After winning his first scoring title and leading the Oklahoma City Thunder to a league-high 68 wins, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has earned his first NBA MVP award, sources told ESPN’s Shams Charania on Wednesday.
The league will officially announce the honor Wednesday night, a few nights after Gilgeous-Alexander’s Thunder defeated Nikola Jokic’s Denver Nuggets in Game 7 of the Western Conference semifinals.
Gilgeous-Alexander finished as the runner-up in last year’s MVP voting, when Jokic won his third MVP in four seasons.
Jokic had arguably the best season of his career, averaging 29.6 points, 12.7 rebounds, 10.2 assists and 1.8 steals per game, but Gilgeous-Alexander also had a historical campaign.
Gilgeous-Alexander led the league with 32.7 points per game on 51.9% shooting from the floor and also averaged 6.4 assists, 5.0 rebounds, 1.7 steals and 1.0 blocks.
After being named a first-team All-NBA selection the past two seasons, Gilgeous-Alexander had already qualified to be eligible to sign an unprecedented, four-year, $294 million supermax extension this summer.
It would be the deal with the highest annual value ($73.3 million) in league history.
