How many Finas MVPs have won the NBA MVP?
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is on the precipice of his and Oklahoma City’s first NBA championship and and there is no doubt he’ll be Finals MVP if they win.
The Oklahoma City Thunder are a win away from winning their first title in franchise history, and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is knocking on the door of NBA history. If the Thunder can win Game 6 on Thursday night, SGA will likely join a list of league royalty while doing something that hasn’t been done in over a decade.
Can’t spell MVP without SGA
After finishing the regular season with the top record in the league the OKC Thunder went into the playoffs as the top seed in the West with home court advantage throughout the playoffs. Everyone assumed that SGA would be the MVP of the NBA, but there were still questions of whether or not he did enough to keep Nikola Jokic from winning his fourth MVP award.
Your 2024-25 NBA Most Valuable Player, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander 🏆 pic.twitter.com/DiHld5FKL2
— ESPN (@espn) May 23, 2025
The MVP announcement wouldn’t come until after Gilgeous-Alexander and the Thunder beat the Denver Nuggets and Nikola Jokic in the 7th game of the Western Conference Semifinals. There were a lot of questions surrounding the decision to wait until after the series was over to crown an MVP considering it’s a regular season award, but by the time the series was over no one had a gripe about SGA being named the league’s Most Valuable Player.
Shai was the best player on the best team in the regular season, leading the league in scoring at 32.7 points per game. Now he’s the best player on the best team in the playoffs, and is gearing up to not only win his first NBA title, but also his first NBA Finals MVP. If SGA can do what he’s done all year, and led his team to the title in one of the next two games, he will join a short list of legends who won the MVP of the regular season and Finals MVP.
The NBA’s MVP double dippers
It has only been done by 10 players in the history of the NBA. Willis Reed was the first to complete the MVP double dip in the 1969/70 NBA Finals when the New York Knicks won the title. Reed averaged 21.7 ppg and 13.9 rpg in the regular season and over 23 points and 13.8 rebounds in the title run.
- Willis Reed (1969-70)
- Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (1970-71)
- Moses Malone (1982-83)
- Larry Bird (1983-84, 1985-86)
- Magic Johnson (1986-87)
- Michael Jordan (1990-91, 1991-92, 1995-96, 1997-98)
- Hakeem Olajuwon (1993-94)
- Shaquille O’Neal (1999-00)
- Tim Duncan (2002-03)
- LeBron James (2011-12, 2012-13)
Michael Jordan double dipped more than anyone in NBA history, completing the regular season and Finals MVP combo in four of his six title winning seasons. He was Finals MVP in all six of those title runs but Charles Barkley won MVP in 1993 when the Bulls won the title and Karl Malone lost to Chicago in 1997 after getting named the MVP of the league. LeBron James was the last one to double dip back in 2013 when he and the Miami Heat won the title.
LeBron James is your 2013 NBA Finals MVP! pic.twitter.com/eZzwh1S1FO
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) June 21, 2013
If the Thunder win one of the next two games in the NBA Finals, there is no question that SGA will be named the MVP of the Finals, and complete that elusive double dip. He is averaging 30.4 points, 5.4 rebounds and 6.5 assists in this postseason and along the way has joined a list that includes Michael Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon and Kobe Bryant as the only players that have scored 30+ points 15 times in a postseason.
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