Shai Gilgeous-Alexander Restarts His Speech After Getting Bleeped While Accepting Best Male Athlete Award at 2025 ESPYS

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is adding more hardware to his trophy case!

Just weeks after winning the NBA Championship and being named the NBA Finals MVP, the 27-year-old Oklahoma City Thunder star took home the 2025 ESPY Award for Best Male Athlete on Wednesday, July 16.

Known around the league simply as “SGA,” the Toronto native thanked his teammates and his family during his acceptance speech on stage at the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles.

“It’s a dream come true,” Gilgeous-Alexander said after fumbling through the beginning of his speech — which was bleeped out for viewers at home — laughing, and starting over again.

“To achieve your dreams, it takes a village and my village has been nothing short of special since the start of this journey,” the NBA star said.

Gilgeous-Alexander thanked his wife Hailey Summers, his family and friends, and his Thunder teammates who were in attendance alongside him at the ESPYs.

Gilgeous-Alexander, who has played the past six seasons with the Thunder, beat out Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen, Los Angeles Dodgers slugger Shohei Ohtani and Philadelphia Eages running back Saquon Barkley for the award.

The Thunder star was also named the NBA regular season MVP in May and has been named an NBA All-Star in each of the last three seasons.

Averaging a career high 32.7 points per game, also the highest in the league for the 2024-25 season, Gilgeous-Alexander led the Thunder to the team’s first finals victory since they relocated to Oklahoma from Seattle in 2008. 

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Throughout the playoffs, the Thunder point guard stayed strong, averaging 29.9 points per game. The second Canadian MVP — the first was Steve Nash — Gilgeous-Alexander acted as an anchor to the young Thunder squad leading them to a hard-fought seven game victory in the finals against the Indiana Pacers, who were rattled in game 7 by the injury of their star player Tyrese Haliburton.

Wednesday’s award marked the first time Gilgeous-Alexander has won an ESPY award in his career.

The annual sports award show saw Simone Biles win two awards, including Best Championship Performance and Best Female Athlete, while WNBA legend Diana Taurasi and retired soccer star Alex Morgan were honored with “icon” awards highlighting their career accomplishments. Elsewhere, former Duke basketball star Cooper Flagg won Best College Athlete while rugby phenom Ilona Maher won Best Breakthrough Athlete.

The 2025 ESPY Awards aired on ABC Wednesday night.