Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is a two-time MVP, but what that means historically depends on what comes next
There are two types of NBA MVPs, at least with the benefit of historical hindsight. There are the guys, and there are the guys between the guys. Some MVPs get trophies. Some get eras.
There's a collective agreement among most basketball observers, at least with the benefit of hindsight, that players like Michael Jordan, LeBron James and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar probably should have more MVP trophies. Each had an undisputed decade-long reign as the NBA's best player. Whether it was voter fatigue or down years or narratives or baseball sabbaticals, none of them were honored to the extent that they probably should have been. They frankly didn't need to be. Their legacies were bigger than a single, contextual award.
The MVP award doesn't function the same way for all winners. For the Karl Malones, Derrick Roses and Bob McAdoos of the world, the award is a peak. It is an acknowledgment of a moment in time in which they touched immortality, even if they didn't quite grab it. When we talk about Steve Nash, the MVP awards are the first things that come up, and the second, even if it's reductive and unfair, is the notion that Nash winning those trophies at the peak of Kobe Bryant's and Tim Duncan's powers is a bit of an oddity.
When we talk about Magic Johnson, the MVPs are a footnote. There's no need to define him by a trophy because it was simply understood that the NBA, for a time, belonged to him, and the trophies are just a manifestation of what we understood implicitly. That's how MVPs tend to function in all-time conversations. They're table stakes for the sort of historical company players like this are trying to keep. You have to have them, but having them in and of itself does not punch a ticket into the pantheon.
Nikola Jokić straddles that line. In truth, we'll probably look back on the period between 2019 and 2025 as the parity era, but Jokić was, by near total consensus, its best player. We all think we know what's coming next. If Victor Wembanyama stays healthy, it feels as though the unquestioned dominion that Jordan and James once held over the league for sustained periods is suddenly back on the table. At some point soon, Wembanyama is probably going to be the league's best player, and if he does the things we think he can once he's there, the next era of NBA history will almost certainly belong to him.
Where does that leave Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the guy who just claimed his second consecutive trophy? Well, we don't quite know yet, but we may soon.
Just having the trophies puts Gilgeous-Alexander in incredible company. He's 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 generated those trophies are just as impressive. Only Curry and Antetokounmpo have ever posted higher effective field goal percentages in 30-point-per-game seasons than Gilgeous-Alexander did. Only Jordan ever won MVP at guard committing fewer turnovers per possession, and remember, he was a shooting guard while Gilgeous-Alexander is a point guard. Only one player, Luka Dončić, scored more total points than Gilgeous-Alexander this season. But 39 players touched the ball more times than he did.
There is already a real legacy here. Gilgeous-Alexander is practically breaking efficiency scales, generating a mind-boggling number of points per touch and shot while surrendering none of those points back through turnovers or poor defense. He is an absolute machine of consistency. He hasn't scored fewer than 20 points in a game for almost two full regular seasons. There was a sense of disappointment when the Thunder didn't seriously pursue the all-time wins record this season, but that undersold just how historically dominant they've been. Gilgeous-Alexander was the best player on a team that won 132 games across two seasons. Only Jordan and Curry have ever done that.
All of that is great and absolutely meaningful, but legacies are a bit like jokes. They lose impact once you have to explain them. This is part of why Nash gets so frequently reduced to the MVPs. It's simpler than explaining how someone who averaged 14.3 points per game for his career could be one of the greatest generators of team offense in MVP history. It's easier to say "he won two MVPs" than to explain how he was the point guard for the NBA's most efficient offense eight times in a 10-year span.
Of course, Nash also gets reduced to the trophies because of what he lacks. He never won a championship. Gilgeous-Alexander already has one. He could retire tomorrow as something like a top-30 player in NBA history, and if he just maintains his rough statistical profile with no more MVPs or titles, he'll climb even higher. He's passed Nash. He's going to pass most of the "guy between the guys" MVPs.
But something about Gilgeous-Alexander's title run a season ago didn't quite land with the satisfying authority an all-timer's first championship usually does. Maybe it was Tyrese Haliburton's torn Achilles tendon. Maybe it was his postseason efficiency dip or how loaded his team was or the fact that he's still not especially popular among casual fans relative to what he's accomplished. But there wasn't an obvious baton-passing last spring. When CBS Sports ranked the top 100 players in the NBA before the season, Jokić retained his No. 1 spot. ESPN, Bleacher Report and most other publications to engage in the exercise came to that conclusion as well.
Jokić won't be passing the baton this spring either. He dropped it on the floor in Minnesota. One way or another, someone else is picking it up in the next month, and if that person is Wembanyama, well, odds are he's not letting go of it for a long, long time.
Conveniently enough, Wembanyama and Gilgeous-Alexander are about to face each other in the Western Conference finals. The notion of meaningful legacy stakes for a series between a 27-year-old and a 22-year-old seems almost laughable on paper. Gilgeous-Alexander may not even be halfway through his career. He has nothing left to prove as an individual player. We're talking about someone who is already drawing statistical comparisons to Jordan and Curry.
But Jordan got an era, and Curry at least shared part of one with James. If there is going to be a Shai Gilgeous-Alexander era, it probably needs to happen now, before Wembanyama reaches whatever terrifying peak he's destined for. And if it isn't now, that probably nudges Gilgeous-Alexander's historical regard into that slightly less meaningful pool of MVP winners. It makes him the guy between Jokić's run and Wembanyama's inevitable ascent.
He's better than the Malones and the Roses and the McAdoos and the Nashes of the world. He's good enough for the inner circle of MVP winners. But history isn't known for its kindness and neither are basketball fans. The easy comparison here, though he never won an MVP, would be Isiah Thomas. He took down both Johnson and Bird, effectively ending their reign atop the league, and won consecutive championships. He's remembered today primarily as a foil for Jordan, the one he needed to beat before he could become, well, Michael Jordan. It's never been terribly fair, but these conversations usually 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 since Wembanyama openly campaigned for the MVP award. He's going to spend the next seven games trying to force Gilgeous-Alexander to validate a trophy he thinks should belong to him. The playoffs aren't supposed to seep into MVP discourse, but they undeniably shape how they're remembered.
Most of those "guys between the guys" winners are in that group because they lost to the guys, or worse, they lost to someone else. Joel Embiid's 2023 MVP is the most recent example of this phenomenon. Jokić spent the whole year hearing about what a historical crisis it would be to give him a third consecutive MVP before he won a championship... only to win the championship while the MVP, Embiid, blew a 3-2 second-round lead to Boston. The playoffs don't determine who wins MVP, but they're very often the determining factor in how those MVPs are remembered.
That's where Gilgeous-Alexander now sits. He has his two trophies. Now he's playing for an era, and getting one means holding off the Martian giant in San Antonio for at least one more year.
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