Anonymous NBA Player Poll 2026: Who is this season’s MVP? SGA, Jokic or Doncic?.

If the players’ votes are any indication, then Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the silky smooth Oklahoma City Thunder star, is on his way to a second straight Michael Jordan Trophy. (Wikipedia)

By SAM AMICK, JOSH ROBBINS and JOE VARDON / THE ATHLETIC

For the first 25 Most Valuable Player Awards in NBA history, it was the league’s players, not the media, who determined the winner.

All that changed with the 1980-81 season, when a panel of 69 writers and broadcasters selected Julius Erving as the MVP, and a system was installed that has been in place ever since.

But it’s time, again, to give the players the microphone and honor all those well-informed views that were shaped on the hardwood over the past six months.

From late February through the start of April, writers from The Athletic fanned out across North America and asked the league’s players a wide array of questions, on individual awards, player movement and other league issues. Our writers surveyed 161 players, a record high for this annual project and a number that amounts to approximately one-third of the NBA’s workforce.

As always, we granted the players anonymity to give them the freedom to answer honestly, without fear of reprisals from opponents, teammates or fans.

The timing of this MVP discussion is intentional, as the regular season has wrapped up and the writers and broadcasters who regularly cover the league are now casting their official award ballots. Consider this an eleventh-hour assist from the players who once led this process.

When San Antonio’s Victor Wembanyama sparked a robust MVP debate in late March, advocating for himself in a direct and detailed way, it was fair to wonder if that might be enough to bump Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander from his front-runner spot.

But if the players’ votes are any indication, then Gilgeous-Alexander, the silky smooth Thunder star, is on his way to a second straight Michael Jordan Trophy. He did not just top our player polling; he nearly doubled the support of the second-place finisher, Denver’s Nikola Jokic.

Among the 159 players who responded, Gilgeous-Alexander received 39% of the votes for MVP. Jokic was next with 21.4%, and the trio of Jaylen Brown, Cade Cunningham and Luka Doncic tied with 8.2%. Wembanyama received just 5% of the votes.

But that, as much as anything, is a testament to the strength of the field rather than an indictment of the Spurs phenom’s candidacy. This group is just that great. And Gilgeous-Alexander, in the eyes of most, is the best of them all. Again.

The 27-year-old Gilgeous-Alexander is second in the league in scoring (31.1 points per game), with a field-goal percentage (55.3%) that dwarfs that of the league’s leading scorer, Doncic, who averaged 33.5 points per game on 47.6% shooting. And for all the focus on his ability to get to the line, that is merely one of the many ways that Gilgeous-Alexander neutralizes defenses.

He is a killer from the midrange, from long range and with those constant attacks at the rim that tend to free up the entire floor. And his footwork is on the level of Jordan and Kobe Bryant.

“Shai has been super consistent,” one supporter said. “They’ve had injuries, and he’s stayed consistent. We take it for granted, he scores at least 20 every night. He’s had a lot of his guys injured, and they’re still No. 1 in the West.”

His streak of consecutive games with 20-plus points now stands at 140. (He passed Wilt Chamberlain for the record on March 12.) Gilgeous-Alexander also averaged 6.6 assists, 4.3 rebounds and 1.4 steals this season for the Thunder, who boast the league’s seventh-ranked offense, the top defense and the best record (64-18).

There were many impressive moments along the way. But his back-and-forth battle with Jokic on March 9, when the two were at their best, might have been the most memorable. On the same night that Gilgeous-Alexander matched Chamberlain’s mark of 20-plus point games, he had 35 points, 15 assists, nine rebounds and no turnovers while burying two 3s in the final 14 seconds to seal a 129-126 win.

“He’s the best player on the best team,” another player said. “What more do you have to say?”

As the first player noted, it is Gilgeous-Alexander’s incredible consistency — in addition to the efficiency — that has made him the most unstoppable perimeter player in the game today. If he does win a second consecutive MVP, he would become the first to do so since Jokic in 2021 and 2022, and the 14th player in NBA history to win the award consecutively.

Gilgeous-Alexander played more than half of this season without his primary wingman, Jalen Williams, a former All-Star. Williams, who was so integral in their title run last season, missed 49 games because of wrist and hamstring injuries.

Yet considering the company Gilgeous-Alexander is keeping in this loaded MVP race, the fact that he is so widely seen as the deserving winner by his fellow players is no small statement. In the Mile High City, where the injury-riddled Nuggets (54-28) have dealt with the extended absences of Aaron Gordon, Peyton Watson and others, the 31-year-old Jokic averaged 27.7 points, 12.9 rebounds and 10.7 assists — marks that have been reached only twice before in league history (by Oscar Robertson in 1961-62, and by Jokic last season).

“I’ve always had a hard time not picking Jokic,” one player said. “He’s probably the best player on the planet. He’s phenomenal.”

In Boston, Brown (28.7 points, 6.9 rebounds, 5.1 assists and 1.0 steals per game) proved that he is worthy of “1A” status. After Jrue Holiday was traded to Portland last summer, Kristaps Porzingis was sent to Atlanta and Jayson Tatum missed most of this season while recovering from his Achilles’ tendon tear, Brown somehow kept the Celtics among the ranks of contenders, and they are the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference.

“In terms of what the team lost last year, to come in with the expectations there were and to see the standings now, it’s because of him and the level of play he’s been at,” one player said. “He does it on both ends at a super high level. He’s consistent every night.”

In Detroit, where Cunningham’s collapsed lung injury took him out of official awards contention because of the league’s 65-game rule, the young Pistons star (23.9 points, 9.9 assists, 5.5 rebounds, 1.4 steals and 0.8 blocks) showed out in a way that officially elevated him among the elites.

In Los Angeles, the Lakers’ season was recently derailed by injuries to Doncic (hamstring) and Austin Reaves (oblique), after LeBron James missed time to start the year. But the team surged in the second half largely because of the brilliance of Doncic. He averaged 33.5 points, 8.3 assists and 7.7 rebounds — marks that have only been reached once before in league history, when he did it in Dallas in the 2023-24 season. Per Stathead.com, only four players (Doncic, Robertson, Jordan and Russell Westbrook) have ever reached the 30-point, eight-assist and seven-rebound marks.

But none of those other players were quite as impressive as Gilgeous-Alexander, who — after winning last season’s MVP and the championship, and setting the pace for the entirety of this regular season — is growing quite accustomed to being out in front.