2026 NBA Awards: Full ballot, picks including Gilgeous-Alexander, Wembanyama race for MVP

For as long as the NBA has honored me by asking me to be one of the postseason award voters, each year there are a couple of awards that keep me up at night, trying to split hairs between players who all deserve recognition for monster years. For example, Third-Team All-NBA is always brutal. Some years it’s the big ones, such as MVP. This year I struggled more with Most Improved Player than other award on the board.

What follows is my official ballot for the NBA’s end-of-season awards. [Note, this ballot assumes that the league grants Luka Doncic’s challenge and makes him eligible despite having played in 64 games, one short of the league threshold. It would be some frighteningly bad PR for the league to say Doncic is out because he chose to fly to Slovenia for the birth of his child and missed a couple of games — the league is very sensitive to those kinds of image issues.]

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NBA Most Valuable Player

1. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (Thunder)
2. Victor Wembanyama (Spurs)
3. Nikola Jokic (Nuggets)
4. Luka Doncic (Lakers)
5. Jaylen Brown (Celtics)

This is an incredibly deep MVP field, and it had the vibe of a real race for a while over the last month, with all four top players playing at their peak and making their case. However, it was never quite that close in my mind — this is a season-long award, and SGA was the most consistent of this group, both in terms of minutes and efficient production. Wemby returned from an injury earlier in the season in time to meet the 65-game threshold, but that same injury put him on a strict minutes limit and even had him coming off the bench in some games. Jokic dipped from his incredible standards for a stretch after his injury. Doncic was out for a critical final push of the season (and likely the first round of the playoffs) with his hamstring injury. Meanwhile, Gilgeous-Alexander just kept scoring, kept defending at a level that put him in All-Defense consideration, and was at his best in the clutch, which is why the Thunder have the best record in the NBA.

If the league does not make Doncic eligible, I will move Jaylen Brown up a spot and slide the Clippers’ Kawhi…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/2026-nba-awards-full-ballot-121500875.html

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Publish date : 2026-04-13 12:15:00

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