A day after leading his team to a Game 1 victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves in the Western Conference Finals, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander of the Oklahoma City Thunder was named the NBA’s Most Valuable Player.
Gilgeous-Alexander won over fellow finalists, Nikola Jokic of the Denver Nuggets and Giannis Antetokounmpo of the Milwaukee Bucks. Gilgeous-Alexander accumulated 71 (out of 100) first-place votes and 29 second-place votes, while Jokic had the inverse with 29 first-place votes and 71 second-place votes.
After Antetokounmpo, the rest of the top five includes Jayson Tatum of the Boston Celtics at No. 4 and Donovan Mitchell of the Cleveland Cavaliers at No. 5. A total of 12 players received at least one vote.
Last year, the Thunder guard finished as runner-up to Jokic, with the latter winning his third award. In the 2022-23 NBA season, Gilgeous-Alexander finished fifth in MVP voting as Joel Embiid won the award. While the vote only took into account a player’s regular season performance, the Gilgeous-Alexander versus Jokic debate happened to play out in the postseason. Their respective teams matched up in the Western Conference semifinals, where OKC prevailed in seven games.
The writing may have been on the wall if one looked at the Player of the Month awards during the regular season. Gilgeous-Alexander won the award three times this season, while no other player won the award in more than one month.
The seventh-year guard was the best player on the best team in the regular season, and a team that, now in the postseason, is just three wins away from the NBA Finals. SGA, as he’s nicknamed, led the NBA with 32.7 points per game, marking the third straight year he’s averaged at least 30 points. He shot 52 percent from the field, 38 percent from beyond the arc, and led the league in made free throws. An all-around player, Gilgeous-Alexander also had career-highs in both assists (6.4) and blocks (1.0), while adding 5.0 rebounds and 1.7 steals.
SGA became just the eighth player in NBA history to average at least 32 points, five rebounds, and five assists. When you add in the criteria of blocking at least one shot per game, it’s a class of just two: SGA and Michael Jordan.
With his two-way production, the Oklahoma City Thunder had a league-best 68-14 record. That’s also the best record in the franchise history of the Oklahoma City Thunder, and its prior team in the Seattle SuperSonics. The 68 victories are tied for the fifth-most in NBA history, while OKC’s point differential on the year of plus-12.9 is the highest mark in league history, besting a record that stood for over 50 years and was held by the 1971-72 Los Angeles Lakers.
He is the third MVP winner in Thunder franchise history, joining Kevin Durant (2014) and Russell Westbrook (2017). Over the last 30 NBA seasons, the three wins by the Thunder are tied for the most amongst any franchise, alongside the Chicago Bulls and Denver Nuggets.
With past winners such as Jokic, Embiid, and Antetokounmpo, international players have now won the last seven MVP awards, dating back to the 2018-19 season. Prior to this stretch, there were only four MVP winners born outside of the United States during the first 63 years the award was handed out. Gilgeous-Alexander, who was born in Toronto, is the second Canadian to win the award, joining Steve Nash who won in both 2005 and 2006.
He moved from Toronto to Tennessee, where he attended high school, before enrolling at the University of Kentucky. The Wildcats have the highest win percentage in college basketball history and own the record for the most NBA Draft selections but SGA marks their first ever NBA MVP winner.
Gilgeous-Alexander has far surpassed expectations of him as he wasn’t even a top 10 pick in the 2018 NBA Draft. Then, after playing his rookie year with the Los Angeles Clippers, he was traded to Oklahoma City in a package for Paul George. Since then, SGA has notched back-to-back All-NBA First-Team selections and is a lock to make it three in a row when the 2024-25 All-NBA teams are announced.
Then, if Oklahoma City advances to the NBA Finals, Gilgeous-Alexander will undoubtedly be the favorite to then take home the NBA Finals MVP. Thunder fans are certainly hoping that’s the case as it has been 10 years since the NBA MVP also won a championship in that same season (Steph Curry, 2015). Additionally, it’s been 12 years since a player won both NBA MVP and Finals MVP in the same season (LeBron James, 2013).
Jokic has now finished in the top two in MVP voting five straight years. He was looking to become just the sixth person to win the award at least four times, joining Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (six wins), Jordan (five), Bill Russell (five), Wilt Chamberlain (four) and James (four). Meanwhile, Antetokounmpo was hoping to join Jokic, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and Moses Malone in the three-time winner club.
