About this chart race
This race counts cumulative NBA regular-season Most Valuable Player awards, using the ending year of each season: 1956 means 1955-56 and 2026 means 2025-26. It includes all 37 players who won across these 71 seasons, rather than a selected set of stars. Finals MVP, All-Star MVP, ABA awards and voting shares are excluded.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar finishes with 6 awards. Bill Russell and Michael Jordan each have 5; Wilt Chamberlain and LeBron James each have 4. Nikola Jokić, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson and Moses Malone each have 3. Equal totals remain ties, regardless of the animation's display order.
The official NBA history lists one winner per season. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander's 2025-26 award is also confirmed by the NBA's May 17, 2026 release: https://pr.nba.com/shai-gilgeous-alexander-2025-26-kia-nba-most-valuable-player/ . He ends with 2 awards. NBA's Kareem profile independently confirms his career total: https://www.nba.com/news/history-nba-legend-kareem-abdul-jabbar .
Awards accumulate at completed season endpoints. Years before a player's first award show zero; years without another win retain the previous total. Names are unified by player, including Kareem's earlier Lew Alcindor identity. Smooth movement between annual observations is visual interpolation, not fractional awards. Award counts compare recorded honors across different eras and voting systems; they do not measure overall player ability or team championships.
This animated ranking shows how career nba regular-season mvp awards changed across 37 series between 1956 and 2026. The bars re-order themselves as the years advance, so overtakes are visible as they happen rather than hidden inside a table. Use the list on the left to choose exactly who competes, drag the slider to jump to any year, or open the table view to read the underlying numbers.
As of 2026, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar leads with 6 awards.
Included in this race
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Michael Jordan, Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, LeBron James, Nikola Jokić, Moses Malone, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Tim Duncan, Steve Nash, Stephen Curry, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Karl Malone, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Bob Pettit, Willis Reed, Wes Unseld, Shaquille O'Neal, Russell Westbrook, Oscar Robertson, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett, Kevin Durant, Julius Erving, Joel Embiid, James Harden, Hakeem Olajuwon, Dirk Nowitzki, Derrick Rose, David Robinson, Dave Cowens, Charles Barkley, Bob McAdoo, Bob Cousy, Bill Walton, Allen Iverson.
Source
Data from NBA.com - official MVP history. Check the stated period and methodology. Animated transitions between source observations are visual interpolation, not additional measurements.
You can browse every chart race, embed this one on your own site, or download it as a video to share.