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The Setup — One Trophy, Three Legitimate Claims
140. That's how many consecutive games Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored at least 20 points during the 2025-26 NBA regular season — a streak that shattered Wilt Chamberlain's 62-year-old record of 127 and gave the MVP conversation its defining data point before a single ballot was cast.
As of July 3, 2026, the official results are in: SGA claimed his second consecutive MVP award with 83 of 100 first-place votes and 939 total points, making him the 14th player in league history to win back-to-back MVPs and the 7th to do so this century. According to AI Fallback, which compiled the vote totals and season statistics reviewed here, the margin between what the ballot said and what the underlying analytics suggest is where the real story lives.
Sports Illustrated's Chris Mannix captured the field's unusual depth: "The top three finishers in the 2025-26 MVP race all spent time at No. 1 this season, which was both appropriate, necessary and reflected the top-end quality of the field." Each candidate led the betting market at some point. Each had a case that could survive serious scrutiny. Only one walked away with the hardware.
What's on the Table — The Three Candidates, Scored
SGA's case starts with efficiency that has no historical precedent for a guard. As of July 3, 2026, he averaged 31.1 points per game on 55.3% shooting — a 66.4% true shooting percentage (a metric that accounts for free throws and three-pointers, not just field goals, giving a fuller picture of scoring value). No guard in NBA history has averaged 30 or more points while shooting 55% or better from the field. The Oklahoma City Thunder went 64-18 and earned the No. 1 seed, with SGA posting a career-high 6.6 assists per game and leading the NBA in free throws made per game at 7.9. Yahoo Sports reported he played from "opening night 'til the end" without a statistical dip across the full 68-game campaign.
Nikola Jokic's case runs through territory no player has ever reached. He averaged 27.7 points, 12.9 rebounds, and 10.7 assists per game — becoming, as of July 3, 2026, the first player in NBA history to simultaneously lead the league in both rebounds and assists per game in the same season. He averaged a triple-double (double-digit figures in at least three statistical categories) for the second consecutive year, recording 34 triple-doubles individually — more than the second and third place players combined, with Jalen Johnson and Josh Giddey each logging 13. His Box Plus/Minus of +14.1 (how many points per 100 possessions a player contributes above a league-average replacement) led the league, as did his Offensive BPM at +8.6, and his VORP (Value Over Replacement Player — a composite impact figure) by wide margins over SGA.
Victor Wembanyama was 22 years old and turned in arguably the most dominant two-way season since Shaquille O'Neal's peak. He averaged 25.0 points, 11.5 rebounds, and 3.1 blocks per game — the first player to hit those thresholds simultaneously since O'Neal in 2000. The San Antonio Spurs went 62-20 and outscored opponents by 17 points per 100 possessions with him on the court. He received all 100 first-place Defensive Player of the Year votes, becoming the youngest (at 22) and first unanimous DPOY winner in league history.
Chart: Scoring averages for the top three 2025-26 MVP candidates. Jokic's case rests more heavily on BPM leadership and historic dual rebounding/assist dominance than raw points per game.
Photo by Maxim Tolchinskiy on Unsplash
The Stats Edge — Where the Vote Diverged from the Data
Here is the number that keeps nagging when you review the full analytical picture: Jokic's +14.1 BPM led the entire league by wide margins over SGA. BPM is arguably the cleanest single-player impact metric basketball has — it adjusts for teammates, pace, and role — and Jokic didn't just win it, he dominated it. His OBPM at +8.6 tells a similar story about offensive impact independent of team context.
Robert Horry put the narrative version of this case plainly, questioning SGA's case: "If Shai misses a game, he has five guys stepping up for him." The implicit argument: Jokic's floor-raising value for the Nuggets was categorically different in kind, not just degree, from what SGA provided to a deep, No. 1 seeded Thunder roster. Much like the stock market today reprices a company faster on macro data than any individual analyst report can track, MVP betting markets were re-pricing odds almost daily as rotation injuries and eligibility questions shifted the field in the final weeks of the regular season.
ESPN's final MVP straw poll, as reported by AI Fallback, showed SGA with 88 first-place votes out of 100 and 958 total points — roughly 300 ahead of Wembanyama — and cited his "clutch play" through Thunder rotation injuries as the decisive narrative factor. The official tally (83 first-place votes, 939 total points) told the same directional story. But the straw poll's emphasis on clutch narrative and team success is exactly the framework Horry and the analytics community push back against. The official vote and the analytical case were pointing in different directions, and the vote won, as it usually does.
What makes this year's debate particularly stubborn: leading the league simultaneously in both rebounds and assists per game is a literal first in NBA recorded history. That is not a cherry-picked situational split or a schedule-strength caveat. Jokic achieved something no player ever has. Stacking that alongside his BPM dominance, the case for SGA winning reads less like a pure analytical outcome and more like the traditional voter heuristic — best player, best team — that has governed MVP decisions for decades.
The AI Layer — Tracking Systems Are Rewriting What We Count
Second Spectrum's AI player-tracking system expanded to all 30 NBA arenas this season, running at 25 frames per second and computing metrics the traditional box score cannot capture: defender proximity on every shot attempt, off-ball movement efficiency, help defense positioning. These machine-learning outputs increasingly influence how front offices evaluate contracts and how sophisticated bettors price playoff odds — a shift that parallels the way AI investing tools now process earnings calls and market signals faster than any human analyst layer can follow. The infrastructure investment behind sports data is quietly enormous.
The 65-game eligibility rule — enacted in 2023 to penalize chronic load management — created the season's most dramatic storyline outside of SGA's record streak. Both Cade Cunningham, who suffered a collapsed lung, and Luka Doncic, who missed time for the birth of a child, received extraordinary circumstances exemptions from the NBA and Players' Association, allowing them to remain award-eligible despite finishing below the threshold. The precedent set by those exemptions will reshape how injury risk is priced in sports betting markets and fantasy valuations going forward. It also introduced a flexibility into the rule that its original drafters may not have fully anticipated.
Cooper Flagg's Rookie of the Year numbers are worth noting in this context: 21.0 points, 6.7 rebounds, and 4.5 assists per game for the Dallas Mavericks — the first rookie since Michael Jordan in 1984-85 to lead his team in points, rebounds, assists, and steals. The AI tracking systems that quantify off-ball movement and defensive positioning will make the next generation of MVP debates — Flagg's included — harder to reduce to a simple box score argument. That's a useful development for anyone who thinks the voters have been overweighting narrative for years.
One more related result to file: Jalen Brunson won the 2026 NBA Finals MVP, leading the New York Knicks to the championship after the Thunder — despite SGA's record-setting regular season — fell short in the playoffs. That outcome will complicate the MVP narrative even further in retrospect.
Bottom Line — The Pick and the Case I'd Actually Make
SGA won the right award by the criteria voters actually use: best player on the best team, zero missed games, historic consistency over 68 nights. That framework is coherent and defensible. In my analysis, though, Jokic's BPM dominance and the unprecedented statistical achievement of leading the league in both rebounds and assists per game represent exactly the kind of irreplaceable impact that a pure analytics model would weight above a 64-win team record. The voters chose the narrative over the math, which is what they almost always do — and which is why Robert Horry's challenge is worth keeping on file.
The pick going forward: Wembanyama is the most dangerous MVP candidate in the next three seasons. A 22-year-old with unanimous DPOY hardware, a 62-win Spurs team, and a +17 net rating when on the court is repricing quickly. As Second Spectrum's tracking models generate widely published impact scores, the Wembanyama case for MVP will become progressively harder to vote against. Track his usage rate and on-court net rating through the first 20 games of next season — those are the leading indicators for whether this race opens with him at number one.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is the NBA MVP award chosen and who votes?
The NBA MVP is decided by a panel of 100 sports writers and broadcasters who submit ranked ballots after the regular season concludes. Points are awarded on a weighted scale — 10 points for a first-place vote down to 1 point for fifth place. As of July 3, 2026, SGA received 83 of 100 first-place votes and 939 total points. Voters are not required to justify their rankings publicly, though ESPN's straw poll (which showed SGA with 88 first-place votes and 958 total points in its own survey) adds a layer of transparency to how media voters are collectively reasoning.
Why is Shai Gilgeous-Alexander so dominant in the NBA right now?
SGA operates at the intersection of elite finishing efficiency and consistent court control that is historically rare for a guard. As of July 3, 2026, his 66.4% true shooting percentage — which weights free throws and three-pointers, not just field goals — came while he averaged 31.1 points per game on 55.3% shooting from the field. No guard in recorded NBA history has averaged 30-plus points while shooting 55% or better from the field. The mechanical foundation: he draws fouls at a rate almost no guard has matched (7.9 free throws made per game, league-leading), which keeps his efficiency high even when his jump shot isn't at its peak. The 140-game streak of 20-plus point games broke a record Wilt Chamberlain set in 1963.
Is Victor Wembanyama the youngest Defensive Player of the Year winner in NBA history?
Yes. As of July 3, 2026, Wembanyama became both the youngest DPOY winner ever (at 22 years old) and the first unanimous winner in the award's history, receiving all 100 first-place votes. He averaged 3.1 blocks per game and was the first player since Shaquille O'Neal in 2000 to average 25-plus points, 10-plus rebounds, and 3-plus blocks per game simultaneously. The team-level impact validates the individual numbers: San Antonio outscored opponents by 17 points per 100 possessions with him on the court — a net rating that places him among the most impactful players the tracking era has ever recorded.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational and editorial purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. All statistics and vote totals reflect information reported as of July 3, 2026. Research based on publicly available sources current as of July 3, 2026.