Per Sham’s Charania, Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has won his second consecutive MVP award on Sunday.
While the official announcement will be made by the NBA prior to Sunday’s Game 7 between the Pistons and Cavaliers, Charania is reporting that SGA will join the ranks of Steve Nash, Tim Duncan, Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Moses Malone, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Stephen Curry, LeBron James, Nikola Jokic and Bill Russell as players who have been named MVP in back to back seasons.
The Canadian guard is believed to have edged out Victor Wembanyama and Nikola Jokic by a narrow margin for the honour. SGA averaged 31.1 points per game, while shooting a career best 55.3% from the floor.
It’s the second piece of postseason hardware Gilgeous-Alexander has earned over the last few weeks. Prior to earning the MVP, he was named the league’s “Clutch Player of the Year” after leading the NBA in clutch points (175 points scored in the final 5 minutes of a game in a game that is within 5 points), while hitting 16 go-ahead field goals as well.
The 27 year old is the first player since Michael Jordan to average 30 or more points per season in 4 consecutive NBA campaigns. He also becomes the first guard to win consecutive MVP awards since Stephen Curry went back-to-back in 2014-15 and 2015-16.
Despite OKC having the 3rd most games lost due to injury on their roster, the Thunder claimed top seed in the West with a 64-18 season. That’s due in large part to SGA’s stellar play, as Oklahoma City has now posted back to back 60+ win seasons for the first time in franchise history.
On March 12th, SGA broke Wilt Chamberlain’s record for most consecutive games with 20 or more points with his 127th such effort. Since then, he’s kept the streak in tact and will bring it into his team’s first round series with the Spurs in the Western Conference Finals.
Game 1 of the series is set to tip off on Monday night at 8:30pm ET.
Photo: Sandro Halank, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.