Shai Gilgeous-Alexander won the NBA's Most Valuable Player award for the second consecutive season on Sunday, taking the 2025-26 Kia NBA Most Valuable Player Award in a landslide after another dominant year for the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder.
Gilgeous-Alexander received 83 of the 100 first-place votes from a global media panel, finishing ahead of Nikola Jokic and Victor Wembanyama. Luka Doncic of the Los Angeles Lakers and Cade Cunningham of the Detroit Pistons rounded out the top five, with Cunningham earning two first-place votes.
The Thunder then held a news conference at their practice facility after the announcement, where Gilgeous-Alexander described the honor as special and said the players who have won multiple MVPs changed the game and the way it is played. He said being in that group means a great deal to him and that he does not take it lightly.
The award adds another line to a season that already had Gilgeous-Alexander near the center of every conversation about the league's best players. He ranked second in the NBA in scoring at 31.1 points per game, shot a career-best 55.3% from the field and averaged a career-high 6.6 assists for a Thunder team that finished 64-18 and had the NBA's best record for the second straight season. He also led the league with 175 points in clutch situations and won the league's Clutch Player of the Year award.
Gilgeous-Alexander is now the fifth active player to win MVP in consecutive seasons and the seventh player over the past 40 years to claim multiple MVPs before turning 28. He will turn 28 in July, which puts him in a small group already stacked with players whose careers have defined eras. Every retired player to win consecutive MVPs has been inducted into the Hall of Fame, a detail that only sharpens the historical weight of what he has done.
Jokic's second-place finish marked his sixth straight year in the top two of MVP voting, matching a feat previously accomplished only by Larry Bird and Bill Russell. Wembanyama finished third, a reminder that the league's future is pressing at the door even as Gilgeous-Alexander has already taken control of the present.
That contrast is what gives Sunday's result its force. Oklahoma City enters Monday evening's series against Wembanyama and the Spurs with the reigning Finals MVP now carrying the league's top individual award, while the Thunder remain the team everyone is still chasing. The standings have been settled for the season, but the message from the ballot was clear: the Thunder's star is no longer just leading a champion. He is setting the standard for the rest of the NBA.
He was asked to measure what the honor meant, and he did not reach for anything bigger than the moment. It was special, he said, and for a player already winning games, titles and now back-to-back MVPs, that may be the most telling part of all.
