Thunder’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander becomes 14th player to win back-to-back NBA MVPs

OKLAHOMA CITY — He’s the best player on the best team. And the voters say he’s the best player in the league, too.

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Again.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander of the reigning NBA champion Oklahoma City Thunder won the NBA’s Most Valuable Player on Sunday for the second consecutive year. He became the 18th player to win at least two MVP awards, and the 14th to win them in back-to-back fashion.

“Basketball’s obviously a team sport,” Gilgeous-Alexander said Sunday night in a celebration at the Thunder practice facility, surrounded by teammates — all in new Burberry trenchcoats, a gift from the now two-time MVP. “All the numbers, all the accolades, everything that I do on the court, if we won 10 games I wouldn’t be in this conversation. So, thank you guys so much. I love you guys.”

The win for Gilgeous-Alexander, who is Canadian, marks the eighth consecutive time that the NBA’s MVP was born outside the United States. The run started with Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo (born in Greece, of Nigerian descent) in 2019 and 2020, then Denver’s Nikola Jokic (Serbia) in 2021 and 2022, Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid (born in Cameroon but has since become a US citizen) in 2023, and Jokic again in 2024.

And in 2025 and 2026, SGA is the MVP.

“Who he is has never changed,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said. “I think he’s touched up the edges on his game and on his leadership and on his perspective, just like anybody else that’s coming of age.”

Gilgeous-Alexander got 83 of a possible 100 first-place votes. Jokic received 10 and Wembanyama got five. Luka Doncic of theLakers was fourth in the voting and Cade Cunningham of the Pistons was fifth.

Cunningham got two first-place votes — the first by a U.S.-born player since 2021.

Jaylen Brown of the Celtics was sixth, and Kawhi Leonard of the Clippers and Donovan Mitchell of the Cavaliers tied for seventh with one fifth-place vote apiece.

International players finished 1-2-3 in the MVP balloting for the fifth consecutive season, with Jokic and San Antonio’s star French center Victor Wembanyama the other finalists this year.

▪ Last season the order was Gilgeous-Alexander, Jokic and Antetokounmpo.

▪ In 2024, it was Jokic, then Gilgeous-Alexander and then-Dallas guard, now Los Angeles Lakers guard Luka Doncic of Slovenia.

▪ In 2023, it was Embiid, then Jokic, then Antetokounmpo.

▪ In 2022, it was Jokic, then Embiid, then Antetokounmpo.

“So many NBA players don’t get opportunity,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “Who knows where I’d be without it.”

Gilgeous-Alexander and Wembanyama will face off Monday night when the Thunder and Spurs open Game 1 of the Western Conference finals in Oklahoma City. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver is expected at Monday’s game to formally present Gilgeous-Alexander with a trophy for the third time in 12 months — the MVP award last May, the NBA Finals MVP award last June, and now this.

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The MVP win is Gilgeous-Alexander’s second major individual award this season; he was also voted the league’s Clutch Player of the Year by an overwhelming margin — he got 96 of 100 first-place votes in that balloting, paying tribute to how great his performances tend to be in the final five minutes of close games.

Then again, he’s pretty good no matter how much time is on the clock.

Gilgeous-Alexander was second in the league with 31.1 points per game, second only to Doncic and his 33.5-point average. He also extended his NBA-record streak of regular season games with at least 20 points to 140 and counting; it’ll carry into next season as well.

He’s delightfully boring — one of the few mid-range specialists in the game, someone who excels at drawing fouls, isn’t a look-at-me type and gives some of the most thoughtful answers of anyone in the league. Emotions aren’t worth his time; staying calm is always his preferred move.

And he believes in the Thunder way, that the sum of the parts is the only real key to winning.

“Some of it is just luck,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. ”As an NBA player, you have no control over other grown men in this business and I’m just lucky enough to be surrounded by great human beings, from the front office, coaching staff, to the guys that I play on the court with every night. We all want to see the next man win and do whatever it takes ultimately to win. We have that common goal. And yeah, I can’t take credit for that. It’s more than me, it’s bigger than me.”

Jokic not winning the award continues an odd trend: those who average a triple-double, often thought of as the holy grail of in-game accomplishment, almost never win MVP.

Jokic had the seventh instance of a player finishing a season averaging a triple-double — at least 10 points, 10 assists and 10 rebounds per game — by putting up 27.7 points, a league-best 12.9 rebounds and a league-best 10.7 assists per game.

It wasn’t good enough for MVP. Russell Westbrook averaged a triple-double four times and won MVP only once in those years. Oscar Robertson averaged a triple-double in 1961-62; he didn’t win MVP that season. And now, Jokic has done it twice — with no MVPs to show for it, though he has won the award on three other occasions.

Gilgeous-Alexander insists that he doesn’t play for individual honors. He plays for team trophies.

“The way things are run in this organization and this city, it breeds success,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “It’s no coincidence.”

Golden State’s Stephen Curry was the last US-born player to be in the top three of the MVP balloting; he was third in 2021 behind Jokic and Embiid. The last US winner of the award was James Harden, then of Houston, in 2018. Harden has played for four different franchises since then.

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