Shai Gilgeous-Alexander responded to winning his first MVP award a year ago by going out this season and putting up very similar numbers, highlighting a level of consistency nobody else can match. He never scored below 20 points in a game and again led his team to 60+ wins and the best record in the NBA.

That was enough to win Gilgeous-Alexander back-to-back MVP awards.

"Hard work, not being satisfied, the guys in the room having my back," Gilgeous-Alexander said of what it took to win while being interviewed on the Prime Video broadcast.

Gilgeous-Alexander got 83 first-place votes from the panel of 100 media members who voted on the awards, comfortably beating out the Nuggets' Nikola Jokic, who finished second and had 10 first-place votes.

Gilgeous-Alexander becomes just the 14th player to win back-to-back MVPs, and the first since Jokic did it in 2020-21 and 2021-22. He also is just the ninth player to win two MVPs before turning 28.

San Antonio's Victor Wembanyama finished third in the voting, followed by the Lakers' Luka Doncic in fourth and the Pistons' Cade Cunningham in fifth.

Gilgeous-Alexander averaged 31.1 points (second in the league), 4.3 rebounds and 6.6 assists a game while shooting 38.6% from three-point range. He led the league in plus/minus going +788 for the season, well ahead of second-place Wembanyama at +682.

Gilgeous-Alexander isn't done trying to make history, he is trying to join Michael Jordan, Bill Russell and LeBron James as the only players to win back-to-back MVP trophies and back-to-back NBA titles. Standing in the way of that quest: Victor Wembanyama and the Spurs.

What is shaping up to be an epic Western Conference Finals featuring two of the top-three in MVP voting starts Monday night in Oklahoma City, with the game tipping off at 8:30 ET and available on NBC or streamed on Peacock.