Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has won his second consecutive NBA Most Valuable Player(MVP) award, ESPN’s Shams Charania reported Sunday. The official announcement was scheduled for 7:30 p.m. ET on Prime Video, arriving one day before the Thunder open their Western Conference finals series against the San Antonio Spurs. With the honor now secured, Gilgeous-Alexander joins a group of 14 players in league history to win the award in back-to-back seasons.
A season built on efficiency
The numbers behind this MVP tell a story that goes beyond the box score. Gilgeous-Alexander averaged 31.1 points per game, second in the league behind Luka Doncic, but the way he produced those points set him apart from everyone else in the conversation.
He shot 55.3% from the floor, 38.6% from three, and 87.9% from the free throw line. The only other player in NBA history to hit those shooting thresholds on more than 250 total attempts was Kevin Durant, who did it across 47 games during the 2022-23 season. Gilgeous-Alexander did it across 68 games, finished with fewer turnovers, and nearly doubled Durant’s assist total in that stretch.
He also averaged 6.6 assists and 1.4 steals per game while leading a Thunder team that finished 64-18, the best record in the NBA for the second straight year. That win total came despite Jalen Williams, the only other Thunder player with an All-Star appearance before this season, playing just 33 games at diminished capacity. Several other key contributors missed 25 or more games throughout the year.
How the race unfolded
The MVP race spent most of the season circling back to Gilgeous-Alexander, even as other candidates briefly made it interesting. Nikola Jokic opened the year with two historically dominant offensive months before a knee injury slowed his campaign. Cade Cunningham and Jaylen Brown emerged as talking points as their Eastern Conference teams outperformed expectations, but neither factored meaningfully into the final vote.
Victor Wembanyama and Doncic both made serious runs in March. Doncic ultimately fell out of contention after suffering an injury in a blowout loss to the Thunder. Wembanyama’s limited minutes undercut an otherwise compelling case, and Jokic could not fully recover from the time he missed early in the season.
Gilgeous-Alexander also won the Clutch Player of the Year award this season, leading the league with 175 points in clutch situations, 16 go-ahead clutch field goals, and a plus-93 clutch plus-minus rating. He has now finished in the top five of MVP voting in four consecutive seasons.
The company he now keeps
Back-to-back MVP winners occupy a rarified tier in NBA history. The list includes Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Moses Malone, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, Tim Duncan, Steve Nash, LeBron James, Stephen Curry, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and Jokic. Gilgeous-Alexander is now the 14th member of that group and only the 16th player overall to win the award more than once.
He is also the seventh player over the last 40 years to claim multiple MVP awards before turning 28. Gilgeous-Alexander turns 28 in July. Every retired player to win consecutive MVPs has been inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
His victory also extends a remarkable run for international players. Eight consecutive MVP awards have now gone to players born outside the United States, a streak that began with Antetokounmpo and ran through Jokic, Joel Embiid, and now two trophies for Gilgeous-Alexander, who was born in Hamilton, Ontario. He joins Steve Nash as the only Canadian players to win the award more than once.
What comes next
History suggests Gilgeous-Alexander will be right back in the MVP conversation next season. Every winner since Derrick Rose in 2011 has been between their age-24 and age-28 seasons at the time of their award, meaning Gilgeous-Alexander still falls within that window heading into 2026-27.
A third consecutive MVP would place him in the company of Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, and Larry Bird, the only three players to ever accomplish that feat. Michael Jordan and LeBron James, widely regarded as the two greatest players in the sport’s history, both fell short of a third straight trophy.
For now, the focus shifts to the Western Conference finals. The Thunder host the Spurs starting Monday, and Gilgeous-Alexander, the reigning Finals MVP, has a chance to become only the third player ever to win both the regular season and Finals MVP awards in consecutive seasons, joining Jordan in 1991 and 1992, and James in 2012 and 2013.
