Does anything prove the fact that basketball no longer belongs to the good ole US of A more than this: It’s been nine long years since an American-born player last won the NBA’s coveted MVP award. James Harden won it at the end of the 2017-18 campaign. Since then, non-Americans have held the prize hostage.
The trophy has gone to Giannis Antetokounmpo twice, Nikola Jokic three times, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander in back-to-back seasons, including last term, and Joel Embiid once, in 2022-23, American by citizenship claimed in 2022 but Cameroonian born. Nine years. An entire generation of homegrown stars has come of age, matured, signed max contracts, and led their teams deep into May, and not one of them has been handed the Michael Jordan Trophy outright.
The current betting odds board doesn’t offer much comfort either. The latest odds from Lucky Rebel Sportsbook have Frenchman Victor Wembanyama sitting as the +200 favorite to claim the award in 2026/27. Then comes Canada’s SGA, chasing an unprecedented third straight win, at +350. Serbian Nikola Jokic and Slovenian Luka Doncic are bunched at +600, and the Greek Freak Giannis Antetokounmpo, now in Miami after one of the more jarring trades of the summer, checks in at +1000.
Five names, all born outside the U.S., all priced ahead of every single American in the league. What does it say about how thoroughly international stars have dominated this award that not one American cracks the top five? It says the bar has moved, and these four guys know it better than anyone. But can any of them do anything about it?
Jayson Tatum
There’s a version of this story where Jayson Tatum never plays another competitive minute. He said as much himself, describing the moment his Achilles snapped against the Knicks in the Western Conference semifinals last May in blunt terms: “I was shocked, and I was scared.”
He crawled up his own front steps that week. He needed a walker to get around the practice facility. Six All-Star nods and a 2024 title meant nothing in that moment, and Boston’s front office quietly braced for a season, maybe two, without its best player.
Instead, ten months and a six-day-a-week rehab later, Tatum walked out for a March return against Dallas and, by the playoffs, was playing winning basketball once again. Is there a cleaner illustration of durability doubt than a franchise cornerstone needing a full, uninterrupted year just to prove the injury didn’t take his ceiling with it?
Boston enters the season as a contender in the wide-open Eastern Conference if he’s healthy. But that “if” is doing a lot of work there.
Anthony Edwards
Picture the adjustment: a 24-year-old alpha who’s spent his whole career as the guy the ball runs through, suddenly getting a co-star who might run some of it instead. Minnesota’s coach, Chris Finch, admitted the team had misused talisman Anthony Edwards at point guard last season, running him into playoff double-teams with no relief valve. The fix was LaMelo Ball, acquired in a trade that reportedly left the Ant-Man “over the moon.” Edwards himself was more measured about what comes next, warning it’s “definitely going to be ups and downs” as the two feel each other out.
The numbers behind that need for help were still gaudy: 28.8 points, a career high, alongside 5.0 rebounds and 3.7 assists. But a Denver playoff knee injury cost him games, and Minnesota’s season ended in a Western Conference semifinal loss to San Antonio. Four All-Star selections in and both a title and an MVP award still elude him, despite making a career out of consistently outperforming lowly expectations. Ball is supposed to change that overnight.
Cade Cunningham
Rewind two years, and Detroit was the worst team basketball had seen in a generation, a 14-win laughingstock losing 28 straight. Cade Cunningham was the 22-year-old cornerstone standing in that locker room telling teammates, “don’t jump off the boat.” Now picture the whiplash: that same franchise finished 60-22 this past season, third-best record in the league, with Cunningham running the show at 23.9 points, 9.9 assists, and 5.5 rebounds. When Detroit finally snapped its skid years earlier, he’d put it simply: “I don’t wanna go back to where we were.”
They haven’t. A late-season collapsed lung briefly threatened the run, and a 125-94 Game 7 loss to Cleveland ended the season, but not before Cunningham reeled off 28.1 points a night in the playoffs. Detroit spent the summer adding shooting around him: John Collins, Isaiah Joe, Taurean Prince, and Gary Harris, while still haggling with restricted free agent Jalen Duren. The roster still leans entirely on one 24-year-old’s shoulders.
Jalen Brunson
Can a reigning Finals MVP really be the longest shot on this list? Jalen Brunson entered last October as a well-regarded three-time All-Star. By June, he was hoisting the Larry O’Brien trophy, having scored 45 points in a title-clinching road win against the much-fancied Spurs, the most by any Knicks player in Finals history, while playing through a wrist injury that required offseason surgery.
Along the way, he answered years of skepticism, most pointedly from Becky Hammon, who’d insisted a small lead guard could never be a team’s “dude.” Brunson never engaged with the noise directly, but his path to a potential maiden MVP win means replicating 26 points and 6.8 assists a night and hoping voters reward him.
