Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is the NBA’s Most Valuable Player for the second straight season. The Oklahoma City Thunder superstar secured the 2025-26 Kia MVP award with 83 of 100 first-place votes from the media panel, per NBC Sports, comfortably ahead of Nikola Jokic, who collected 10 first-place votes in second place. Victor Wembanyama finished third in the count.
A season built on dominance
Gilgeous-Alexander averaged 31.1 points (second in the NBA), 6.6 assists and 4.3 rebounds per game in the regular season, shooting 55.3% from the floor, 38.6% from three and 87.9% at the line. His plus/minus of +788 led the league by a margin of 106 points over Wembanyama’s +682. In clutch situations, no one came close: SGA scored 175 total clutch points at 6.5 per game.
With this second straight award, Gilgeous-Alexander becomes the 14th player in NBA history to win consecutive MVPs and the seventh to do so this century. He follows Jokic (2021, 2022), Giannis Antetokounmpo (2019, 2020), Stephen Curry (2015, 2016), LeBron James (2009, 2010), Steve Nash (2005, 2006) and Tim Duncan (2002, 2003). He also joins Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as the only players in history to post at least 90 thirty-point games, 20 forty-point games and five fifty-point games across back-to-back MVP seasons.
Wembanyama’s very public answer
Not everyone received the news quietly. Footage of Wembanyama watching Gilgeous-Alexander lift the trophy from the Spurs’ bench went viral across every platform. When asked ahead of the Western Conference Finals whether losing the MVP to SGA had hurt, Wembanyama said simply: “Yes, for sure, everything you just said.”
He went and proved it in Game 1. His final line: 41 points, 24 rebounds and three blocks in 49 minutes of a 122-115 double-overtime Spurs win. Nick Wright drew the parallel to Hakeem Olajuwon, who watched David Robinson accept MVP honors in 1995 and answered the next night with 41 points and 16 rebounds. Nearly 31 years later, Wembanyama authored a strikingly similar chapter.
The gifts, the tradition
After collecting the award, Gilgeous-Alexander celebrated by gifting each Thunder teammate a package that included Audemars Piguet watches, Burberry trench coats, golf clubs, YSL cologne, custom Levi’s sets, iPhone 17s with AT&T service and custom Don Julio 1942 bottles, per ESPN. The total reportedly exceeded $40,000 per player. Last season, his gift of choice was Rolex watches.
“I want my guys to share in this,” Gilgeous-Alexander said.
What comes next
The trophy is on the shelf, but the season is not over. Oklahoma City and San Antonio are tied 1-1 heading into Game 3 of the Western Conference Finals, with Jalen Williams (left hamstring) a major question mark. Wembanyama, motivated by everything that happened this May, is not going anywhere quietly. Neither is his MVP case for next year.
