Now that the 2025-26 NBA award season is over, we’ve finally learned the yearly winners. The Oklahoma City Thunder brought home a couple of trophies as they had a league-best 64-18 regular-season record. Both courtesy of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, of course.
Gilgeous-Alexander won the 2025-26 MVP award. He was a back-to-back winner in a landslide that was closer to being unanimous than actually competitive. He also brought home the 2025-26 Clutch Player of the Year trophy. By a pretty wide margin, too.
Elsewhere, Chet Holmgren finished 2025-26 Defensive Player of the Year runner-up. Of course, Victor Wembanyama was the first unanimous winner ever. Both Thunder players were selected to the All-NBA Team. Holmgren and Cason Wallace also earned an All-Defense Team honor.
After the final NBA award was announced, the league released the full voting ballots of all 100 media voters. For context, every NBA market gets at least one voter. There are also plenty of national and international folks who participated in the yearly event.
Here’s a bunch of Thunder-related fun facts about the NBA’s 2025-26 voters’ ballot:
Who didn’t vote Gilgeous-Alexander for MVP?
Gilgeous-Alexander grabbed 83 first-place votes. That meant 17 voters had him between second and fourth place. He had 13 second-place votes, three third-place votes and one surprising fourth-place vote. Below are the names of the 17, who were in the minority and stopped the NBA from seeing its second-ever unanimous MVP:
Sacramento Bee’s Jason Anderson, Miami Herald’s Anthony Chiang, Detroit News’ Coty Davis, Cleveland’s Chris Fedor, AFP’s Robin Gremmel, CBS Sports’ James Herbert, New York Daily’s CJ Holmes, ESPN Latin America’s Sebastian Martinez-Christensen, Sport 5’s Yoav Modai, Yahoo! Sports’ Kevin O’Connor, The Ringer’s Michael Pina, Philadelphia Inquirer’s Keith Pompey, The Athletic’s Jason Quick, beIN Sports’ Remi Reverchon, The Ringer’s Bill Simmons, SiriusXM NBA Radio’s Justin Termine and Prime’s Stan Van Gundy.
Who didn’t vote Gilgeous-Alexander for Clutch Player?
If you thought Gilgeous-Alexander was the runaway MVP winner, he enjoyed an even more lopsided final tally for 2025-26 Clutch Player of the Year. He had 96 first-place votes. He had one second-place vote and one third-place vote. That meant two voters left him completely off their ballot. Here were the four who didn’t have him in first place:
AFP’s Robin Gremmel, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Jim Owczarski, ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne, Prime’s Stan Van Gundy.
Holmgren’s DPOY votes
Because of Wembanyama’s unanimous Defensive Player of the Year, nobody had Holmgren in first place. Instead, he had 76 second-place votes and 11 third-place votes. Good enough for second place. That meant 13 voters had him outside of their top three. Here are those names:
NBA’s Steve Aschburner, Charlotte Observer’s Rod Boone, Movistar+’s Antoni Daimiel, Rogers Sportsnet’s Michael Grange, AFP’s Robin Gremmel, SiriusXM’s Frank Isola, ESPN’s Richard Jefferson, The Athletic’s Tony Jones, The Athletic’s Law Murray, The Ringer’s Michael Pina, Barstool’s Ryen Russillo, Sky Italia’s Flavio Tranquillo and Prime’s Stan Van Gundy.
Wallace’s DPOY votes
Funny enough, Cason Wallace also received some DPOY love. He was featured in four voting ballots. I guess those folks prioritize perimeter defense over rim protection. The four voters were:
Movistar+’s Antoni Daimiel, AFP’s Robin Gremmel, The Athletic’s Law Murray and Sky Italia’s Flavio Tranquillo.
Mitchell’s Sixth Man buzz
Even though Ajay Mitchell only suited up for 57 games, he received plenty of mentions in folks’ voting ballots. He enjoyed a breakout season with the Thunder. Just as a reminder, the NBA’s polarizing 65-game rule doesn’t apply to Sixth Man of the Year. Here are the 21 voters who had him in their top-three voting ballot:
Sacramento Bee’s Jason Anderson, Prime’s Brent Barry, The Ringer’s Howard Beck, ESPN’s Tim Bontemps, FS1’s Ric Bucher, ESPN’s Katie George, AFP’s Robin Gremmel, Yahoo! Sports’ Kelly Iko, SiriusXM’s Frank Isola, The Ringer’s Rob Mahoney, News 9’s Steve McGehee, Arizona Republic’s Duane Rankin, beIN Sports’ Remi Reverchon, AP’s Tim Reynolds, Open-Court Basketball’s Aurelia Rieke, Barstool’s Ryen Russillo, La Gazzetta dello Sport’s Simone Sandri, SiriusXM’s Justin Termine, Sky Italia’s Flavio Tranquillo, Boston Globe’s Gary Washburn and ESPN’s Brian Windhorst.
Daigneault gets Coach of the Year love
The final award winner that the NBA announced. Joe Mazzulla won it by a pretty comfortable margin. But Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault had some votes. He finished in sixth place. The four names between those two in order were JB Bickerstaff, Mitch Johnson, Charles Lee and Jordan. Here are the six voters who had Daigneault in their top-three ballot:
The Guardian’s Claire de Lune, SDNA’s Tolis Kotzias, Sport 5’s Yoav Modai, Arizona Republic’s Duane Rankin, NBA’s John Schuhmann and Kyodo News’ Atsushi Suzuki.
All-NBA Team fun facts
Gilgeous-Alexander had 100 First Team votes. A clean sweep. Holmgren had eight Second Team votes and 63 Third Team votes. He comfortably made it to the top 15 with 87 total voting points. For reference, Deni Avdija was the first guy out in 16th place with 26 total voting points.
All-Defense Team fun facts
The Thunder had two representatives on the All-Defense Teams once again. Holmgren made the First Team and Wallace made the Second Team. The former had 93 First Team votes and four Second Team votes. That meant three voters didn’t have him in their ballot. Those three were:
Charlotte Observer’s Rod Boone, Prime’s Stan Van Gundy and SiriusXM’s Frank Isola.
For Wallace’s case, he had 14 First Team votes and 66 Second Team votes. That meant 20 voters didn’t have him on their ballot. Two other Thunder players garnered All-Defense Team votes. Lu Dort had one First Team vote and 10 Second Team votes.
The 11 were La Gazzetta dello Sport’s Davide Chinellato, SiriusXM’s Frank Isola, ESPN’s Richard Jefferson, SDNA’s Tolis Kotzias, News 9’s Steven McGehee, The Athletic’s Jason Quick, La Gazzetta dello Sport’s Simone Sandri, ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne, ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith, Kyodo News’ Atsushi Suzuki and The Athletic’s Joe Vardon.
And Gilgeous-Alexander had one Second Team vote from A Bola’s Miguel Candeias.
Voter selections for the 2025-26 NBA regular-season awards are now available.
A global panel of 100 media members voted on each annual award.
Complete ballots ➡️ https://t.co/HM0yqVAj7Npic.twitter.com/Hbu3Imana6
— NBA Communications (@NBAPR) May 27, 2026
This article originally appeared on OKC Thunder Wire: 2025-26 NBA award voting ballots revealed: Who did, didn’t vote for Thunder?
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