Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Nikola Jokic and Victor Wembanyama are the three finalists for the 2025-26 NBA MVP award. We built a model using historical data to project the outcome.
The finalists are set. The ballots are in. The numbers are no longer changing.
At this point, the NBA MVP race is not about projecting outcomes, it’s about understanding them.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (Oklahoma City Thunder), Nikola Jokic (Denver Nuggets) and Victor Wembanyama (San Antonio Spurs) stand as the three finalists for the award. Each built a regular season strong enough to justify the honor. Each shaped the league in a different way. And each, at various points, looked like they could be the sport’s most valuable player.
But MVP voting has never been about identifying the best player in isolation. It’s about determining which season, in full context, rises above the rest.
To evaluate that, we built a model using historical data from past NBA seasons, training it on the statistical profiles and team contexts of previous MVP winners and candidates. The goal is not just to measure production, but to understand what an MVP season actually looks like. Over time, the model learns to recognize patterns – how elite scoring, playmaking, efficiency, team success and overall impact come together in ways that consistently earn votes. Rather than isolating one statistic, it weighs how those elements align and, more importantly, how often that alignment shows winning outcomes.
Some MVP races highlight just how difficult it can be to balance individual production with overall context. Using the 2018–19 season as an example, James Harden averaged 36.1 points per game and carried a significant offensive load on a 53-win Houston Rockets’ team, producing the eighth-highest scoring season in NBA history (and topped only once in the last 62 seasons). The model strongly favored Harden, identifying his scoring and role within a winning context as an elite NBA MVP profile, but the award ultimately went to Giannis Antetokounmpo, whose two-way impact and league-best team success of the Milwaukee Bucks shaped a different kind of case.
Other seasons show where that alignment is clearer. In 1994–95, David Robinson won MVP over Shaquille O’Neal despite O’Neal averaging 29.3 points and 11.4 rebounds per game. While O’Neal’s raw production stood out, Robinson’s overall impact and team context more closely matched the profile that the model is designed to identify, and in this case, it correctly leaned toward Robinson.
The model adds that context. By learning from past MVP races, it evaluates not just how much a player produces, but how the production compares across the league and how consistently it translates into winning. It places greater weight on seasons in which performance, role and team success align, allowing it to separate standout statistical campaigns from the profiles that most closely match how MVPs are typically selected over time.
When the complete body of work is considered for the 2025-26 season, the separation becomes clearer.
Using full regular-season data, our model identifies Gilgeous-Alexander as the most likely MVP, with a 45.1% probability. The Thunder point guard won the award for the first time last season on the way to leading an NBA championship season.
Jokic, the NBA MVP in 2021, ’22 and ’24, follows Gilgeous-Alexander at 24.4%. Wembanyama, already a unanimous winner of this season’s NBA Defensive Player of the Year award, sits at 8.6%.
Beyond those three, the race falls quickly. Even Los Angeles Lakers guard Luka Doncic, who led the league in scoring, does not close the gap in overall case strength.
That distribution reflects how MVP cases are built.
The Case for NBA MVP: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
The award tends to go to a player who produces at an elite level, carries a central role within his team and translates that production into winning. It’s not any one of those elements on its own, it’s how cleanly they fit together.
That is where Gilgeous-Alexander separates himself.
He finished the season averaging just over 31 points per game while leading Oklahoma City to the NBA’s best record. He also finished second in the league in Stats Perform’s Wins Above Replacement (WAR), reinforcing how consistently his overall production translated into team success.
Gilgeous-Alexander also led the NBA in plus/minus, which measures a team’s scoring versus its opponent while a player is on the floor. Over a full season, that becomes one of the clearest reflections of impact. It captures not just what a player produces, but what actually happens when he plays.
That signal aligns directly with what the model is built to identify.
Gilgeous-Alexander, often affectionately known as SGA, does not lead the league in every category, but he leads in the ones most closely tied to winning. His team performs at the highest level, and when he’s on the court, the margin consistently moves in their favor. That combination is rare, and it forms the foundation of his case.
There is no single statistic carrying the argument. Instead, everything aligns. His production is elite, his role is central, and his impact consistently reinforces team success.
That alignment is what MVP seasons tend to look like.
Oklahoma City guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander seeks to join the list of players, including Denver center Nikola Jokic, who have won consecutive NBA MVP awards.
The Case for NBA MVP: Nikola Jokic
Jokic’s case may be just as strong, even if it takes a different form.
The Nuggets center averaged a triple-double across the season, a level of production that remains historically significant. His nearly 28 points, 11 assists and 13 rebounds per game reflect a complete offensive engine, controlling pace, creating opportunities and maximizing efficiency. He also led the league in our WAR, highlighting just how much total value he generated across every aspect of the game.
From the model’s perspective, that type of all-around production carries significant weight. It reflects a player who influences every phase of the game rather than dominating just one.
Over the course of a full season, that level of control builds a case that would be enough to win the award in most years.
This could have been an MVP season.
What holds it just short is not performance but context. Denver remained a strong team, but it didn’t reach the same level of dominance as Oklahoma City, finishing 10 games behind the Thunder in the Northwest Division. When comparing elite seasons, the model places additional weight on how clearly individual production connects to team-level results.
Jokic may still be the most complete player in the league. But this season, that connection is slightly stronger elsewhere.
The Case for NBA MVP: Victor Wembanyama
Wembanyama’s case represents something entirely different.
No player in the league impacts the game defensively the way he does. The Spurs’ 7-foot-4 star led in defensive and overall DRIP, metrics designed to capture overall player impact, reinforcing just how disruptive he was on that end of the floor. His presence alone reshapes how opponents attack, as he is altering shots, closing space and forcing decisions before they fully develop. That level of influence is rare, even among elite players.
Wembanyama also produced at a high level offensively, scoring efficiently and rebounding consistently while playing a central role on a winning team. The foundation of an MVP case is already in place.
Within the model, that type of two-way impact is highly valuable. But MVP-level separation typically requires a player to control the game more fully, particularly on the offensive end.
Wembanyama influences nearly every possession, but he does not yet dictate them in the same way as the players ahead of him.
That gap is small. It will not remain for long. But for now, it’s enough.
Others Who Are More All-Stars
It’s only after Gilgeous-Alexande, Jokic and Wembanyama that the broader context of the race becomes clearer.
Doncic, for example, produced one of the most dominant offensive seasons in basketball. His ability to create shots and control possessions remains unmatched in terms of volume.
But the model doesn’t evaluate scoring in isolation. It measures how that production compares across the rest of the league and how consistently it translates into winning.
In this case, that separation didn’t fully materialize.
Beyond that group, the race shifts from determining a winner to recognizing strong seasons.
Players like Jaylen Brown (Boston Celtics) and Cade Cunningham (Detroit Pistons) played central roles in their teams’ success. Others, including Jalen Brunson (New York Knicks), Jamal Murray (Nuggets), Kawhi Leonard (Los Angeles Clippers) and Kevin Durant (Rockets), continued to perform at an elite level. Each contributed in meaningful ways, but none combined production, efficiency, team success and overall responsibility in a way that fully matched the finalists.
That consistency across factors is what ultimately narrows the race.
Good Things Come in Threes: NBA. MVP. SGA.
From the outside, the NBA MVP field can appear crowded. Once the full season is evaluated through a consistent lens, it becomes much more focused. The award tends to go to the player whose season fits together most cleanly, not simply the one with the biggest numbers.
This season, that distinction is clear.
Gilgeous-Alexander’s case is built on alignment. Production, efficiency, team success and impact all reinforce each other. Even the simplest measure, the scoreboard while he plays, tells the same story.
That is what ultimately separates him.
The debate will continue, as it always does. Jokic’s consistency and Wembanyama’s rapid rise ensure the conversation remains close at the top, but when the full season is viewed through the same lens, the structure of the race becomes difficult to ignore.
One season aligns more cleanly than the others. And in the context of MVP voting, that’s usually enough.
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