Every season from 2007-08 until 2017-18, a player born and from the U.S. was named the league NBA MVP winner. While the game was certainly becoming more international than it previously was, the player voted as the best was constantly coming from someone born in the U.S. Of late, that has not been the case. On Wednesday, Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was named the 2024-25 MVP. He led the league in scoring and helped to guide his team to the best record in the NBA. The 26-year-old guard was born in Canada and didn’t move to the United States until he was in high school. Gilgeous-Alexander’s MVP win marks the seventh straight year where a player born outside of the U.S. was named the league’s MVP.
The Streak of MVP Winners Born Outside The U.S. Continues
NBA MVP Winner Hasn’t Been Born In The U.S. Since 2018
It wasn’t a surprise to see Gilgeous-Alexander take home the top honors as he was the presumptive favorite for quite some time. It also wasn’t surprising to see the players who finished second and third in voting. Nikola Jokic was the runner-up and Giannis Antetokounmpo finished in third. Of course, those players are also from outside the United States with Jokic being from Serbia and Antetokounmpo from Greece.
Both Jokic and Antetokounmpo have won league MVP multiple times. The 30-year-old Jokic has won it three times (2020-21, 2021-22, 2023-24) and Antetokounmpo (also 30) won it back-to-back in 2018-19 and 2019-20. They account for five of the last seven MVP winners that have been born outside of the United States.
The other MVP of the last seven years is Joel Embiid who took home the award in the 2022-23 season. The 31-year-old center was born in Cameroon. Remarkably, the last time a player born in the U.S. finished in the top three in MVP voting was in 2020-21. That year, Stephen Curry came in third. That means for four straight years, no U.S.-born player has finished better than fourth in MVP voting.
Who Were The Top U.S. Vote Getters This Year?
As mentioned, players born in the U.S. dominated winning the award from 2007-08 until 2017-18. Altogether, seven different players won MVP in that time. The U.S. born players that were named MVP in those 11 seasons were Kobe Bryant (2007-08), LeBron James (2008-09, 2009-10, 2011-12, 2012-13), Derrick Rose (2010-11), Kevin Durant (2013-14), Stephen Curry (2014-15, 2015-16), Russell Westbrook (2016-17), and James Harden (2017-18).
The top U.S. born player in this year’s voting was Jayson Tatum who finished fourth. Unfortunately, he is expected to sit out most (if not all) of next season. He suffered a torn meniscus in the Boston Celtics second round matchup with the New York Knicks. The other top vote getters from the United States were Donovan Mitchell (fifth), LeBron James (sixth), Cade Cunningham (seventh), and Anthony Edwards (eighth).
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