Shai Gilgeous-Alexander won the NBA’s Most Valuable Player this week and it marked the seventh consecutive year in which an international player has won the award. The last time an American-born player walked away with the top honor was James Harden in 2018. The run of international players winning MVP — Gilgeous-Alexander is from Canada — speaks to the expanding global reach of the NBA and the increased number of talent outside of the United States.
It’s been a built-in marketing tool for the league, but it also raises the interesting question of when will an American-born player break the streak and win MVP? It’s difficult to pinpoint when an American-born player will win the top award, but it’s easy to identify who a few candidates are over the next few years.
With that in mind, here are five American-born players who could take home MVP honors in the very near future, ranked by their likelihood of winning.
Edwards’ name has been placed alongside the phrase “face of the league” so many times now that you can see the obvious push to anoint him as such whenever LeBron James retires. So already, there’s a built-in narrative on Edwards’ side going forward, and if he manages to knock off the Oklahoma City Thunder to reach the NBA Finals for the first time in franchise history, he very well could open as the favorite to win MVP next season.
At just 23 years old, Edwards certainly has the longest runway to win MVP, as he’s yet to enter his prime, making it likelier for him to have an MVP season under his belt in the coming years. He hasn’t finished higher than seventh in MVP voting, but that’s more of a product of how packed the field is than Edwards’ production. This season he averaged a career high 27.6 points, while shooting nearly 40% from deep, also a career high. The loss of Karl-Anthony Towns and his 3-point shooting meant Edwards had to take more 3s, and he had no issue nearly doubling the amount of 3s he took while improving his efficiency.
We’ve seen Edwards elevate his game each season, and the Timberwolves are constructed to highlight his offensive brilliance, making his case for MVP cleaner to imagine. He finished fifth in scoring, behind the three MVP finalists and Luka Dončić, another player who is frequently mentioned in MVP conversations. You could argue that had the Timberwolves finished higher than sixth in the West, Edwards likely would’ve gotten more buzz for the award this year.
2. Cooper Flagg, TBD officially (Mavericks unofficially)
Flagg is the consensus No. 1 overall pick in the upcoming NBA Draft in June. He’s being projected as a generational talent, and usually when that happens, MVP expectations are attached to that. While Flagg hasn’t officially been drafted yet, with the Dallas Mavericks winning the No. 1 pick through a shocking draft lottery, unless something changes, he’ll be starting his career with Dallas.
Already, it will be a different experience than what most No. 1 overall picks go through to start their careers. This isn’t a situation where Flagg will be the focal point of the offense and given time to grow at his own pace on a rebuilding squad. This is a Mavericks team with three future first-ballot Hall of Famers already on the roster — a team that, had Kyrie Irving not suffered an ACL injury, likely would’ve made the postseason.
Flagg’s walking into an already-built playoff team that he will have to figure out how to fit into, at least for the time being. There is a world in which Flagg exceeds the already ridiculously high expectations in his rookie season and the Mavericks decide to pivot and build around him. If that happens, then it will fast track the path of Flagg becoming an MVP several years from now.
We already know of his defensive prowess. He’s capable of guarding multiple positions and uses his athleticism to fly out of nowhere to reject a shot at the rim. He’ll surely be on a few All-Defensive teams throughout his career and may even win Defensive Player of the Year. But if his offensive game develops like many people are expecting it to, and he’s able to be a dangerous three-level scorer who can also facilitate, rebound and play lockdown defense, he’ll be the most surefire American-born MVP contender the league has had in a long time.
Cunningham is coming off a year where he averaged career highs across the board, earned his first All-Star appearance and led the Pistons to the playoffs for the first time in six years. He’s just 23 years old and, like Edwards, has only scratched the surface of what he’s capable of. If this is where he’s at right now, imagine what he’ll be in three, four years from now. If Cunningham continues on this trajectory, and the Pistons improve around him, he would without a doubt be in the running for MVP, and perhaps even win it.
A couple of things need to happen for that to happen, though. Perhaps most importantly, the Pistons will have to be better than a sixth-placed team in an Eastern Conference that continues to become weaker as a whole. That may happen with natural improvements to the roster, but it may also have to happen by acquiring top-end talent to surround Cunningham with. They’ll be getting Jaden Ivey back next season, and if he can establish himself as the second star next to Cunningham for the foreseeable future, it may be enough for Detroit to rise in the East. And if that happens, Cunningham would certainly be in the mix at some point in the near future to win MVP.
Prior to Tatum’s Achilles injury, he was probably a shoo-in to be the next American-born player to win MVP. In two of the last three years, he finished in the top five of MVP voting. He plays on a Celtics team that has routinely ranked near or at the top of the East standings, and he’s among the most efficient and durable players in the league.
The issue, though, is that he’s likely going to miss most if not all next year, and there’s no guarantee that he’ll return to the player he was prior to this significant injury. The team he’s returning to could also be incredibly different, as Boston is expected to shake up its team this summer in an effort to trim some costs of what is becoming an incredibly expensive roster.
Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porziņģis are the two names most mentioned on the trade block, but who’s to say Boston doesn’t explore the option of shopping Jaylen Brown in an effort to rebuild around Tatum. It would put Tatum at the center of Boston’s offense entirely, something that has been a knock on his MVP candidacy over the years because of how stacked Boston’s roster has been.
If that happened, and Tatum managed to pick up where he left off pre-injury, he would certainly have the narrative on his side of overcoming a significant injury to lead the Celtics to a top seed in the East.
Fresh off winning Clutch Player of the Year and in the midst of leading the Knicks to the Eastern Conference finals for the first time in 25 years, it’s actually surprising that Brunson hasn’t been mentioned more as someone who could be the next American-born player to win MVP. He finished fifth in voting for the award last season, but was tied for 10th this season, despite having similar numbers to what he had a season ago. The Knicks also finished third in the East, a drop from the No. 2 spot from a season ago, but still an impressive feat.
The Knicks did struggle heavily against the top teams in both conferences during the regular season, with a lowly 15-23 record against teams with winning records. So there was a narrative of the Knicks just beating bad teams this season. Brunson, though, was a constant force for the Knicks, constantly carrying this team across the finish line — something he’s still doing in the postseason — that you can’t ignore him in the MVP conversation going forward.
Brunson is in the midst of his prime at 28 years old, and regardless of how this season ends, there is a world in which the East runs through the Knicks next season with the Celtics shorthanded and the Cavaliers not being able to deliver yet again. If Brunson maintains this level of play over the next few years, and the Knicks can sustain their holding near or at the top of the East, there’s no reason to think he couldn’t walk away with the MVP award.
