{"id":649501,"date":"2026-05-18T01:39:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T01:39:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/649501\/"},"modified":"2026-05-18T01:39:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T01:39:08","slug":"shai-gilgeous-alexanders-nba-mvp-win-is-the-8th-straight-for-international-players-extending-u-s-drought-that-dates-back-to-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/649501\/","title":{"rendered":"Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s NBA MVP win is the 8th straight for international players, extending U.S. drought that dates back to 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander<\/a> was named NBA MVP on Sunday<\/a> over fellow finalists Victor Wembanyama<\/a> and Nikola Joki\u0107<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The MVP win marked the second consecutive for Gilgeous-Alexander, whose Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a> will square off in the Western Conference finals against Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs<\/a> starting Monday.<\/p>\n

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International dominance for NBA MVP continues<\/p>\n

The win continues an eight-season MVP drought for American-born players dating back to 2019. Gilgeous-Alexander (two MVPS), Joki\u0107 (three), Joel Embiid<\/a> (one) and Giannis Antetokounmpo<\/a> (two) have combined to win the eight MVPs since.<\/p>\n

James Harden<\/a> was the last U.S.-born player to win MVP when he secured the 2018 hardware as a member of the Houston Rockets<\/a>. Judging by this season\u2019s voting, there\u2019s a strong chance that drought extends to next season and beyond.<\/p>\n

All three finalists for the award are international players. Gilgeous-Alexander is Canadian, Wembanayma is French and Joki\u0107 hails from Serbia. Slovenian star Luka Don\u010di\u0107<\/a> finished fourth in voting. All four players are in various stages of their primes and project to factor heavily into the MVP race next season and beyond.<\/p>\n

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The trend of international players dominating the MVP race is stark and without precedence. Prior to Antetokounmpo\u2019s MVP win in 2019, U.S.-born players Harden, Russell Westbrook<\/a>, Stephen Curry<\/a>, Kevin Durant<\/a>, LeBron James<\/a>, Derrick Rose<\/a> and Kobe Bryant<\/a> combined to win 11 consecutive MVPs in a streak dating back to 2008.<\/p>\n

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Prior to that, Dirk Nowitzki<\/a> (Germany, 2007) and Steve Nash<\/a> (Canada, 2005 and 2006) combined to win three consecutive MVPs. But the streak was considerably shorter, and American-born players weren\u2019t an afterthought in the MVP conversation like they have have been in recent seasons.<\/p>\n

Who will be the next American-born NBA MVP?<\/p>\n

Cade Cunningham<\/a> (fifth place) and Jaylen Brown<\/a> (sixth) were the top two-U.S. vote getters in this year\u2019s tally. They produced two combined first-place votes, two second-place votes and five third-place votes \u2014 nowhere near contention.<\/p>\n

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Either would need to take a significant leap to join the MVP conversation, and Brown\u2019s Boston Celtics<\/a> teammate Jayson Tatum<\/a> is a likelier candidate to compete for the award when healthy.<\/p>\n

Kawhi Leonard<\/a> and Donovan Mitchell<\/a> finished tied for seventh in MVP voting with a single fifth-place vote each.<\/p>\n

Newly crowned Rookie of the Year Cooper Flagg<\/a> projects to factor into MVP conversations in the future. An upcoming NBA Draft class featuring several U.S. players at the top in AJ Dybantsa, Darryn Peterson, Cameron Boozer<\/a> and Caleb Wilson could produce one or more MVP candidates down the line.<\/p>\n

But for now, until and unless a U.S.-born player makes a significant leap (Anthony Edwards<\/a>, anyone?), the MVP race could feature international-born players at the top for the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was named NBA MVP on Sunday over fellow finalists Victor Wembanyama and Nikola Joki\u0107. The MVP…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":649502,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[31513,2242,4,450,88728,50262,761,13335,1061,13054,359,137787,451,5050,197841,6418,29175,5488,5555,11653,5556,7566,3013,3014,355,3,1756,6402,14828,2116,6407,2244,81787,452,453,32090],"class_list":["post-649501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-anthony-edwards","tag-boston-celtics","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-cade-cunningham","tag-cameron-boozer","tag-cooper-flagg","tag-derrick-rose","tag-dirk-nowitzki","tag-donovan-mitchell","tag-giannis-antetokounmpo","tag-gilgeous-alexander","tag-headlines","tag-houston-rockets","tag-international-players","tag-james-harden","tag-jaylen-brown","tag-jayson-tatum","tag-joel-embiid","tag-kawhi-leonard","tag-kevin-durant","tag-kobe-bryant","tag-lebron-james","tag-luka-doncic","tag-nba","tag-news","tag-nikola-jokic","tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","tag-russell-westbrook","tag-san-antonio-spurs","tag-shai-gilgeous-alexander","tag-stephen-curry","tag-steve-nash","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-victor-wembanyama"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=649501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649501\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/649502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=649501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=649501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=649501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}