Who Will Be Thunder’s Best Player in Five Years?

Examining which player will lead the Thunder five years down the road.

Jan 29, 2024; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA; Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (2) and Oklahoma City Thunder forward Chet Holmgren (7) celebrate after a play against the Minnesota Timberwolves during the second quarter at Paycom Center. Mandatory Credit: Alonzo Adams-Imagn Images / Alonzo Adams-Imagn Images

Oklahoma City is in a strong position to experience a long road of success in the future. In addition to an abundance of draft picks, the Thunder has one of the best young cores in the NBA. With good injury luck, Oklahoma City could be a contender year in and year out.

The Thunder’s management built the roster with careful consideration for the future in mind. Through the trade market, the draft pool, and under-the-radar signings, Oklahoma City’s recipe for success has been brewing for quite sometime. A season ago, the Thunder was both the youngest No. 1 seed in NBA history and the youngest team to ever win a playoff series.

With an abundance of young talent and a budding core that seems to continue to get better, what will the Thunder look like five years down the line? Who will the team’s best player be?

The obvious answer is OKC’s superstar point guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Gilgeous-Alexander is just now entering what many consider to be his “prime” at age 26. He’s coming off of back-to-back All-NBA First Team selections and a second-place MVP campaign. It’s very likely that he’s still considered one of the top five players in the NBA in five years when he turns 31.

In Bleacher Report’s recent article, Andy Bailey took a deep dive into every NBA team’s projected best player five years from now. He obviously gave Gilgeous-Alexander the nod, but one of the Thunder’s young stars also received careful consideration.

“The odds of the Oklahoma City Thunder having the best one-two punch in the league in 2027 are pretty high, and that bet wouldn't be based entirely on Gilgeous-Alexander,” Andy Bailey wrote. “Chet Holmgren is coming off one of the best rookie campaigns we've seen, but it was overshadowed by Victor Wembanyama's.”



“In three years, Chet will be 25 and presumably more consistent as a shooter and creator,” Bailey wrote. “If he's much better than he was in 2023-24, he might be contending for All-NBA nods.”

Holmgren’s two-way impact could be one of the NBA’s best. He has a serious case to be one of the best centers in the NBA in the near future and could secure many accolades down the line.

One player that wasn’t mentioned was Jalen Williams, who was a tough omission I’m sure. Williams hovered around 20 points per game a season ago and is a rising star in the NBA. His consistency and efficiency is reason enough to believe that he could be Gilgeous-Alexander’s sidekick for years to come.

While Williams and Holmgren might not be OKC’s best player five years down the line, they would each likely be a handful of teams best players. As long as Gilgeous-Alexander is in the league, though, there won’t be many players better than him.

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