Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has won the 2025-26 Kia NBA Most Valuable Player Award, the league announced Sunday. The Oklahoma City Thunder guard takes home his second straight MVP trophy – a distinction shared in the modern era with LeBron James, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and Stephen Curry.
Gilgeous-Alexander averaged 31.1 points, 6.6 assists, 4.3 rebounds and 1.4 steals per game across 68 games this season, shooting a career-high 55.3 percent from the field. He put together 127 consecutive games with at least 20 points, one of the most sustained scoring runs in league history. He received first-place votes on 88 of 100 ballots, finishing with 958 total points – 300 clear of runner-up Victor Wembanyama, with Nikola Jokić placing third.
A season built on efficiency and winning
Oklahoma City finished 64-18, the best record in the Western Conference. Gilgeous-Alexander’s value stretched beyond scoring: the Thunder ranked among the league’s top offenses, and the 26-year-old Canadian anchored every late-game possession. He also claimed the 2025-26 Clutch Player of the Year Award, leading the NBA in scoring during the final five minutes of close games.
The case for a repeat MVP rested on what is genuinely rare in the current league: volume scoring paired with historically high efficiency. No player matched his combination of points, shooting percentage, and two-way impact. The Thunder entered Sunday at 8-0 in the 2026 playoffs, having swept through both the first and second rounds. They open the Western Conference Finals against the San Antonio Spurs on Monday – a series that puts Gilgeous-Alexander against Wembanyama, the man who finished second in the MVP vote.
Jokić and Wembanyama made it a real race
Nikola Jokić posted another full triple-double season – 27.7 points, 12.9 rebounds, 10.7 assists per game – and a third MVP would have put him alone above any player in league history. Voters, seeing a dominant incumbent, went another way.
Victor Wembanyama (25.0 points, 11.5 rebounds, 3.1 blocks) had the strongest case of his young career. At 22, the French center won the 2025-26 Defensive Player of the Year Award unanimously, becoming the youngest player ever to claim that honor. He guided San Antonio back to the playoffs for the first time since 2019. With the Spurs now in the Conference Finals, Wembanyama’s ascent to MVP-level recognition looks like a matter of when, not if. Per the NBA’s official awards page, the full voting breakdown will be released later this week.
What two straight means
Back-to-back MVPs at 26. The Thunder rebuilt from a lottery team into the West’s top seed, and Gilgeous-Alexander is the reason. When he became a franchise centerpiece, the team was still drafting in the lottery. The trajectory since – playoff appearances, two conference title runs, and now two consecutive MVP trophies – is one of the cleaner organizational success stories in recent NBA history.
The Western Conference Finals against Wembanyama’s Spurs starts Monday. Both men will want to make a statement. That series just got a sharper narrative than it already had.
