Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James made NBA MVP voting history this season.
No, the 21-time All-Star power forward did not win a fifth MVP award, but he did earn one fourth-place vote and 13 fifth-place votes from the league's pool of 100 global media members.
All-NBA Oklahoma City Thunder point guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander - who's currently just three wins away from making his first NBA Finals - earned his first MVP honor, besting three-time league MVP center Nikola Jokic, who nabbed the second-most votes.
Gilgeous-Alexander now becomes the third player for the Thunder franchise to be named league MVP, behind Kevin Durant in 2013-14 and Russell Westbrook in 2016-17. He earned 71 first-place votes and 29 second-place votes.
Jokic, meanwhile, notched 29 first-place votes and 71 second-place votes.
On a 68-win Thunder squad, Gilgeous-Alexander averaged 32.7 points while slashing .519/.375/.898 shooting splits, 6.4 assists, and 5.0 rebounds a night.
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According to HoopsHype, this now makes the 40-year-old the oldest player in NBA history to ever earn MVP votes. As a 19-year-old rookie with the Cleveland Cavaliers during the team's lottery-bound 2003-04 season, James was also the youngest player to ever earn such accolades - that record still stands.
James supplanted Hall of Fame former shooting guard/small forward Michael Jordan to become the oldest NBA player ever to earn some MVP votes.
At 39 years and two months old by the end of the 2001-02 NBA season, the 6-foot-6 North Carolina swingman finished 13th in MVP voting (James finished sixth this year) while averaging 22.9 points on 41.6 percent field goal shooting, 5.7 rebounds, 5.2 assists and 1.4 steals for a 37-45 Washington Wizards squad that missed the playoffs entirely.
In fairness, the Wizards' lack of postseason success was due in large part to Jordan missing 13 games during a 16-game stretch in February and March (during which Washington went 4-9) with torn cartilage in his right knee.
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James had a better year than Jordan by pretty much any metric.
There's one caveat: although Jordan was the best player on his non-playoff Wizards club, James was the second-best player - first behind 10-time All-Star center Anthony Davis, and eventually behind five-time All-NBA guard Luka Doncic - on a 50-win Lakers squad that finished as the Western Conference's No. 3 seed.
Across 70 healthy bouts, James averaged 24.4 points on .513/.376/.782 shooting splits, 8.2 assists, and 7.8 rebounds a night. Was he truly the sixth-best player this year? Perhaps not, but he was still one of the league's elite 15 or so standout stars - a remarkable achievement for a guy playing his NBA-record 22nd season.
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This story was originally published May 22, 2025 at 2:22 PM.