When Shai Gilgeous-Alexander entered the NBA seven years ago, it took the then-20-year-old point guard from Canada only 10 games to own a starting job.
Earning his driver’s license took a bit longer.
While he was practicing on a learner’s permit during his rookie season, Gilgeous-Alexander relied on teammates or Uber to get around Los Angeles, where the Clippers had drafted him 11th overall and practiced 14 miles from their downtown arena.
There was much ahead of him to navigate. Traded unexpectedly to Oklahoma City after his rookie season, he landed with a rebuilding Thunder franchise that would win just 46 games from 2020 to 2022. Yet this season, Gilgeous-Alexander has arrived among the game’s greats.
On Wednesday, Gilgeous was named the NBA’s Most Valuable Player after he produced league-leading averages in points (32.7), free-throw attempts (7.9) and shot attempts (21.8) while leading Oklahoma City to a franchise-record 68 victories and the top seed in the Western Conference for the second consecutive season. The award is voted on by media members.
Gilgeous-Alexander got 71 first-place votes and 913 points overall from a panel of 100 voters.
Denver center Nikola Jokić, who this season became just the third player in NBA history to average a triple-double, finished second with 787 points, including 29 first-place votes. They were the only players to get first-place votes. Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo was third, Boston’s Jayson Tatum was fourth, and Cleveland’s Donovan Mitchell finished fifth.
Jokić has finished in the top two of voting for the award in five consecutive seasons, including wins in 2021, 2022 and last season, when Gilgeous-Alexander was runner-up. In April, Jokić scored the most points ever recorded in a triple-double, 61.
The Thunder are in the Western Conference finals for the first time since 2016, and if it beats the Minnesota Timberwolves it would advance to the team’s first NBA Finals appearance since 2012. Though the franchise won the 1979 NBA championship during its incarnation as the Seattle SuperSonics, the Thunder has never won an NBA title since it moved to Oklahoma City in 2008.
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Gilgeous-Alexander joins Steve Nash as the only MVP winners to come from Canada. An international player has won the last seven MVP awards; an American-born player has not finished in the top three since 2021.
“He’s a special player,” Jokić said after Oklahoma City beat Denver in last week’s conference semifinals. “His shot selection, his capability of making his own shots, separation, playing his rhythm. Defensively he’s always stealing the balls [and] always blocking the shots. … He’s a special player.”
