The National Basketball Association Most Valuable Player (MVP) is an annual National Basketball Association (NBA) award given since the 1955–56 NBA season. The winner receives the Maurice Podoloff Trophy, which is named in honor of the first commissioner (then president) of the NBA who served from 1946 until his retirement in 1963. MVP voting takes place immediately following the regular season. Until the 1979–80 NBA season, the MVP was originally selected by a vote of NBA players. However, since the 1980–81 NBA season, the award is decided by a panel of sportswriters and broadcasters throughout the United States and Canada. Voting is conducted by 125 members of the media; three from each of the 30 cities in which NBA teams are located and the rest a mix of national writers and broadcasters. Since the 1982–83 season, every player who has won the award has played for a team with at least 50 regular-season wins (except for Karl Malone in the lockout-shortened 1998–99 season, in which the regular season was only 50 games long).[1]
Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has won the award six times.[2] Both Bill Russell and Michael Jordan have won the award five times[1] while Wilt Chamberlain has won the award four times in his career. Hall of Fame players Moses Malone, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson have each won the award three times, while Bob Pettit, Karl Malone, Tim Duncan and Steve Nash have each won it twice.[1] The most recent winner was Kobe Bryant.[3] Only two rookies have won the award: Wilt Chamberlain in the 1959–60 season and Wes Unseld in the 1968–69 season.[4] Hakeem Olajuwon of Nigeria (naturalized U.S. citizen since 1993), Tim Duncan of the U.S. Virgin Islands, Steve Nash of Canada and Dirk Nowitzki of Germany are the only MVP winners not born in the United States. Duncan is an American citizen, but is considered an international player by the NBA because he was not born in one of the fifty states or Washington, D.C.[5]
| † | Denotes player who is still active |
| Elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame | |
| Player (X) | Denotes the number of times the player has been awarded the MVP award |