Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was named the Kia Most Valuable Player for the 2024-25 NBA season after an entertaining, back-and-forth race with Denver Nuggets superstar Nikola Jokic. The big man came in second place for the MVP, but finished behind the guard who led the Thunder to 68 wins. This news comes according to ESPN, just hours before the official announcement from the NBA.

Breaking: Oklahoma City Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has won the NBA MVP award, sources tell ESPN.

— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) May 21, 2025

Jokic, despite becoming just the fourth player in NBA history to average a triple-double in the regular season, came up short of winning his fourth MVP award in six years. The only other time he didn’t win the award this decade was in 2022-23 when he was the runner-up to Joel Embiid of the Philadelphia 76ers.

Jokic led the Nuggets to the fourth seed in the Western Conference while averaging 29.6 points (third in the NBA), 12.7 rebounds (second in the NBA) and 10.2 assists (second in the NBA) per game. He shot a career-high 41.7% from the 3-point line and recorded 1.8 steals per game, another career high. He is the first player since per-game stats began to be tracked in the 1969-70 season to finish in the top three in the three major stats.

However, the voters opted to give the award to Gilgeous-Alexander, who also had a phenomenal campaign. The 26-year-old led the Thunder to the best record in the entire league as he took home the scoring title at 32.7 points per game. SGA also set a career-high in assists per game, with 6.4, good for the 14th-best mark in the league.

Gilgeous-Alexander becomes the third player in Thunder franchise history to win the award after Kevin Durant (2014) and Russell Westbrook (2017). The Canadian is trying to rewrite the script and bring a championship to Oklahoma City, something that Durant and Westbrook weren’t able to do in their MVP seasons.

Jokic and Gilgeous-Alexander split the regular season series against each other. In the four games in which the MVP candidates squared up against each other, Jokic averaged 24.5/15.8/11.5 splits while SGA averaged 30.3/5.0/6.5 splits. The two candidates dueling in a grueling, seven-game series in the Western Conference Semifinals, in which Gilgeous-Alexander and the Thunder came out on top in the end.

Jokic averaged 28/14/6 against the Thunder in the playoffs, while SGA averaged 30/6/7 on the other side. It was one of the best MVP playoff duels in recent memory, and showed fans that these two being at the top of the votes was the right choice.

SGA also becomes just the second Canadian to win the award, joining Steve Nash, who won back-to-back NBA MVPs in 2005 and 2006. He is the seventh international player to win the award, joining Jokic, Nash, Joel Embiid, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Dirk Nowitzki and Hakeem Olajuwon.

Jokic would’ve become the sixth player in NBA history to win four MVPs alongside Michael Jordan, Bill Russell, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain and LeBron James.

Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo finished in third place in the voting, the fifth time he’s finished in the top three in his career, including back-to-back first-place finishes in 2019 and 2020. While he put together a phenomenal season for the Bucks, he was never truly in the conversation with Jokic and SGA, but rather a tier below.

The voting results shouldn’t be a surprise to anybody, as Jokic came in second place in the final two MVP straw polls in the regular season, with SGA coming in first place in both of them. Those polls are usually a solid indicator of how the final vote will go, and that showed again this season.