Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is the 2025-26 NBA Most Valuable Player, ESPN reported Sunday. After a hotly debated race featuring a rotating cast of candidates throughout the season, the defending winner has retained his crown after a historically efficient offensive season.
Though Gilgeous-Alexander’s raw scoring technically went down from 32.7 to 31.1 points per game, he went about scoring those points far more efficiently. Gilgeous-Alexander closed the season shooting 55.3% from the floor, 38.6% on 3s and 87.9% on free throws. The only other player to ever achieve those shooting percentages on more than 250 total shots? That would be Kevin Durant in the 2022-23 season, who did it in 47 games. Gilgeous-Alexander did it in 68 and still managed to finish his season with fewer total turnovers and almost twice as many assists.
Gilgeous-Alexander scored the second-most points per game in the NBA at 31.1, trailing only Luka Dončić, but he did so while averaging the 42nd-most touches per game, 66.6. This meant that Gilgeous-Alexander nearly scored one per for every two times he touched the ball. He led the team with the most regular-season wins, 64, and he did so with his only teammate who had made an All-Star Game before this season, Jalen Williams, playing 33 diminished games. Only two Thunder players, Cason Wallace and Isaiah Joe, managed to play 70 games this season, and several key pieces like Ajay Mitchell, Alex Caruso and Isaiah Hartenstein missed 25 or more games.