Shai Gilgeous-Alexander wins 2024-25 MVP award

Matt Hanifan / NBA / May 21, 2025

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander led the NBA in scoring this season, averaging 32.7 points per game on very good efficiency. (Alonzo Adams-Imagn Images)

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander wins 2024-25 MVP award

Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has taken home the 2024-25 MVP award, the league announced Wednesday.

Gilgeous-Alexander won the award over Denver’s Nikola Jokic, a three-time MVP, and Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo, a two-time MVP.

Breaking: Oklahoma City Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has won the NBA MVP award, sources tell ESPN.
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) May 21, 2025

At the time of this publishing, we still don’t know how many votes were distributed to each player.

This is a well-deserved honor for Gilgeous-Alexander, who led the NBA in scoring (32.7) while also averaging 5.0 rebounds, 6.4 assists and 1.7 steals per game on 51.9/37.5/89.8 shooting splits. He led the NBA in free-throw makes (601) for the third-straight season, but he also led in made field goals (860), win shares and win shares per 48 minutes.

His impact offensively can’t be denied–foul-grifting aside. The Thunder were 9.1 points better per 100 possessions offensively (96th percentile) when he was on the floor versus when he wasn’t in non-garbage-time possessions, according to Cleaning The Glass. They also turned the ball over significantly less (-2.0 TOV%, 92nd percentile) with an effective field goal percentage that was 1.7 percentage points higher (81st percentile).

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Gilgeous-Alexander led a Thunder that was without Chet Holmgren for most of the season to a historic 68-14 record. They had so much depth, but the 6-foot-6 guard was beyond sensational the entire season.

While it’s never a bad thing to have a player on your team win MVP, this will have a serious impact on the Thunder’s cap sheet. He will eligible to sign a four-year, $293 million extension this offseason, but if he waits another year (by virtue of winning MVP plus meeting years of service criteria), he will be eligible to sign a five-year, $380 million extension, according to ESPN’s Bobby Marks. Wow!

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander met the super max criteria (All-NBA in 2 out of 3 years) last offseason but was ineligible to sign because he was short of the years of service criteria.

He is eligible this offseason to sign a four-year $293M extension with OKC.

Because he won MVP (and…
— Bobby Marks (@BobbyMarks42) May 21, 2025