NBA 2K celebrates Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s back-to-back MVP award
SGA’s second MVP gives 2K another reason to keep him at the center of NBA 2K26, from a 98 OVR rating to the MyTEAM spotlight.
2K is not going to bury Shai Gilgeous-Alexander after a second straight MVP. With the Oklahoma City Thunder guard now a 14th back-to-back winner and only the 16th player in league history to collect multiple Kia MVPs, the game’s biggest question is how hard 2K leans into him next.
The real-world case is airtight. Gilgeous-Alexander won the 2025-26 Kia NBA Most Valuable Player award on May 17, 2026, just before Game 7 of the Cavaliers-Pistons series. He put up 31.1 points, 6.6 assists and 4.3 rebounds in 68 games, carried Oklahoma City to a 64-18 record and the NBA’s best mark for the second straight season, and led the league with 175 clutch points while also taking home Kia Clutch Player of the Year. That is the kind of season that keeps a player glued to the top of the ratings page and the top of the marketing slate.
2K already made its move once. It named Gilgeous-Alexander the NBA 2K26 Standard Edition cover athlete on July 9, 2025, after his MVP-and-title run, and the official NBA 2K26 player ratings page has him at 98 overall. The game’s own framing already casts him as the reigning MVP and NBA champion, which means the new award only strengthens the case for more prominent placement, more featured art, and more of the spotlight that comes with being the face of a season.
For players, that matters because 2K tends to reward these storylines with attention that filters straight into roster building. When a cover athlete is also a back-to-back MVP, he is the safest bet on the board for elite status in MyTEAM, premium animation treatment, and the kind of roster prominence that makes him a default first-read option in every mode. If you are deciding whether to build around Gilgeous-Alexander now, the answer looks obvious: 2K is setting him up to stay expensive, central, and unavoidable.
The historical layer only sharpens that picture. Steve Nash remains the only other Canadian to win the MVP before Gilgeous-Alexander, and Nash’s back-to-back run in 2005 and 2006 is now matched. That gives 2K a headline it can keep selling all year, and it gives players a clear signal about where the game’s next elite build is likely to sit.
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