This stretch of January around Martin Luther King Jr. Day is usually peak evaluation time in the NBA front-office world. It’s one of the milestone points where teams will have full-staff pow-wows and talk things out,

The Knicks and Nuggets are surging, while the Warriors watch their window close. Meanwhile, the Cavs and Thunder have their business on lock.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has sat at the very top of the NBA MVP rankings over the last several weeks. This battle between him, Nikola Jokic, and Giannis Antetokounmpo has been close, but now there is a wide gap between Gilgeous-Alexander and the rest of the field.

Gilgeous-Alexander finished with a career-best 54 points on 17-of-35 shooting, eight rebounds and five assists. He shot 3-of-10 from 3 and went 17-of-18 at the free-throw line.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored a career-high 54 points to lead the Oklahoma City Thunder to a 123-114 home win over the Utah Jazz on Wednesday.

In mid-December, Denver’s Nikola Jokic had a healthy lead on Gilgeous-Alexander in ESPN’s MVP straw poll, conducted several times over the course of each season by Tim Bontemps.

Has Oklahoma City Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander already locked up the NBA’s MVP award? After turning in a career-high 54-point game in OKC’s win over the

This season included a few obvious choices, but several difficult calls for the Feb. 16 game in San Francisco.

Star guard finished the night with three steals, placing him at 91 steals on the season — good enough for second-best in the NBA. It was his 12th game with at least 30 points and three steals, the most in the league this season.

Oklahoma City star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander poured in 35 points as the Thunder grabbed a bounce-back 118-108 victory in Portland on Sunday to push their NBA-best record to 37-8. The Thunder, surprised by the short-handed Dallas Mavericks on Thursday, fended off a late surge from the Trail Blazers to snap their four-game winning streak.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 33 points and the NBA-leading Oklahoma City Thunder beat the Portland Trail Blazers 118-108 on Sunday night.