Oklahoma City Thunder superstar Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has been named the NBA’s Most Valuable Player for a second consecutive season, continuing the league’s remarkable run of international dominance in the award.
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The Canadian guard edged out fellow finalists Victor Wembanyama and Nikola Jokić to claim the honour, becoming just the 14th player in NBA history to win back-to-back MVP awards.
The 27-year-old delivered another spectacular campaign for Oklahoma City, averaging 31.1 points and 6.6 assists per game while leading the Thunder to a league-best 64-18 record and the top seed in the Western Conference. The reigning NBA Finals MVP will now lead Oklahoma City into a blockbuster Western Conference Finals series against Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs, beginning Tuesday.
Gilgeous-Alexander joins an elite group of players to win consecutive MVP awards, including Michael Jordan, LeBron James, Stephen Curry, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird. Denver Nuggets star Nikola Jokić was the most recent player to achieve the feat, winning in 2021 and 2022, while Giannis Antetokounmpo also went back-to-back in 2019 and 2020.
His latest MVP triumph also extends an extraordinary streak of international players dominating the award. The last American-born player to win MVP was James Harden in 2018 with the Houston Rockets.
Since then, Gilgeous-Alexander (two MVPs), Jokić (three), Joel Embiid (one) and Antetokounmpo (two) have combined to win the last eight MVP awards, underlining the NBA’s growing global influence.
This season’s voting further highlighted that trend, with all three finalists born outside the United States. Gilgeous-Alexander represents Canada, Wembanyama is from France and Jokić hails from Serbia, while Slovenian superstar Luka Dončić finished fourth in voting.
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The shift marks a dramatic change from previous eras. Before Antetokounmpo’s breakthrough MVP win in 2019, American-born stars dominated the award for more than a decade, with players such as Harden, Russell Westbrook, Curry, Kevin Durant, LeBron James, Derrick Rose and Kobe Bryant combining to win 11 straight MVPs between 2008 and 2018.
While international stars have won MVP before, including Steve Nash and Dirk Nowitzki, the current run is unprecedented, with overseas players now firmly leading the league’s biggest individual honour entering what appears to be a new era of NBA superstardom.