Shai Gilgeous-Alexander finishes third in Clutch Player of the Year voting

File this under the later-gram hashtag but amidst the chaos of last week’s frenetic Kentucky basketball roster construction, it was easy to miss that Quade Green’s former backup, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander finished third place in the NBA’s Clutch Player of the Year voting.

Gilgeous-Alexander has been on a tear this year, leading the Oklahoma City Thunder to first place in the loaded Western Conference, partly due to some late-game heroics. The NBA considers clutch time to be the last two minutes of the game and overtime when the score is within five points. In this crucial part of the game during the regular season, SGA totaled 112 points on 58.1/35.7/89.7 shooting splits, while adding 19 assists to just six turnovers.

Stephen Curry, who you have heard of, won the award with Demar DeRozen finishing second. Curry (189 clutch points) and DeRozan(182 clutch points) have the edge in total points thanks to borderline ball-hogging in late-game scenarios, but neither shot the ball better than Gilgeous-Alexander. SGA had the best true-shooting percentage (70.7 percent) of the three finalists, ahead of Curry (60 percent) and DeRozen (62.5 percent).

Gilgeous-Alexander also did his damage from different places on the floor than the others, scoring a ton of important late-game buckets in the midrange, something he carried over into the first round of the NBA playoffs against the Pelicans.

Last year, DeAaron Fox won the inaugural Clutch Player of the Year award but finished 12th this season, which tied him with his teammate, Malik Monk, who got hosed for the NBA’s 6th Man of the Year award.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander will gladly trade this Clutch award with the MVP trophy, a contest where he and Nikola Jokic are in a two-man race. He is the underdog in terms of probability, but then again, so was Mystic Dan.