It’s easy to forget how unbelievable it was when Steve Nash won the NBA’s most valuable player award, and then won it again. A Canadian MVP? In the NBA? The path to that place didn’t exist, and wasn’t close to existing until it was fully formed. It was before the Canadian basketball generation arrived and even once it did Nash’s MVP wins, and his Hall of Fame career, were one of one.
Twenty years after Nash’s first MVP award, he has company. Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous Alexander, Toronto-born and Hamilton-raised, was named the 2025 NBA MVP with 71 of 100 first-place votes.
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