Gilgeous-Alexander voted as NBA’s MVP, continuing run of international players winning the award

NEW YORK: The case for Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was simple. He’s the best player on an Oklahoma City Thunder team that had the best record this season and set a league mark for margin of victory. If that wasn’t enough, he also won the scoring title.

That’s an MVP year.

Gilgeous-Alexander was announced Wednesday as the NBA’s Most Valuable Player, his first time winning the award. It’s now seven straight years that a player born outside the US won MVP, extending the longest such streak in league history.

And when it happened, Gilgeous-Alexander said a life of moments — getting cut, traded, overlooked, celebrating, the wins, the good times — all flooded into his mind.

“I don’t think there’s enough emphasis on how much off the court influences on the court,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “And once I became better off the court my career started to skyrocket. It’s no coincidence.”

It ultimately was a two-person race. Gilgeous-Alexander got 71 first-place votes and 29 second-place votes; Denver’s Nikola Jokic got the other 29 first-place votes and the other 71 second-place votes.

Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo was third, getting 88 of the 100 possible third-place votes.

Gilgeous-Alexander — the No. 11 pick in the 2018 draft — averaged 32.7 points, 6.4 assists and five rebounds per game this season, leading the Thunder to a 68-14 record. The Thunder outscored teams by 12.9 points per game, the biggest margin in league history.

He becomes the second Canadian to win MVP; Steve Nash won it twice.

“He set the foundation,” Gilgeous-Alexander said of Nash. “He was the first Canadian basketball player I knew of. And without seeing guys go to the NBA from Canada, it wouldn’t have been as much of a dream as it was for us as kids