Every NBA Finals MVP Winner in History

The NBA has handed out the Finals MVP award 58 times, starting in 1969 and running through Jalen Brunson's win with the New York Knicks in 2026. Thirty-seven different players have won it, and Michael Jordan holds the record with six — one for each Chicago Bulls championship.

The trophy is officially the Bill Russell NBA Finals Most Valuable Player Award, and the man it is named for never won one. Here is the full list, followed by the records and oddities inside it.

At a Glance

Every NBA Finals MVP, 1969–2026

Stat lines are per-game averages for the Finals series only.

Every one of these seasons is matched to its championship in List of Every NBA Champion by Year.

Why the List Starts in 1969

The NBA had been crowning champions for 22 seasons before it bothered to name a Finals MVP. The award was introduced for the 1969 Finals, voted on by a panel of media members — today 11 of them — immediately after the series ends.

That timing produced the award's biggest irony. Bill Russell won 11 championships between 1957 and 1969 and never won a Finals MVP, because the award did not exist for ten of them and the eleventh went to Jerry West of the losing Lakers. Russell is not alone: Bob Cousy (six titles), Bob Pettit, Sam Jones, Elgin Baylor's teammates and the rest of the pre-1969 champions were all ineligible for a trophy that hadn't been invented.

The NBA squared the circle in 2009. On February 14 of that year, commissioner David Stern announced the trophy would be renamed the Bill Russell NBA Finals Most Valuable Player Award, and Russell has presented it in person at several Finals since. Kobe Bryant, in 2009, was the first winner of the newly named award.

Michael Jordan's Six

Jordan won Finals MVP in all six of Chicago's championship seasons — 1991, 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997 and 1998. No other player has more than four.

The stat lines are the argument. He averaged at least 27.3 points in every one of those six Finals and topped 30 in four of them, peaking at 41.0 points a game against Phoenix in 1993, still the highest scoring average in a Finals series in the award era. His 1991 line — 31.2 points, 11.4 assists, 6.6 rebounds against the Lakers — remains the only Finals in which a winner averaged better than 11 assists other than Magic Johnson's 13.0 in 1987.

Jordan also never lost a Finals. The Bulls went 6-0 in championship series, the best Finals record of any franchise, as detailed in Which NBA Teams Have Won the Most Championships?.

Every Multiple Winner

Twelve players have won the award more than once. Together they account for 33 of the 58 awards.

LeBron James is the only player to win Finals MVP with three different franchises — Miami in 2012 and 2013, Cleveland in 2016 and the Lakers in 2020. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Bucks, Lakers) and Kawhi Leonard (Spurs, Raptors) each did it with two. Kareem's two wins are also the furthest apart of anyone's: 14 years, from 1971 to 1985.

Jerry West, the Only Winner From a Losing Team

The first Finals MVP was also the strangest. In 1969, Boston beat Los Angeles 4-3 in Bill Russell's final series, and the voters gave the award to the Lakers' Jerry West, who had averaged 37.9 points, 7.4 assists and 4.7 rebounds across the seven games. Game 7 went 108-106 to the Celtics at the Forum — the first time a road team had ever won a Game 7 in the Finals.

Fifty-seven Finals later, no player from a losing team has won it again. Several have come close in the public conversation — Dirk Nowitzki in 2006, LeBron James in 2015 while averaging 35.8 points for a Cleveland team missing two All-Stars — but the voting panel has always chosen a member of the winning side.

The NFL has exactly one parallel: Dallas linebacker Chuck Howley was named Super Bowl MVP in a losing effort in Super Bowl V, and it has not happened there since either. Both are catalogued in Every Super Bowl MVP Winner in NFL History.

Youngest and Oldest

Youngest: Magic Johnson, 1980, at 20 years and 276 days. He is also the only rookie to win the award, and he did it in one of the most famous Finals performances ever — starting at center in Game 6 in place of the injured Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and putting up 42 points, 15 rebounds and 7 assists to clinch the title in Philadelphia.

Oldest: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, 1985, at 38 years and 54 days. He averaged 25.7 points and 9.0 rebounds against Boston at 38, a series that also gave the Lakers their first Finals win over the Celtics after eight straight defeats in the matchup.

The rest of the young end of the list is stacked with San Antonio: Kawhi Leonard was 22 in 2014 and Tim Duncan was 23 in 1999. For the award that measures the other end of a career arc, see Every NBA Rookie of the Year Winner in History.

Finals MVP vs. Regular-Season MVP

The two awards overlap far less than people assume. Of the 37 Finals MVP winners, 20 also won at least one regular-season MVP. The other 17 never did:

Jerry West, John Havlicek, Rick Barry, Jo Jo White, Dennis Johnson, Cedric Maxwell, James Worthy, Joe Dumars, Isiah Thomas, Chauncey Billups, Dwyane Wade, Tony Parker, Paul Pierce, Kawhi Leonard, Andre Iguodala, Jaylen Brown and Jalen Brunson.

It runs the other way too. Thirty-seven players have won a regular-season MVP, and 17 of them never won a Finals MVP: Bob Pettit, Bob Cousy, Bill Russell, Oscar Robertson, Dave Cowens, Bob McAdoo, Julius Erving, Charles Barkley, David Robinson, Karl Malone, Allen Iverson, Kevin Garnett, Steve Nash, Derrick Rose, Russell Westbrook, James Harden and Joel Embiid. Eight of those — Barkley, Malone, Iverson, Nash, Rose, Westbrook, Harden and Embiid — never won a championship at all.

Winning both in the same season is rarer still. It has happened 16 times to 11 players: Willis Reed (1970), Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (1971), Moses Malone (1983), Larry Bird (1984, 1986), Magic Johnson (1987), Michael Jordan (1991, 1992, 1996, 1998), Hakeem Olajuwon (1994), Shaquille O'Neal (2000), Tim Duncan (2003), LeBron James (2012, 2013) and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (2025).

Andre Iguodala's 2015 win is the outlier of outliers: he did not start a single regular-season game that year and came off the bench for the first three games of the Finals before Golden State moved him into the starting lineup. He remains the only Finals MVP who was a full-time reserve during the regular season — the sort of season chronicled in Every NBA Sixth Man of the Year Winner.

Jalen Brunson's 2026

Brunson averaged 32.6 points, 4.6 assists and 4.2 rebounds as the Knicks beat San Antonio 4-1 in a series decided by roughly four points a game. Three of New York's four wins came by a single possession, and the Knicks trailed by double digits in all four — including a 29-point deficit in Game 4 that became the largest comeback in Finals history.

He is the first Knick to win the award since Willis Reed in 1973, and only the second player in franchise history to win it at all. Brunson also joins the list of Finals MVPs with no regular-season MVP; the 2025-26 MVP was Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, whose Thunder lost in the Western Conference bracket. The Spurs' Victor Wembanyama, meanwhile, had just become the first unanimous Defensive Player of the Year in league history — see Every NBA Defensive Player of the Year Winner.

When This Page Updates

One name is added each June, on the night the Finals end. The next entry lands after the 2027 Finals; the route teams take to get there is laid out in NBA Playoff and Play-In Format, Explained.

FAQ

Who has won the most NBA Finals MVP awards? Michael Jordan, with six — 1991, 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997 and 1998. LeBron James is second with four, and Magic Johnson, Shaquille O'Neal and Tim Duncan have three each.

Why is it called the Bill Russell Award? The NBA renamed it on February 14, 2009 to honor Russell, who won 11 championships with the Celtics between 1957 and 1969. He never won the award himself because it wasn't created until his final season, and that first one went to Jerry West of the losing Lakers.

Has a player from the losing team ever won Finals MVP? Once. Jerry West won it in 1969 after averaging 37.9 points in a seven-game loss to Boston. It has not happened in the 57 Finals since.

Who is the youngest Finals MVP? Magic Johnson, at 20 years and 276 days in 1980. He is also the only rookie to win it, having started Game 6 at center for the injured Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and scored 42 points.

Who is the oldest Finals MVP? Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, at 38 years and 54 days when the Lakers beat Boston in 1985.

Has anyone won Finals MVP with more than one team? Yes. LeBron James won with Miami, Cleveland and the Lakers — the only player to do it with three franchises. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Bucks and Lakers) and Kawhi Leonard (Spurs and Raptors) each won with two.

Who won the 2026 NBA Finals MVP? Jalen Brunson of the New York Knicks, after averaging 32.6 points, 4.6 assists and 4.2 rebounds in a 4-1 win over the San Antonio Spurs. It was the Knicks' first championship since 1973.

How many players have won regular-season MVP and Finals MVP in the same year? Eleven players have done it, on 16 occasions. Michael Jordan leads with four such seasons; Larry Bird and LeBron James have two apiece. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was the most recent, in 2025.