The NBA MVP award of the 2024-25 season belongs to Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has been rewarded for his tremendous regular season, winning the coveted Michael Jordan Trophy.
Averaging a league-high 32.7 points to go with 6.4 assists, 5.0 rebounds, 1.7 steals and 1.0 block while shooting 51.9 percent from the field, Gilgeous-Alexander paced the Oklahoma City Thunder towards a historic season, winning 68 of 82 regular season games.
Gilgeous-Alexander edged out three-time MVP Nikola Jokic, his main nemesis for the award who averaged a triple-double, as well as Milwaukee Bucks superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo.
Clinching the MVP officially cements Gilgeous-Alexander’s legacy as an all-time great in OKC’s record books.
He becomes the third Thunder player to be named the league’s Most Valuable Player after Kevin Durant (2014-15) and Russell Westbrook (2016-17).
And in his MVP speech, Gilgeous-Alexander gave both Thunder icons a special tribute they deserve.
“It’s amazing. Any conversation involving those two guys, or anyone who gets this award, is hard to even wrap your head around,” he said about Durant and Westbrook.
“Those guys have done amazing things with the game and changed it in ways you couldn’t see coming. To even be in the same breath as them is, like I said, hard to put into words.
“I can’t chalk it up to anything else besides just being a kid dreaming, working at it, and seeing where it takes you. That’s the biggest thing.
“I know Kevin and I know Russell, I know the kids they were. They just dreamed and worked hard to get to this position, and so did I.”
After winning the MVP, there is no doubt that Gilgeous-Alexander still only has one goal left in his mind right now: leading the Thunder towards the league’s mountaintop.
For years, Durant and Westbrook carried the Thunder on their backs, but they disappointingly failed to deliver even a single championship to Oklahoma City.
Giving OKC its first NBA title since the franchise moved from Seattle in 2008 would be a poetic fairy tale ending for Gilgeous-Alexander this season, and it will certainly make him the greatest Thunder of all time.
Gilgeous-Alexander is in a promising position to pull it off, as he and the Thunder are currently up 1-0 against the Minnesota Timberwolves in the 2025 Western Conference Finals.
