2026 NBA MVP: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander Goes Back-to-Back

Published April 19, 2026 · Updated August 15, 2026 · By The Basketball Fans Editors

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander won the 2026 NBA Most Valuable Player award on May 17, 2026, his second in a row. He took 83 of 100 first-place votes, plus 13 seconds, three thirds and one fourth, for 939 points. Nikola Jokic finished second with 10 first-place votes and 634 points, Victor Wembanyama third with five firsts and 569, Luka Doncic fourth with 250, and Cade Cunningham fifth with 117.

SGA averaged 31.1 points and 6.6 assists on 55.3 percent shooting for a Thunder team that finished 64-18. The margin was wide enough that the outcome stopped being interesting around February, which is its own kind of achievement.

This page covers how the vote actually broke down, the case each of the top five had, and where a back-to-back MVP at 27 sits historically.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander: the runaway favorite

2025-26 season averages: 31.1 points, 6.6 assists, 4.3 rebounds, 1.4 steals on 55.3% / 38.6% / 87.9% shooting splits, in 68 games.

Team record: 64-18, the best in the NBA.

The structural case: SGA finished second in the league in scoring at 31.1 per game, behind Luka Doncic’s 33.5, and did it on 55.3 percent shooting, which is the part that separates him. Oklahoma City was +12.8 per 100 possessions with him on the floor and +0.4 with him off, a swing of more than twelve points. The Pyramid framework in The Book of Basketball (Ballantine, 2009) would rank a season with these net-rating splits among the all-time great individual seasons in the modern era.

The historical context: SGA grew up in Hamilton, Ontario and played a season at Kentucky. He is the second Canadian MVP after Steve Nash, who won in 2005 and 2006, and the first born in Canada; Nash was born in Johannesburg and raised in British Columbia. Back-to-back winners are not as rare as they once were: Giannis Antetokounmpo did it in 2019 and 2020, and Nikola Jokic in 2021 and 2022. What separates SGA’s pair is the margin, 83 first-place votes on top of the 2025 award.

How close it was: not close. He took 83 of 100 first-place ballots.

Victor Wembanyama: the third-season breakout

2025-26 season averages: 25.5 points, 11.0 rebounds, 4.0 assists, 3.7 blocks, 1.4 steals on 49.5% shooting (35.7% from three).

Team record: 62-20, second seed in the West.

The structural case: Wembanyama, at 22, is the best defensive player in basketball and the voters said so without a single dissent. He led the league in blocks for a third straight season. His combination of 7’4” height, perimeter mobility and three-point volume for a center has no precedent. The voters who put him second on their MVP ballots were making a ceiling argument: that any projection of where the league’s best player sits in three years has him above SGA.

The historical context: Wembanyama won the 2026 Defensive Player of the Year award on April 20, unanimously. It was the first unanimous DPOY in the award’s history and made him the youngest winner at 22. He also became the third player to win both DPOY and Rookie of the Year, after Michael Jordan and David Robinson. Chet Holmgren and Ausar Thompson were the other finalists.

What happened next: the case against him was never about the team. San Antonio went 62-20, beat Portland 4-1 and Minnesota 4-2, then took the 64-18 Thunder to seven games in the Western Conference Finals and won. They lost the Finals to New York in five. A voter filling out an MVP ballot in April could not know that, which is the recurring awkwardness of an award decided before the postseason.

Nikola Jokić: the perennial threat

2025-26 season averages: 28.5 points, 12.5 rebounds, 9.6 assists, 1.4 steals on 60.2% / 41.8% / 81.0% shooting splits.

Team record: 51-31, fifth seed in the West.

The structural case: Jokić is, in 2026, the only player in NBA history with a career line of 25-12-9 across more than 600 regular-season games. He has won three MVPs (2021, 2022, 2024) and finished second in two others. He finished second in the MVP vote with 634 points to SGA’s 939. His 2023 NBA championship is the only ring on the list above, alongside Brown’s 2024 with Boston.

The historical context: a fourth MVP would have tied Jokic with Wilt Chamberlain and LeBron James, behind Kareem Abdul-Jabbar at six and Bill Russell and Michael Jordan at five. He did not get it this year, finishing 305 points back. His case for one or two more before he is done remains the strongest among active players over 30.

The dark-horse downside: The “voter fatigue” argument that worked against Jokić in 2023 (when Embiid won) is in play again. Jokić has finished top-2 in MVP voting five years in a row. The voting body has, in informal Athletic surveys, signaled fatigue.

Luka Dončić: the Lakers project year

2025-26 season averages: 32.7 points, 9.4 assists, 8.1 rebounds on 47.5% / 36.6% / 79.0% shooting splits.

Team record: 51-31, third seed in the West (Lakers).

The structural case: Luka was traded to the Lakers on February 1, 2025 (covered in detail on our Luka biography). The 2025-26 season is his first full year as a Laker. He is paired with LeBron James in the offensive system and posted the most efficient season of his career since 2022-23. His scoring average of 33.5 led the league.

The historical context: Luka has finished top-3 in MVP voting four times. He has not yet won. He would, in 2026, become the first European-born player other than Dirk Nowitzki, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and Jokić to win the award. The Lakers’ 51-31 record is, however, structurally limiting: the team’s defensive rating is 22nd in the league.

The dark-horse downside: A non-trivial. If the Lakers reach the conference finals and Luka has a 30-10-10 series, the case strengthens. The MVP vote is, however, already largely cast.

Jaylen Brown: the load-the-Tatum-injury case

2025-26 season averages: 28.7 points, 6.9 rebounds, 5.1 assists in 71 games, shooting 34.7% from three.

Team record: 56-26, second seed in the East (Celtics).

The structural case: Brown carried the Celtics through the regular season while Jayson Tatum recovered from June 2025 Achilles surgery. Tatum returned only for the final six games of the regular season. Boston went 41-21 in the 62 games Tatum missed, which is a 54-win pace without him. The voting body’s “best player on a top-2 conference team” criterion has, historically, weighed in his favor; Tatum’s injury made that argument concrete.

The historical context: Brown has been an All-Star four times (2024, 2025, 2026, plus 2023). He won the 2024 Finals MVP. He has not finished top-3 in regular-season MVP voting. A first-place finish would be the upset of the decade.

The dark-horse downside: Same as Luka. A deep playoff run with Tatum still on a minutes restriction would move the post-season narrative for Brown but not the regular-season MVP vote.

How the vote broke down

The final ballot, released by the league after the announcement, is the most lopsided since Stephen Curry’s unanimous 2016 season.

Two things stand out. Jokic and Wembanyama finished within 65 points of each other, which is close for second and third and suggests voters genuinely split on whether a historically great individual season on a lower seed outweighs a fourth MVP-calibre year in Denver. And Cunningham’s appearance in the top five, on zero first-place votes, is the clearest signal of how far Detroit came in 2025-26.

He is the third player in eight seasons to go back-to-back, after Antetokounmpo and Jokic, and the only one of the three to do it while his team won 64 games.

Gear

MVP season collector demand is real.

Panini NBA Hoops Blaster Box →

*The Book of Basketball* by Bill Simmons (Ballantine, 2009) →

Sources

• NBA.com Kia MVP ladder, April 17, 2026 edition.
• Yahoo Sports, 2026 NBA Awards full ballot tracker.
• The Athletic, John Hollinger, advanced-stats MVP analysis (April 2026).
• Basketball-Reference: NBA Most Valuable Player Award.
• ESPN, 2026 NBA Awards coverage (April 2026).