Basketball fans often use "MVP" as a single word for greatness. In the NBA it actually refers to two separate awards with different rules, different voters and very different stories. Knowing the difference makes the history pages — and a lot of barroom arguments — easier to follow.
The regular-season MVP
The Most Valuable Player award goes to the best player of the regular season. It was first handed out after the 1955–56 season, when Bob Pettit won it.
For its first quarter-century the award was voted on by the players themselves. Since the 1980–81 season, a panel of sportswriters and broadcasters chooses the winner. That change matters when you compare eras: early winners were judged by opponents who guarded them; modern winners are judged by people who watch the whole league.
Only one player has won the award unanimously: Stephen Curry in 2015–16, the season Golden State went 73–9. Since 2022–23, winners receive the Michael Jordan Trophy.
The Finals MVP
The Finals MVP is decided by a single series. It was first awarded in 1969, and the very first winner set an unusual precedent: Jerry West of the Los Angeles Lakers, whose team lost to Boston. West is still the only player to win it from a losing team.
In 2009 the award was renamed after Bill Russell, the Celtics center whose career is explored in our Bill Russell story.
A Finals MVP can come from anywhere on the roster. In 1980, with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar injured, rookie Magic Johnson started at center in the clinching Game 6 and scored 42 points — the only time the award has gone to a rookie. In 2014 it went to Kawhi Leonard, a 22-year-old forward in his third season.
Why the two lists look different
The awards measure different things over different lengths of time:
- Sample size. The MVP covers about six months and 82 games. The Finals MVP covers four to seven games in June.
- Context. A dominant player on a team that loses early in the playoffs can win the MVP and never appear in the Finals that year.
- Role. In a short series, a defensive specialist or a hot shooter can matter more than the season's best all-round player.
That is why some of the greatest players collected many MVP awards and few Finals MVPs, and why a few Finals heroes never won the regular-season award at all.
When one player wins both
Winning both in the same season usually means a player dominated from October to June. Michael Jordan did it repeatedly in the 1990s; in our records, the 1995–96 and 1997–98 seasons both list him as MVP and Finals MVP. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander did the same for Oklahoma City in 2024–25.
How to use our award pages
Our MVP and Finals MVP pages list every winner season by season, with the players who won more than once. Seasons are labelled by the years they span (for example 1997–98), and the award belongs to the season that ended in the second year.
If you want to test yourself, the Finals Legends quiz asks about several of the players above.
