Spurs wunderkind Victor Wembanyama may actively be chipping away at Shai Gilgeous-Alexander's claim to his second straight league MVP, but a recent predictions piece has the OKC Thunder star still coming out on top.
The folks at NBC Sports kicked off their breakdown of and projections for the NBA’s most coveted individual end-of-season awards with an in-depth analysis of who they believe will come away with this year's Michael Jordan Trophy.
Though it's widely believed that this season's race for the illustrious honor is as tight as it's been in years, the ultimate outcome seems to have a pretty good chance for Gilgeous-Alexander to still reign supreme, for all who were polled by the publication tabbed the Thunder guard as their choice to be crowned 2026 MVP.
NBA Sports unanimously crowns Thunder star as top choice for MVP
At this point, there are a slew of arguments that can be made for why Gilgeous-Alexander is the most deserving of taking home MVP honors this season.
From his sensational offensive efficiency that has him dropping a ridiculous 31.4 points per game (second-highest mark in the association) while boasting a true shooting percentage of 66.5 percent, to the fact that he's simultaneously recording the best defensive campaign of his career with the 11-best defensive rating in the NBA at 105.5, his two-way excellence is simply on another level.
However, to the participants of NBC's predictions piece, the shared talking point seemed to be how Shai's on-court brilliance has seamlessly made up for the fact that the Thunder have been absolutely ravaged by injuries this season, with the most notable player affected being his star sidekick, Jalen Williams (has suited up for just 32 games).
Despite ranking in the undesired upper-echelon for most games lost due to injury this season, behind Gilgeous-Alexander's dominating play, Oklahoma City not only finds itself beeling its way toward both a second-straight number one seed in the Western Conference standings and the top record in the league, but is currently en route toward winning a minimum of 65 games in back-to-back years.
Should this latter accomplishment come to fruition, they'd join the Michael Jordan-led Bulls of the 1990s and the Stephen Curry/ Kevin Durant-led Warriors of the 2010s as the only other franchise to do so.
As noted by NBC Sports' lead NBA writer Kurt Helin, this is genuinely one of the deepest MVP fields the game has seen in quite some time.
Yet, despite the competition, the publication still unanimously deems the Thunder cornerstone the most worthy to be crowned with the most valuable moniker.