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Jokić posted the best Box Plus/Minus on record, SGA won the MVP: inside the 2025-26 advanced-stats split

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander led the NBA in win shares (15.2) and WS/48 (.323); Nikola Jokić led in Box Plus/Minus (a record 14.2), VORP and PER for a sixth straight year. Here is why the metrics split and the MVP vote followed win shares.

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Shai Gilgeous-Alexander drives for the Oklahoma City Thunder against the Washington WizardsPhoto by All-Pro Reels, CC-BY-SA-2.0, resized. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander drives for the Thunder at Washington, January 2022.

OKLAHOMA CITY — Oct. 15, 2026 — Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Nikola Jokić split the 2025-26 advanced-stats titles almost down the middle. Gilgeous-Alexander led the NBA in win shares (15.2) and win shares per 48 minutes (.323), per Basketball-Reference. Jokić led in Box Plus/Minus (14.2), value over replacement player (9.2), player efficiency rating (32.3) and offensive win shares (11.5).

The voters sided with the win-shares leader. Gilgeous-Alexander won his second straight MVP with 939 points and 83 of 100 first-place votes, becoming the 14th player to win the award in back-to-back seasons. Jokić was second with 634 points and 10 first-place votes, and Victor Wembanyama was third with 569.

It was the same split a year earlier. In 2024-25, Gilgeous-Alexander led in win shares (16.7) and win shares per 48 minutes (.309) and won MVP, while Jokić led in Box Plus/Minus (13.3), value over replacement player (9.8) and player efficiency rating (32.0) and finished second.

The 2025-26 head-to-head

Gilgeous-Alexander first, Jokić second, per Basketball-Reference:

  • Win shares: 15.2 to 14.9
  • Win shares per 48 minutes: .323 to .316
  • Offensive win shares: 11.1 to 11.5
  • Defensive win shares: 4.1 to 3.4
  • Box Plus/Minus: 11.7 to 14.2
  • Offensive and defensive Box Plus/Minus: 8.7 and 3.0 to 10.1 and 4.1
  • Value over replacement player: 7.8 to 9.2
  • Player efficiency rating: 30.8 to 32.3
  • True shooting percentage: .665 to .670
  • Minutes: 2,259 in 68 games to 2,265 in 65 games

The workloads were almost identical, six minutes apart over the season, so the gaps are not a playing-time story.

Why win shares leaned to Oklahoma City

Gilgeous-Alexander’s 0.3 edge in win shares came entirely from defense. Jokić produced more offensive win shares, 11.5 to 11.1, but Gilgeous-Alexander was credited with 4.1 defensive win shares to Jokić’s 3.4.

Defensive win shares lean heavily on how good a player’s team is on defense, and the two teams were far apart. The 64-18 Thunder, the league’s best record, allowed 107.7 points per 100 possessions, the best defensive rating in the NBA. The 54-28 Nuggets allowed 117.4, which ranked 21st, even though their league-best offense scored 122.6.

Box Plus/Minus, which is built from a player’s own box score, saw it the other way. Jokić’s defensive Box Plus/Minus of 4.1 ranked second in the league behind Wembanyama (4.2), while Gilgeous-Alexander’s 3.0 ranked fifth.

Jokić’s record box-score season

Jokić’s 14.2 Box Plus/Minus is the highest league-leading mark on Basketball-Reference’s year-by-year list, which begins in 1973-74. It topped his own 13.7 from 2021-22, and Jokić now owns five of the six highest marks on that list. The other belongs to LeBron James, 13.2 in 2008-09.

It was also his sixth straight season leading the league in Box Plus/Minus, value over replacement player and player efficiency rating, every year from 2020-21 through 2025-26. Only Michael Jordan, with seven in a row from 1986-87 through 1992-93, has a longer run of Box Plus/Minus titles; James and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar also had six. Wilt Chamberlain and Jordan had seven-year runs in player efficiency rating, and James (eight) plus Jordan and Abdul-Jabbar (seven each) had longer runs in value over replacement player.

Jokić also averaged a triple-double, 27.7 points, a league-best 12.9 rebounds and a league-best 10.7 assists, and his assist percentage of 50.3 led the NBA.

Gilgeous-Alexander’s rare rate

Gilgeous-Alexander’s .323 win shares per 48 minutes is the fourth-highest league-leading mark on Basketball-Reference’s list dating to 1951-52. Only Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (.340 in 1971-72 and .326 in 1970-71) and Wilt Chamberlain (.325 in 1963-64) finished higher, and it edged James’ .322 from 2012-13. He has now led the league in both win shares and win shares per 48 minutes in back-to-back seasons, taking both titles from Jokić, who had led each of them the previous four seasons.

He averaged 31.1 points, second to Luka Dončić’s 33.5, on .553 shooting with a .665 true shooting percentage and a 33.4 usage rate, fourth in the league. He was also the Clutch Player of the Year, with 96 of 100 first-place votes, and NBA.com noted his record streak of 20-point regular-season games reached 140 and carries into this season.

The league’s own account packaged the case on MVP night:

Video: NBA

What to watch in 2026-27

The regular season opens Oct. 20. If Jokić leads the league in Box Plus/Minus again, he will match Jordan’s seven straight seasons. Gilgeous-Alexander will try to make it three straight win-shares titles behind a Thunder defense that ranked first last season, the piece of the formula that tipped the last two races his way.

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