It's time: The NBA will unveil this season's Most Valuable Player on Wednesday night.
The winner will be Oklahoma City's Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Denver's Nikola Jokic or Milwaukee's Giannis Antetokounmpo. It'll be the seventh consecutive time that a player born outside of the U.S. has won the award.
Antetokounmpo, of Greek and Nigerian descent, won in 2019 and 2020. Jokic, a Serbian, won in 2021, 2022 and 2024. And Philadelphia's Joel Embiid, who was born in Cameroon but since became a U.S. citizen, won the award in 2023.
This year's favorite, according to BetMGM Sportsbook, is Gilgeous-Alexander — the Canadian guard who won the league's scoring title this season and led the Thunder to an NBA-best 68-14 record.
Gilgeous-Alexander averaged 32.7 points, 6.4 assists and five rebounds per game, and is in line to win the award for the first time. He was fifth in the MVP voting in 2023 and second last season.
Jokic had a history-making season, becoming the first center to average a triple-double — 29.6 points, 12.7 rebounds and 10.2 assists per game — while also finishing as the first player since all those stats were tracked to finish in the NBA's top three in all three of those categories.
Antetokounmpo averaged 30.4 points, 11.9 rebounds and 6.5 assists per game.
The MVP award, like most other NBA honors, was voted on by a global panel of 100 writers and broadcasters who cover the league and cast ballots shortly before the start of the playoffs.
The other awards that were part of that voting process and have already had their results unveiled: Cleveland's Kenny Atkinson winning coach of the year, Atlanta’s Dyson Daniels winning most improved player, San Antonio’s Stephon Castle winning rookie of the year, Cleveland’s Evan Mobley winning defensive player of the year, New York’s Jalen Brunson winning clutch player of the year, and Boston’s Payton Pritchard winning sixth man of the year.
Other awards announced by the league since the end of the regular season: Golden State’s Stephen Curry won the Twyman-Stokes teammate of the year award, Warriors teammate Draymond Green won the hustle award, Oklahoma City's Sam Presti won executive of the year and Boston’s Jrue Holiday won the sportsmanship award for the second time in his career as well as the league’s social justice award.
___
AP NBA: https://apnews.com/nba
Tim Reynolds, The Associated Press
