Shai Gilgeous-Alexander wins second MVP: The Thunder star’s legacy depends on what’s next

There are two types of NBA MVPs, at least with the benefit of historical hindsight. They are boysand they exist boys among boys. Some MVPs get trophies. Some get periods.

There is collective agreement among many basketball observers, at least with the benefit of hindsight, that players like Michael Jordan, LeBron James and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar should probably have more MVP trophies. Each had an undisputed decade-long reign as the NBA’s best player. Whether it was voter fatigue or low age or the news stories or baseball sabbaticals, none of them were respected as much as they should have been. Frankly, they didn’t need to. Their legacies were greater than a single, meaningful award.

The MVP award does not apply equally to all winners. For the Karl Malones, Derrick Roses and Bob McAdoos of the world, the prize is high. It is an acknowledgment of a moment in time when they touched immortality, even if they did not catch it. When we talk about Steve Nash, the MVP awards are the first things that come up, and the second, even if it is limiting and wrong, the idea of ​​Nash winning those trophies at the peak of the power of Kobe Bryant and Tim Duncan is strange.

When it comes to Magic Johnson, MVPs are a footnote. There is no need to describe him with the trophy because it was already understood that the NBA, for a while, belonged to him, and the awards are just a reflection of what we understood well. That’s how MVPs tend to work in all-time discussions. They are table pegs for the kind of historical companies players like these are trying to preserve. You have to have them, but having them in itself doesn’t buy you a ticket to the pantheon.

Nikola Jokić walks this line. In fact, we will look back on the period between 2019 and 2025 as a period of equality, but Jokić, by absolute consensus, was his best player. We all think we know what’s next. If Victor Wembanyama stays healthy, it feels like the undisputed dominance that Jordan and James once held in the league for so long is suddenly back on the table. At some point in the near future, Wembanyama will be the best player in the league, and if he does the things we think he will when he’s there, the next era of NBA history will likely be his.

Where does that leave Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, a freshman he got his second trophy in a row? Well, we don’t know yet, but it could happen soon.

Just having the accolades puts Gilgeous-Alexander in impressive company. He is now the 14th player to win consecutive MVPs, joining Nash, Malone, Johnson, Jordan, James, Abdul-Jabbar, Duncan, Jokić, Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Larry Bird, Stephen Curry and Giannis Antetokounmpo.

The numbers that produced those trophies are equally impressive. Only Curry and Antetokounmpo have ever posted a more efficient field goal percentage in a 30-point-per-game season than Gilgeous-Alexander. Only Jordan has ever won MVP while guarding a few turnovers at each position, and remember, he was a shooting guard while Gilgeous-Alexander was a shooting guard. Only one player, Luka Dončić, has scored more points than Gilgeous-Alexander this season. But 39 players touched the ball more times than him.

There is already a real legacy here. Gilgeous-Alexander defies efficiency scales, producing an incredible amount of points per touch and shot while not giving up a single one of those points due to turnovers or poor defense. He is a complete conformity machine. He hasn’t scored less than 20 points in a game in nearly two full seasons. There was a sense of disappointment when the Thunder didn’t go deep into the all-time winning streak this season, but it underscored just how historically dominant they have been. Gilgeous-Alexander was the standout player on a team that won 132 games over two seasons. Only Jordan and Curry have done that.

That’s all fine and dandy, but legacies are like jokes. They lose their impact when you have to explain them. This is part of why Nash is so often relegated to MVP. It’s easier said than done how someone who averaged 14.3 points per game in his career could be one of the greatest producers of a team’s offense in MVP history. It’s easier to say “he won two MVPs” than to explain that he was the NBA’s most efficient point guard eight times in a 10-year span.

Of course, Nash is also drooling over what he’s saying. He never won a championship. Gilgeous-Alexander already has. He could retire tomorrow as the top 30 player in NBA history, and as long as he maintains his statistical profile of no more MVPs or titles, he’ll climb even higher. Nash passed. He will surpass most “boy among boys” MVPs.

But something about Gilgeous-Alexander’s title run last season didn’t have the satisfying energy that an all-time champion often does. Maybe it was Tyrese Haliburton’s torn Achilles tendon. Maybe it was his performance dip in the postseason or the fact that his team was struggling or the fact that he is not particularly popular with fans who are not familiar with what he has accomplished. But there was no clear stick that passed last spring. When CBS Sports ranked in the top 100 players in the NBA before the season, Jokić kept his number 1 spot. ESPN, Bleacher Report and many other publications involved in the project also reached that conclusion.

Jokić will not pass the baton in this form either. He threw it down in Minnesota. Somehow, someone else will pick it up in the next month, and if that person is in the Black, they probably won’t give it up for long, long the time.

Wembanyama and Gilgeous-Alexander are about to meet in the Western Conference finals. The idea of ​​an important legacy in the series between the ages of 27 and 22 seems almost laughable on paper. Gilgeous-Alexander may not be in the middle of his career. He has nothing left to prove as a single player. We are talking about someone who is already drawing comparisons between Jordan and Curry.

But Jordan got a season, and Curry at least shared one with James. If there is going to be a Shai Gilgeous-Alexander moment, it will probably have to happen now, before the Wembanyama reaches any target threat. And if not now, that probably moves the Gilgeous-Alexander record into that relatively insignificant pool of MVP winners. It makes him the guy between Jokić’s run and the inevitable rise of Wembanyama.

He is better than the Malones and Roses and McAdoos and Nashes of the world. He’s ready for the inner circle of MVP winners. But history is not known for its kindness and neither are basketball fans. An easy comparison here, even though he never won the MVP, would be Isiah Thomas. He took down both Johnson and Bird, ended their reign at the top of the league, and won back-to-back championships. He is remembered today primarily as Jordan’s foil, which he had to overcome before becoming Michael Jordan. It’s never been incredibly fair, but these conversations often aren’t.

Yet it adds an undeniable layer of drama to what was already one of the most anticipated playoff series in recent memory, especially from Wembanyama. openly campaigned with the MVP award. He will spend the next seven games trying to force Gilgeous-Alexander to claim the trophy he thinks is rightfully his. The playoffs shouldn’t enter the MVP conversation, but they undoubtedly shape how he is remembered.

Most of the “boys among boys” winners are in that group because they lost to boys, or worse, to someone else. Joel Embiid’s 2023 MVP is the latest example of this phenomenon. Jokić spent the year hearing how historic it would be to award him a third consecutive MVP before winning the tournament… to win the championship while the MVP, Embiid, beat Boston in the second round 3-2. The playoffs don’t decide who wins the MVP, but they are often the deciding factor in how those MVPs are remembered.

That’s where Gilgeous-Alexander sits now. He has his two lips. Now he’s playing for the season, and he’s found one way to hold the Martian giant in San Antonio for at least one more year.