The NBA has narrowed its most important individual race to three names: Victor Wembanyama, Nikola Jokić and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander are the finalists for this year’s NBA MVP award. The winner will be the league’s most outstanding regular-season player, with the announcement carrying extra weight because it could change the top of the record book.
Gilgeous-Alexander could become a back-to-back winner if he repeats, after taking the top prize last season ahead of Oklahoma City’s run to the NBA Finals. Jokić, meanwhile, is chasing a fourth MVP award. That would pull him level with LeBron James and Wilt Chamberlain, a mark that underscores how rare his place already is among the game’s greats. Wembanyama, at the other end of the spectrum, is in the conversation for the first time.
The award has been presented since the 1955–56 campaign and has long been treated as the clearest measure of a player’s regular-season dominance. This year’s field reflects both the league’s present and its future: an established champion in Jokić, the reigning winner in Gilgeous-Alexander and a first-time finalist in Wembanyama, whose rise has become one of the league’s most closely watched stories.
The history around the trophy adds another layer. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar stands alone with six MVP awards, won in 1971, 1971, 1974, 1976, 1977 and 1980. Three came with the Milwaukee Bucks and three with the Lakers. Across 20 seasons, he finished in the top five in MVP voting 15 times, a level of sustained excellence that no active finalist has matched.
Behind Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Russell and Michael Jordan each have five MVP awards. Russell won in 1958, 1961, 1962, 1963 and 1965, and he won a title in all five of those seasons. Jordan’s wins came in 1988, 1991, 1992, 1996 and 1998. LeBron James and Chamberlain also sit on five apiece, which means there are three players ahead of them in NBA MVP history and one of them is out front by a full award.
That is why this year’s result matters beyond the ceremony itself. A second straight award for Gilgeous-Alexander would deepen an already strong recent claim to the league’s top individual honor. A fourth for Jokić would push him into one of the most exclusive tiers in NBA history. And if Wembanyama’s first nomination is the start of a longer run, it would mark the league’s newest star arriving at the sport’s highest individual stage sooner than expected.
