NBA official seal of approval for the vote 
The NBA has made it official: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has landed another individual honour. The Clutch Player of the Year award for the 2025-2026 season goes to him. That makes it a fourth straight point guard to take the prize. He now joins De’Aaron Fox, Stephen Curry and Jalen Brunson on that list. It also gives a bit of extra weight to his separate push for regular-season MVP.
The numbers leave no room for debate. The Oklahoma City star finished with 484 points in the voting. He picked up 96 first-place votes. The gap to the rest was huge. Jamal Murray (117 points) and Anthony Edwards (116 points) were nowhere near him.
Making the most of the big moments
The award looks at the toughest, tightest stretches of a game. The league defines clutch time as the final five minutes of a game when the score is within five points either way. Gilgeous-Alexander has been brutal in that window. He scored 175 points there, the best mark in the league. His average of 6.5 points per game in those situations is an all-time NBA record. And it has helped Oklahoma City to 20 wins and 7 losses in those spots.
A minutes limit shaped by team dominance
Look at the fourth quarter, and there is a strange twist. His scoring average in that frame is 7.7 points, good for second in the league. But he has not needed much court time late in games. He has played in the final period only 42 times across 68 games.
That reduced workload makes sense. Oklahoma City have spent much of the season blowing games open in the first three quarters. Gilgeous-Alexander has only had to switch on the killer instinct in specific matchups. The records show top-level production against Denver, New York, Golden State, Houston, Indiana, Boston and Phoenix. Enough to back up the award, and then some.
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