Days after Shai Gilgeous-Alexander got the better of Nikola Jokic on the court, the Oklahoma City Thunder star defeated the Denver Nuggets big man in voting for the league's top player award.

Gilgeous-Alexander was named the 2024-25 NBA MVP on Wednesday, beating out Jokic to win the award for his first time.

This is the seventh straight year that a player born outside the United States won the league MVP, and Gilgeous-Alexander became the second Canadian to win the award, joining Steve Nash.

After finishing runner-up to Jokic in MVP voting last season, Gilgeous-Alexander received 71 first-place votes with Jokic receiving the other 29 on the 100 ballots from the global panel of sportswriters and broadcasters.

Milwaukee Bucks superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo finished third in total voting.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has been named the Kia NBA MVP for the first time. He is the second MVP recipient from Canada (Steve Nash in 2004-05 and 2005-06) and the third with the Thunder (Kevin Durant in 2013-14 and Russell Westbrook in 2016-17).

In 2024-25, Gilgeous-Alexander… https://t.co/J5ieEsTfWV pic.twitter.com/CJet7SSUJW

— NBA Communications (@NBAPR) May 21, 2025

The award was announced three days after Gilgeous-Alexander's Thunder defeated Jokic's Nuggets in Game 7 of a Western Conference semi-final series. SGA averaged 29.7 points, 6.6 assists and 6.4 rebounds in those games - including 35 points in the clincher.

In the regular season, Gilgeous-Alexander averaged 32.7 points to win the league's scoring title and also led the NBA in 50-point games (four), 40-point games (13), 30-point games (49) and 20-point games (75).

In addition to being a relentless scorer, he is also considered one of the league's premier defenders, ranking fifth in the NBA in steals at 1.72 per game to go with 1.01 blocks per game. He was the only player in the league to average more than one block and at least 1.5 steals per game.

He helped lead the Thunder to a regular-season-best 68 wins and establish an NBA record for scoring differential in a season - outscoring teams by an average of 12.9 points per game.

The driving force behind the highly efficient Thunder, SGA posted a 12.1 +/- rating - the best by any player since Stephen Curry produced a rating of 12.8 for the 2016-17 Golden State Warriors.

 

Your 2024-25 @Kia NBA Most Valuable Player: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander #SGA2MVP | #KiaMVP pic.twitter.com/pi4aQxPCwq

— OKC THUNDER (@okcthunder) May 21, 2025

Statistically, this was Jokic's best season, but he was denied a fourth NBA MVP.

One of the league's most complete players with incredible ball-handling skills and an adept understanding of the game, Jokic averaged career highs of 29.6 points and 10.2 assists, as well as 12.7 rebounds.

Across the NBA, his scoring average and rebounding average both ranked third, while his assist average ranked second, making him the first player since Hall of Famer Wilt Chamberlain in 1967-68 to rank in the top three in scoring, rebounding and assists.

Stuffing the box score, Jokic also led the NBA with a career-high 34 triple-doubles – 23 more than the next-closest player (Antetokounmpo).

The Serbian sensation also delivered two historic performances with stat lines that had never been seen before, with a 60-10-10 performance as well as a 30-20-20 game.

Like SGA, Jokic is one of the league's top defensive players with a career-best 1.81 steals per game – the second-best rate in the NBA.

Despite his phenomenal regular season, his Nuggets failed to make it out of the conference semi-finals for the fourth time in five years.

Milwaukee's season ended in the first round for the third year in a row despite Antetokounmpo averaging 33 points and 15.4 rebounds in the Bucks' five-game series with the Indiana Pacers.

Antetokounmpo, who won a pair of MVP Awards in 2018-19 and 2019-20, finished second in the league in scoring at 30.4 points per game.