If you were watching the NBA over the last couple of years, you could feel the shift happening. It wasn't just about the old guard fading away—though, honestly, LeBron and KD are still doing things at 40 that shouldn't be possible—but about the arrival of a new, relentless force. On May 21, 2025, the league made it official. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander won the 2024-25 NBA MVP award, and it wasn't particularly close in the end.
He didn't just win it. He snatched it.
The Oklahoma City Thunder superstar finished the race with 71 first-place votes. Nikola Jokic, the reigning king of Denver and a three-time winner himself, pulled in the remaining 29 first-place votes. Nobody else even touched the top spot on a single ballot. It was a two-horse race that felt like a marathon, and SGA just had a little more gas in the tank when the regular season hit the finish line.
The Numbers That Made Shai Gilgeous-Alexander the 2025 MVP
People love to argue about "value." Is it the best player on the best team? Is it the guy with the most "holy crap" highlights? For Shai, it was both. He averaged a league-leading 32.7 points per game. That is an absurd number for a guard who doesn't just spam three-pointers. He lived at the rim, danced in the midrange, and basically turned every opposing defender into a highlight reel for the wrong reasons.
But points aren't everything. He chipped in 6.4 assists and 5 rebounds a night. Oh, and he was a menace on defense too, racking up 1.7 steals and a block per game. He became the first player since Stephen Curry in 2015 to win the regular-season MVP and lead his team to a title in the same year—yeah, the Thunder won the whole thing in 2025, but that's a story for another day.
What really sealed the deal for the voters was the win total. The Thunder went 68-14.
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Think about that. In a Western Conference that is basically a meat grinder every single night, OKC almost hit 70 wins. You don't do that by accident. You do that because your best player is a metronome of efficiency. Shai shot 51.9% from the floor. For a guard taking the volume of shots he takes, that's borderline illegal.
Who Else Was in the Running?
It’s kinda wild to think that Nikola Jokic had maybe the best statistical season of his entire career and still came in second. The Big Honey averaged 29.6 points, 12.2 rebounds, and 11 assists. He literally averaged a 30-point triple-double while shooting nearly 58% from the field. In almost any other year in the history of the sport, that’s a unanimous MVP.
So why didn't he win?
Voter fatigue is a real thing, sure, but the standings were the tiebreaker. Denver won 18 fewer games than Oklahoma City. When the gap in team success is that massive, the guy leading the 68-win juggernaut is going to get the nod every time.
Behind the big two, the list looked like this:
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- Giannis Antetokounmpo: Finished third. He was a beast as usual, carrying a Milwaukee team that dealt with a lot of injuries.
- Jayson Tatum: Took the fourth spot. He was the engine for a Boston team that stayed elite but didn't quite have the "it" factor Shai had this year.
- Luka Doncic: Rounded out the top five. Luka’s stats were, as always, video-game-like, but Dallas struggled with consistency throughout the winter.
Why Shai's 2025 Win Matters for the NBA
This win broke a few streaks. Shai became the first Kentucky Wildcat to ever win the MVP. That sounds fake, right? With all the talent Calipari sent to the league, you’d think someone would have grabbed one by now, but Shai is the first.
He also kept the "International Dominance" streak alive. We haven't had an American-born MVP since James Harden in 2018. Shai is Canadian, joining the likes of Jokic (Serbia), Embiid (Cameroon), and Giannis (Greece). The world is catching up, or more accurately, the world has already arrived and taken over the building.
Honestly, the coolest part about the who got mvp nba 2025 conversation is how it changed the perception of the Thunder. They went from "the team with all the draft picks" to "the team with the best player on Earth."
The "SGA" Style: How He Actually Did It
If you watch Shai play, it’s almost frustrating. He doesn't look like he’s moving fast. He’s got this weird, jerky rhythm. He’ll drive, stop, fake, wait for the defender to fly past him, and then just lean in for a soft layup. It’s "old man at the YMCA" logic applied to a world-class athlete.
He led the league in drives per game for the third straight year. He also led the league in "clutch" scoring for a good chunk of the season. When the game was on the line, everyone knew where the ball was going, and nobody could stop it.
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What’s Next for the MVP Race?
As we look toward the 2025-26 season, the target is firmly on Shai's back. Early straw polls for the new season show him and Jokic neck-and-neck again. But there are new faces climbing the ladder.
Victor Wembanyama is the elephant in the room. He’s 7-foot-5, blocks everything, and is starting to figure out how to score 30 a night without breaking a sweat. If the Spurs can actually win some games, Wemby might make this a three-way fight very soon.
Then you’ve got the freshmen. Cooper Flagg and Kon Knueppel are already making noise in their rookie seasons, though they’re obviously years away from MVP talk. But the point is, the league is deeper than it has ever been.
How to Track the MVP Race Yourself
If you want to stay ahead of the curve for next year, don't just look at points. Keep an eye on:
- Net Rating: Look at how much better a team is when the player is on the court versus the bench. Shai’s "on-off" numbers were historic in 2025.
- Health: The 65-game rule is still in effect. If a guy misses 18 games, he's out. Period.
- Head-to-Head Matchups: Voters are human. If Shai drops 45 on Jokic in a nationally televised game in March, that stays in their heads when they fill out the ballot in April.
The 2024-25 season was a masterpiece of individual performance, but Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was the artist of the year. He didn't just win an award; he defined an era for a franchise that had been waiting for its next hero.
For fans who want to dive deeper into the stats, check out the official NBA tracking data or the advanced metrics on Basketball-Reference. Seeing the gap between Shai's efficiency and the rest of the league really puts his 2025 campaign into perspective.