Wiggins), slashing the Thunder's tax bill to $14 million, as Presti eyes managing the payroll while sustaining a contender through his 28-year-old superstar's prime.
His input this summer was more than zero, but Gilgeous-Alexander meant the next line out of his mouth in the wake of the Thunder's exit last season: "I will let Sam Presti, the greatest GM ever, do his job."
It's a two-way trust that has been earned and rewarded.