Shai Gilgeous-Alexander named MVP: Thunder star is 14th player to win back-to-back MVPs

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is the 2025-26 NBA Most Valuable Player, ESPN reported Sunday. After a hotly debated race featuring a rotating cast of candidates throughout the season, the defending winner has retained his crown after a historically efficient offensive season.

Though Gilgeous-Alexander’s raw scoring technically went down from 32.7 to 31.1 points per game, he went about scoring those points far more efficiently. Gilgeous-Alexander closed the season shooting 55.3% from the floor, 38.6% on 3s and 87.9% on free throws. The only other player to ever achieve those shooting percentages on more than 250 total shots? That would be Kevin Durant, who did it in 47 games during the 2022-23 season. Gilgeous-Alexander did it in 68 and still managed to finish his season with fewer total turnovers and almost twice as many assists. 

Gilgeous-Alexander scored the second-most points per game in the NBA at 31.1, trailing only Luka Dončić, but he did so while averaging the 42nd-most touches per game, 66.6. This meant that Gilgeous-Alexander nearly scored one per for every two times he touched the ball. He led the team with the most regular-season wins, 64, and he did so with his only teammate who had made an All-Star Game before this season, Jalen Williams, playing 33 diminished games. Only two Thunder players, Cason Wallace and Isaiah Joe, managed to play 70 games this season, and several key pieces like Ajay Mitchell, Alex Caruso and Isaiah Hartenstein missed 25 or more games.

Gilgeous-Alexander was nearly the wire-to-wire favorite for the award, but throughout the season, a number of different players made runs at his trophy. It started with three-time winner Nikola Jokić, who opened the season with two historic offensive months. A knee injury hampered his candidacy, so from there, voters looked at the leaders of the two surprising Eastern Conference contenders: Cade Cunningham in Detroit and Jaylen Brown in Boston.

Neither wound up factoring meaningfully into the race, but historic second halves from Dončić and Victor Wembanyama made things interesting in March. Dončić ultimately fell out of the hunt after getting hurt in a blowout loss to Gilgeous-Alexander’s Thunder. Wembanyama’s lack of minutes doomed his candidacy, and despite a late push, Jokić just couldn’t make up for the time he missed or his deficiencies as a defender.

Now Gilgeous-Alexander is in historic company. He is now the 16th player in NBA history to win multiple MVP awards, joining the six existing two-time winners (Giannis Antetokounmpo, Stephen Curry, Tim Duncan, Karl Malone, Steve Nash and Bob Pettit), the four three-time winners (Jokić, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson and Moses Malone), the two four-time winners (Wilt Chamberlain and LeBron James), the two five-time winners (Michael Jordan and Bill Russell) and the lone six-time winner (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar). Among those multi-time winners, Gilgeous-Alexander is the 14th player to win the award consecutively, as every other multi-time winner besides Malone and Pettit did so.

Gilgeous-Alexander’s victory now marks eight straight victories for players born outside of the United States. Antetokounmpo won two, followed by two for Jokić, one for Joel Embiid, another for Jokić and then Gilgeous-Alexander’s first trophy. Gilgeous-Alexander joins Nash as Canada’s second two-time winner.

This is Gilgeous-Alexander’s age-27 season, which would historically suggest he will be right back in the mix next season. Every winner since Derrick Rose in 2011 has been between their age-24 and age-28 seasons, meaning Gilgeous-Alexander is still in the age range that would suggest he could possibly three-peat. However, history has been enormously unkind to players seeking three consecutive MVP trophies. Russell, Chamberlain and Bird are the only players to ever win the award three times in a row. That means Jordan and James, widely regarded as the two greatest players in the history of the sport, both failed to do so. The last player to try for a third straight MVP was Jokić in 2023. That was one of the more controversial races in recent memory, with Embiid taking the crown as many critics pointed to Jokić’s lack of a championship ring as a reason to deny him. Ironically, Jokić would claim his lone NBA championship months later.

Gilgeous-Alexander won his first title a year ago, beating Jokić along the way. If he claims his second in June, he has a chance to join one of the most exclusive clubs in all of basketball history. Only two players have won both the regular-season and Finals MVP awards in back-to-back seasons, and they’re the two players anyone would most want to associate with: Michael Jordan in 1991 and 1992, and LeBron James in 2012 and 2013. That is the sort of historical company Gilgeous-Alexander now has a chance to keep. We are watching one of the greatest guards in NBA history hit the absolute peak of his powers, and this trophy is just the latest line in an already remarkable all-time legacy.