Rumors

“I know what I want to do with this game and ultimately, very few do,” Shai tells me. “I knew that if I got an opportunity, that I’d work hard enough and take advantage of it.” He thinks about his time before blowing up with the University of Kentucky’s legendary hoops program: how, as a high schooler from Canada sharing a bedroom with Nickeil in their coach’s home in Tennessee, he didn’t make the McDonald’s All-American Game. How he only had one offer from lowly Binghamton University, and how, upon signing with Kentucky, he became the team’s lowest-rated recruit. There’s a big gap from there to here: getting picked 11th by the Los Angeles Clippers in 2018, and now signing a max contract—five years, $172 million —extension with OKC this summer. “Ever since then, I never looked back. I want to be one of the best point guards to ever play,” he says. “I’m not playing this game just to be a good basketball player. I want to be one of the greatest to ever play.”

GQ.com