Shai Gilgeous-Alexander of the reigning NBA champion Oklahoma City Thunder won the NBA’s Most Valuable Player on Sunday for the second consecutive year. He became the 18th player to win at least two MVP awards and the 14th to win them back-to-back.

“Who he is has never changed,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said. “I think he’s touched up the edges on his game and on his leadership and on his perspective, just like anybody else that’s coming of age.”

The win for Gilgeous-Alexander, who is Canadian, marks the eighth consecutive time that the NBA’s MVP was born outside the US. The run started with Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo (Greece) in 2019 and 2020, then Denver’s Nikola Jokić (Serbia) in 2021 and 2022, Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid, who was born in Cameroon but has since become a US citizen, in 2023 and Jokić again in 2024.

And in 2025 and 2026, SGA is the MVP.

“Shai’s so good at creating separation when he’s able to play 1-on-1,” Los Angeles Lakers coach JJ Redick said. “He’s just really hard to stop, for any defender.”

International players finished 1-2-3 in the MVP balloting for the fifth consecutive season, with Jokić and San Antonio’s star French center Victor Wembanyama the other finalists this year.

Gilgeous-Alexander and Wembanyama will face off Monday night when the Thunder and Spurs open Game 1 of the Western Conference finals in Oklahoma City.

The MVP win is Gilgeous-Alexander’s second major individual award this season; he was also voted the league’s Clutch Player of the Year by an overwhelming margin – he got 96 of 100 first-place votes in that balloting, paying tribute to how strong his performances tend to be in the final five minutes of close games.

Then again, he’s pretty good no matter how much time is on the clock. Gilgeous-Alexander was second in the league with 31.1 points per game, second only to Luka Dončić and his 33.5-point average. He also extended his NBA-record streak of regular season games with at least 20 points to 140 and counting; it’ll carry into next season as well.

Gilgeous-Alexander isn’t flashy – he is one of the few mid-range specialists in the game, someone who excels at drawing fouls, isn’t a look-at-me type and gives some of the most thoughtful answers of anyone in the league. Emotions aren’t worth his time; staying calm is always his preferred move.

“It just gives me the best chance to make the right decision on the next play, which is what’s most important,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “I’ve noticed throughout my career and through personal experiences that emotions only get in the way of critical and smart thinking – especially in those moments when I want to get the job done the most. I try to put my emotions aside and stay locked in on what’s present and what matters most.”

Jokić not winning the award continues an odd trend: those who average a triple-double, often thought of as the holy grail of in-game accomplishment, almost never win MVP. Jokić had the seventh instance of a player finishing a season averaging a triple-double by putting up 27.7 points, a league-best 12.9 rebounds and a league-best 10.7 assists per game.

It wasn’t good enough for MVP. Russell Westbrook averaged a triple-double four times and won MVP only once in those years. Oscar Robertson averaged a triple-double in 1961-62; he didn’t win MVP that season. And now, Jokić has done it twice – with no MVPs to show for it, though he has won the award on three other occasions.

Golden State’s Stephen Curry was the last player born in the US to be in the top three of the MVP balloting; he was third in 2021 behind Jokić and Embiid. The last US-born winner of the award was James Harden, then of Houston, in 2018. Harden has played for four different franchises since then.