Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is the NBA MVP once again. For the second year in a row. For the second time in a row ahead of Nikola Jokic. And probably for the first time that a part of the public reacted to this news with more weariness than surprise.
Not because Shai did not have an MVP season. He had it. The Oklahoma City Thunder finished the regular season with the league’s best record for the second consecutive year, lost only 18 games, and their best player averaged 31.1 points, 6.6 assists, and shot nearly 39% for three points. He also won the Clutch Player of the Year award, the Thunder has not lost a game in this year’s playoffs yet, and Shai is again the face of the most successful project in the NBA.
The problem is that the MVP race has long ceased to be just a question of numbers.
It has become a question of narrative, fatigue, the moment, and what the league wants to push as its face. Shai currently is the perfect face of the modern NBA. Calm, controlled, marketing-wise flawless, constantly present at the top, leader of the youngest power of the West, and a man who plays basketball that goes down with referees today better than anyone else’s.
Here we come to the part because of which this award will cause endless discussions, because Nikola Jokic again had a season that does not seem real. An average of 27.7 points, 12.9 rebounds, and 10.7 assists. The first man in history to finish the season as the league leader in both rebounds and assists. A center who controls every second of the game, dictates the rhythm, organizes the attack, and practically plays basketball from the future.
And again he is not the MVP. For the second time in a row.
Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has been named the 2025-26 Kia NBA Most Valuable Player, earning the Michael Jordan Trophy. pic.twitter.com/pPSwgxAmPJ
— NBA Communications (@NBAPR) May 17, 2026
This does not mean that Shai “robbed” the award. Such stories are too simplified. Shai deserved to be in that story. Oklahoma deserved respect. The man has 127 consecutive games with at least 20 points, broke Wilt Chamberlain’s record, and carried the team through a season in which his teammates constantly missed games. Jalen Williams played only 33 matches, AJ Mitchell, Alex Caruso, and Isaiah Hartenstein also had longer absences, and the Thunder did not fall apart at any moment.
But precisely there breaks the whole story around the MVP.
Because when Jokic does something that no one has ever done, it becomes “normal”. When Shai leads the best team in the league and scores 31 points per game, it becomes the new big story of the NBA. One moves the boundaries so far that people no longer react, the other is currently an ideal symbol of what the league wants to present as a new era.
And maybe that is exactly the best description of this award.
Shai did not win the MVP only because of the numbers. He won it because Oklahoma became the story that the NBA wants to push as the future. A young champion, a deep roster, brutal defense, discipline, athleticism, and a superstar who seems unstoppable one-on-one.
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Only there is also another side to that story.
A large part of the audience still cannot connect with his style of play. A huge number of points comes from contact, sudden changes of direction, and situations in which a reaction from the referees is constantly sought. To someone that is mastery, to someone a manipulation of the rules. The NBA today rewards such basketball more than ever, and there is no dilemma that Shai is perhaps the best in the world precisely in that gray zone between a foul and “smartly drawing contact”.
That does not diminish his quality. It only explains why every MVP of his will cause more discussions than it perhaps should.
At the same time, this whole story gets an even more interesting framework when looking at the future. Victor Wembanyama is already breathing down the necks of both Shai and Jokic. He won the Defensive Player of the Year unanimously, recorded 25 points, 11.5 rebounds, and 3.1 blocks, and the San Antonio Spurs are just now going to face Oklahoma in the West finals. Perhaps exactly there begins the next era of the NBA.
Jokic is still the best basketball player in the world. Shai is currently the face of the most successful team of the regular season. Wemby looks like a player who will completely change the way basketball is played, and between all of that stands the MVP award, which looks less and less like a recognition only for the best player, and more and more like a photograph of the moment in which the league currently finds itself.
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Source: Euronews; Photo: AP Photo/Nate Billings