Shai Gilgeous-Alexander of the Thunder becomes the 14th player to win back-to-back NBA MVPs

OKLAHOMA CITY: He’s the best player on the best team. And the voters say he’s the best player in the league, too.
Again.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander of the reigning NBA champion Oklahoma City Thunder won the NBA’s Most Valuable Player on Sunday for the second consecutive year.

He became the 18th player to win at least two MVP awards and the 14th to win them in back-to-back fashion.
“Who he is has never changed,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said. “I think he’s touched up the edges on his game and on his leadership and on his perspective, just like anybody else that’s coming of age.”
The win for Gilgeous-Alexander, who is Canadian, marks the eighth consecutive time that the NBA’s MVP was born outside the US.

The run started with Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo (born in Greece, of Nigerian descent) in 2019 and 2020, then Denver’s Nikola Jokic (Serbia) in 2021 and 2022, Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid (born in Cameroon but has since become a US citizen) in 2023 and Jokic again in 2024.
And in 2025 and 2026, SGA is the MVP.
“Shai’s so good at creating separation when he’s able to play 1-on-1,” Los Angeles Lakers coach JJ Redick said. “He’s just really hard to stop, for any defender.”
Jokic was second and San Antonio’s star French center Victor Wembanyama placed third.
Gilgeous-Alexander got 83 of a possible 100 first-place votes.

Jokic received 10 and Wembanyama got five. Luka Doncic of the Los Angeles Lakers was fourth in the voting and Cade Cunningham of the Detroit Pistons was fifth.
Cunningham got two first-place votes — the first by a US-born player since 2021.
Jaylen Brown of the Boston Celtics was sixth, and Kawhi Leonard of the Los Angeles Clippers and Donovan Mitchell of the Cleveland Cavaliers tied for seventh with one