The case for Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was simple. He’s the best player on an Oklahoma City Thunder team that had the best record this season and set a league mark for margin of victory. If that wasn’t enough, he also won the scoring title.

That’s an MVP year.

Gilgeous-Alexander was announced Wednesday as the NBA’s Most Valuable Player, his first time winning the award. It’s now seven straight years that a player born outside the U.S. won MVP, extending the longest such streak in league history.

And when it happened, Gilgeous-Alexander said a life of moments — getting cut, traded, overlooked, celebrating, the wins, the good times — all flooded into his mind.

“I don’t think there’s enough emphasis on how much off the court influences on the court,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “And once I became better off the court my career started to skyrocket. It’s no coincidence.”

It ultimately was a two-person race. Gilgeous-Alexander got 71 first-place votes and 29 second-place votes; Denver’s Nikola Jokic got the other 29 first-place votes and the other 71 second-place votes.

Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo was third, getting 88 of the 100 possible third-place votes.

Gilgeous-Alexander — the No. 11 pick in the 2018 draft — averaged 32.7 points, 6.4 assists and five rebounds per game this season, leading the Thunder to a 68-14 record. The Thunder outscored teams by 12.9 points per game, the biggest margin in league history.

He becomes the second Canadian to win MVP; Steve Nash won it twice.

“He set the foundation,” Gilgeous-Alexander said of Nash. “He was the first Canadian basketball player I knew of. And without seeing guys go to the NBA from Canada, it wouldn’t have been as much of a dream as it was for us as kids growing up. So, to be in a conversation with a guy like that and what he has meant to not only basketball but to the country of Canada, it’s special.”

And Gilgeous-Alexander is the first guard to win MVP since James Harden in 2018.

Jokic — a winner of three of the last four MVP awards — was second, despite a season for the ages. He averaged 29.6 points, 12.7 rebounds and 10.2 assists per game, the first center to average a triple-double and the first player since all those stats were tracked to finish in the NBA’s top three in all three of those categories.

Antetokounmpo, who averaged 30.4 points, 11.9 rebounds and 6.5 assists per game, was third.