Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander,<\/a> Jokic \u2014 the Denver Nuggets star \u2014 became just the third player in NBA history with a top-two finish in five or more consecutive seasons.<\/p>\nAdvertisement<\/p>\n
He won the award in 2021, 2023 and 2024, plus was second in 2022 and again this year.<\/p>\n
Russell and Bird, a pair of Boston Celtics greats, each were first or second in the balloting in six consecutive seasons.<\/p>\n
Russell won in 1958, 1961, 1962 and 1963, while finishing second in 1959 and 1960. Bird was second in 1981, 1982 and 1983 before winning in 1984, 1985 and 1986.<\/p>\n
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (1971-74) and Tim Duncan (2001-04) are the other players with four straight top-two finishes. Michael Jordan and LeBron James each had two different streaks of three consecutive top-two finishes in the voting \u2014 but never got past that.<\/p>\n
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Jokic had the sixth instance of a player finishing a season averaging a triple-double \u2014 at least 10 points, 10 assists and 10 rebounds per game.<\/p>\n
Only one of those seasons has led to an MVP win.<\/p>\n
Oscar Robertson averaged a triple-double in 1961-62; he didn\u2019t win MVP that year. Russell Westbrook did it four times and won the MVP award only once in that span. And now, Jokic finished second after a season statistically like none other.<\/p>\n
International players sweep No. 1 votes again<\/p>\n
For the fourth consecutive year, no player born in the U.S. got a single first-place vote in the MVP race.<\/p>\n
Gilgeous-Alexander (Canada) got 71 votes this year, and Jokic (Serbia) got the other 29.<\/p>\n
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The last time a U.S.-born player got a first-place vote was 2021, when Stephen Curry got five votes, Chris Paul got two and Derrick Rose got one.<\/p>\n
Last year, Jokic got 79 first-place votes, while Gilgeous-Alexander got 15, Luka Doncic (then of Dallas, now of the Los Angeles Lakers) got four and Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo \u2014 born in Greece and someone also of Nigerian descent \u2014 got one.<\/p>\n
In 2023, Cameroon-born Joel Embiid (73), Jokic (15) and Antetokounmpo (12) got all the first-place nods, while in 2022 it was Jokic (65), Embiid (26) and Antetokounmpo (nine) atop all the ballots.<\/p>\n
For LeBron, 22 years, 20 mentions<\/p>\n
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LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers made it back onto the ballots this season, marking the 20th time in his 22 years in the NBA that he got at least one MVP vote.<\/p>\n
He was sixth in this year\u2019s voting.<\/p>\n
James didn\u2019t get a vote in either of the last two seasons. He\u2019s the first player in NBA history to get at least one MVP vote in 20 different seasons.<\/p>\n
0 for 12 for No. 1 picks<\/p>\n
The No. 1 pick drought in the MVP race continues.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s now 12 consecutive years since a No. 1 draft pick won the MVP award, going back to LeBron James \u2013 then of Miami \u2013 in 2013.<\/p>\n
The MVPs, and their draft slot, since then:<\/p>\n
\u2014 Kevin Durant, MVP in 2014, No. 2 pick in 2007<\/p>\n
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\u2014 Stephen Curry, MVP in 2015 and 2016, No. 7 pick in 2009<\/p>\n
\u2014 Russell Westbrook, MVP in 2017, No. 4 pick in 2008<\/p>\n
\u2014 James Harden, MVP in 2018, No. 3 pick in 2009<\/p>\n
\u2014 Giannis Antetokounmpo, MVP in 2019 and 2020, No. 15 pick in 2013<\/p>\n
\u2014 Nikola Jokic, MVP in 2021, 2022 and 2024, No. 41 pick in 2014<\/p>\n
\u2014 Joel Embiid, MVP in 2023, No. 3 pick in 2014<\/p>\n
\u2014 Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, MVP in 2025, No. 11 pick in 2018<\/p>\n
Giannis’ streak ends<\/p>\n
For the first time in seven years, Milwaukee\u2019s Giannis Antetokounmpo did not get a first-place MVP vote.<\/p>\n
That ended the longest active streak. Nikola Jokic now has that streak, with five consecutive years of at least one first-place vote.<\/p>\n
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Antetokounmpo’s run was the longest in the NBA since LeBron James got a first-place vote in eight consecutive years from 2008 through 2015. That run ended when Golden State\u2019s Stephen Curry became the first \u2014 and still only \u2014 unanimous MVP in 2016.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/nba<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There was Bill Russell. There was Larry Bird. And now, there\u2019s Nikola Jokic. By finishing second in this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48783,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3781],"tags":[7,75,2596,13024,686,301,187,3943,1025,123,479,560,936,938,3497,185,150,368,295,102,13023,13025,6,253,302,254,209,573,1674],"class_list":{"0":"post-48782","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-denver-nuggets","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-boston-celtics","10":"tag-chris-paul","11":"tag-consecutive-seasons","12":"tag-dallas","13":"tag-denver","14":"tag-denver-nuggets","15":"tag-denvernuggets","16":"tag-derrick-rose","17":"tag-giannis-antetokounmpo","18":"tag-golden-state","19":"tag-james-harden","20":"tag-joel-embiid","21":"tag-kevin-durant","22":"tag-larry-bird","23":"tag-lebron-james","24":"tag-los-angeles-lakers","25":"tag-luka-doncic","26":"tag-miami","27":"tag-milwaukee","28":"tag-mvp-award","29":"tag-mvp-race","30":"tag-nba","31":"tag-nikola-jokic","32":"tag-nuggets","33":"tag-russell-westbrook","34":"tag-shai-gilgeous-alexander","35":"tag-stephen-curry","36":"tag-tim-duncan"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114548873851195797","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}