As the thrilling 2025 NBA playoffs continue, the league is prepared to award the 2024–25 MVP award, a tight race expected to come down to a close vote between last season's top two finishers.
Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic won his third MVP a year ago, capturing 79 first place votes to beat out Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Dallas Mavericks guard Luka Doncic and Milwaukee Bucks forward (and former MVP) Giannis Antetokounmpo.
Jokic is once again in the mix, announced as a finalist alongside Gilgeous-Alexander and Antetoukounmpo. After turning 30 in February, he would be the first player at that age or older to win the award since Steve Nash in 2006. Gilgeous-Alexander, a heavy favorite to win the award for the first time, is 26—closer to the average age for MVP winners.
There is a 13-year age gap between the oldest and youngest MVP award winner in league history, and those two wins took place 12 years apart. Let's take a look at those winners, as well as age trends with the league set to name its 70th league MVP in the coming days.
Oldest Player to Win NBA MVP: Karl Malone (35 in 1998–99)
Two years after his controversial first MVP win over Michael Jordan in 1996–97, the Mailman took home his second award, winning a tight race over fellow big men Alonzo Mourning and Tim Duncan—a forward 13 years his junior.
Malone averaged 23.8 points, 9.4 rebounds and 4.1 assists per game on the season, leading the Utah Jazz to a 37–13 record in the lockout-shortened 1998–99 season—tied with the San Antonio Spurs for the best record in the NBA. He led the NBA in win shares with 9.6, and was second in the league in PER behind Los Angeles Lakers center Shaquille O'Neal.
Malone, John Stockton and the Jazz were coming off of back-to-back Western Conference championships and NBA Finals losses to Jordan's Chicago Bulls. They could not get over the hump, however, with Jordan out of the picture in the East. The No. 3 seed in the West behind the Spurs, with whom they lost a tiebreaker for the top seed out of the Midwest Division, and the Pacific Division champion Portland Trail Blazers, Utah knocked off the Sacramento Kings 3–2 in the first round before falling to that balanced Blazers team in six games.
Malone is the only player to win an NBA MVP award at 35, and broke the record for oldest MVP set just one year earlier by Jordan, who was 34 when he took home his fifth and final MVP. It was the fourth consecutive year that Jordan and Malone had traded the award, setting a new record for oldest MVP each year.
Five Oldest MVPs in NBA History:
Youngest Player to Win NBA MVP: Derrick Rose (22 in 2010–11)
The era of high school players and now one-and-done college freshmen entering the NBA has created numerous superstars in their early 20s. After one season at Memphis, Derrick Rose was selected with the No. 1 pick of the 2008 NBA draft at just 19 years old. Three years later, he became the youngest player to ever win the league's highest individual honor.
Rose's win was overwhelming, with 113 of 121 first-place votes to beat out Dwight Howard, LeBron James and Kobe Bryant for the MVP. Rose finished the year averaging 25 points, 7.7 assists and 4.1 rebounds per game, and most importantly, led the Bulls to a league-best 62–20 record. In the years since, this award has become fairly controversial, as arguments for Howard and James, who had better raw statistical seasons, still pop up.
The 2011 MVP campaign proved to be a highwater mark for Rose, who was plagued by injury throughout the rest of his prime. After averaging 80 games through his first three NBA seasons, he'd never play more than 66 in a single year again, and finished with MVP votes just two more times during his career, which ended after the 2023–24 season. His quest for an NBA title with Chicago also fell short; the No. 1 seed 2011 Bulls fell in the Eastern Conference finals to James and the Heat in five games.
Rose edged out Basketball Hall of Famer Wes Unseld as the youngest NBA MVP of all time. Unseld remarkably captured the MVP and Rookie of the Year award in the same year, 1969, as he led the Baltimore Bullets to a league-best 57–25 record. He joined Wilt Chamberlain (1960) as the only two players in league history to win both awards during their first seasons.
Unseld turned 23 towards the end of his MVP season, while Rose was 22 when the award was settled, making the Bulls great the youngest winner ever.
Five Youngest MVPs in NBA History:
Average Age for NBA MVPs
Both Malone and Rose were relative outliers among the league's MVP winners. In 69 years of NBA MVPs being crowned, only 13 have been under 25 years old (as of Feb. 1 of that season, per Basketball Reference) and 13 have been 30 or older.
It should come as little surprise that the late 20s is the sweet spot for a prime NBA star. The average age of NBA MVPs sits at a hair over 27 years old, while the most common age for NBA MVPs is 28 with 11 different winners (again, as of Feb. 1 of that season): Bob Cousy (1956), Bill Russell (1963), Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (1976), Larry Bird (1985), Michael Jordan (1992), Dirk Nowitzki (2007), LeBron James (2013), Russell Westbrook (2017), James Harden (2018), Joel Embiid (2023) and Nikola Jokic (2024).
This year's MVP will likely come down to Oklahoma City Thunder point guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic. Gilgeous-Alexander would be on the slightly younger side for MVPs at 26, while Jokic—a three-time winner of the award already—is 30 and would become the 14th player at 30 or older to win the award.
More NBA on Sports Illustrated
This article was originally published on www.si.com as NBA MVP History: Oldest & Youngest Players to Ever Win the Prestigious Award .