-
Tim MacMahon
OKLAHOMA CITY — After winning his first scoring title and leading the Oklahoma City Thunder to a league-high 68 wins, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has earned his first NBA MVP award, sources told ESPN’s Shams Charania on Wednesday.
The league will officially announce the honor Wednesday night, a few nights after Gilgeous-Alexander’s Thunder defeated Nikola Jokic‘s Denver Nuggets in Game 7 of the Western Conference semifinals.
Gilgeous-Alexander finished as the runner-up in last year’s MVP voting, when Jokic won his third MVP in four seasons.
Jokic had arguably the best season of his career, averaging 29.6 points, 12.7 rebounds, 10.2 assists and 1.8 steals per game, but Gilgeous-Alexander also had a historical campaign for an Oklahoma City team that broke the NBA record for point differential (plus-12.9 per game) and finished with 18 more victories than the Nuggets.
Gilgeous-Alexander led the league with 32.7 points per game on 51.9% shooting from the floor and also averaged 6.4 assists, 5.0 rebounds, 1.7 steals and 1.0 blocks. The only other player in NBA history to average at least 30 points on 50% shooting, 5 rebounds, 5 assists, 1.5 steals and 1 block per game in a season is Michael Jordan, who did it in 1987-88 and 1990-91 — the seasons that he won the first two of his five MVPs.
Gilgeous-Alexander, 26, joined an exclusive club by leading the league in scoring for a team that won 60 or more games. This is the 10th instance that has been accomplished in NBA history. The only time that player did not win the MVP was in 1996-97, when Utah‘s Karl Malone won the honor over Jordan.
This was the third straight season that Gilgeous-Alexander has averaged at least 30 points while shooting better than 50% from the floor. The only other players who have done that three straight seasons — Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Wilt Chamberlain and Jordan — all won multiple MVPs.
Gilgeous-Alexander was also a major contributor to Oklahoma City’s top-ranked defense. He had 208 “stocks” (steals and blocks) this season, ranking third behind San Antonio‘s Victor Wembanyama and Atlanta‘s Dyson Daniels.
Gilgeous-Alexander is the third player in franchise history to win an MVP, joining Kevin Durant (2014) and Russell Westbrook (2017).
After being named a first-team All-NBA selection the past two seasons, Gilgeous-Alexander had already qualified to be eligible to sign an unprecedented, four-year, $294 million supermax extension this summer. It would be the deal with the highest annual value ($73.3 million) in league history.
ESPN’s Bobby Marks contributed to this report.
