The OKC Thunder were the first team to win the Maurice Podolff Trophy two years in a row after finishing with the best league-wide winning percentage in 2024-25 (68-14) and 2025-26 (64-18).
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, 27, posted his fourth consecutive season with 30+ PPG, ending his 68-game campaign by averaging 31.1 points on a career-high 55.3% shooting. The Canadian superstar, who signed a 4-year, $285 million supermax extension with the Thunder in July 2025, also posted 6.6 assists, 4.3 rebounds, 1.4 steals, and 0.8 blocks per game.
During the 2025-26 season, Gilgeous-Alexander broke Wilt Chamberlain’s record of 126 consecutive 20-point games, which the Canadian guard has now extended to 140 by the end of the regular season, after finishing a second straight season with only 20-point games.
Gilgeous-Alexander’s streak also leads Wilt Chamberlain’s second-longest streak of 92 games, Oscar Robertson’s 79-game streak, and the 72-game runs from Kevin Durant and Michael Jordan.
Gilgeous-Alexander was also named MVP after the 2024-25 season, posting per-game averages of 32.7 points, 5.0 rebounds, 6.4 assists, 1.7 blocks, and 1.0 steals as the Thunder won their first NBA championship in the Oklahoma City era.
Ahead of Jokic and Wembanyama
In this season’s MVP voting, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander beat out three-time Most Valuable Player Nikola Jokic of the Denver Nuggets and San Antonio Spurs star Victor Wembanyama.
Jokic recorded career-high per-game averages in rebounds (12.9) and assists (10.7) during the 2025-26 season, in which the Serbian star averaged a triple-double for the second-straight year. Wembanyama, who was the first unanimously voted Defensive Player of the Year in NBA history, finished with averages of 25.0 points, 11.5 rebounds, 3.1 blocks, 3.1 assists, and 1.0 steals.
With Canada, Serbia, and France represented among first-place MVP votes, the last American-born player to finish in the top 3 of MVP voting was Stephen Curry in 2021, when the two-time MVP finished third with 5 first-place votes.
‘SGA’ already laid claim to the NBA’s Clutch Player of the Year award, finishing with 96 of the 100 possible first-place votes after scoring 175 points in the final five minutes of regulation and overtime.
Drafted with the 11th pick by the Los Angeles Clippers in the 2018 NBA Draft, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander landed with the OKC Thunder as part of the Paul George trade in July 2019. After learning next to Chris Paul in his first season in Oklahoma, ‘SGA’ quickly became the star of the team and received MVP votes in 2023 and 2024 before winning his maiden MVP award in 2025, while also being named an NBA All-Star every year between 2023 and 2026.
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