NBA All-Star Game MVP Award

NBA All-Star Game MVP Award

The National Basketball Association All-Star Game Most Valuable Player (MVP) is an annual National Basketball Association (NBA) award given to the player(s) voted best of the annual All-Star Game. The award was established in 1953 when NBA officials decided to designate an MVP for each year's game. The league also re-honored players from the previous two All-Star Games. Ed Macauley and Paul Arizin were selected as the 1951 and 1952 MVP winners respectively. The voting is conducted by a panel of media members, who cast their vote after the conclusion of the game. The player(s) with the most votes or ties for the most votes wins the award. No All-Star Game MVP was named in 1999 since the game was canceled due to the league's lockout.

Bob Pettit and Kobe Bryant are the only two players to win the All-Star Game MVP four times. Oscar Robertson, Michael Jordan, and Shaquille O'Neal have each won the award three times, while Bob Cousy, Julius Erving, Isiah Thomas, Magic Johnson, Karl Malone, Allen Iverson, and LeBron James have all won the award twice. James' first All-Star MVP in 2006 made him the youngest to have ever won the award at the age of 21. Four of the games had joint winners—Elgin Baylor and Pettit in 1959, John Stockton and Malone in 1993, O'Neal and Tim Duncan in 2000, as well as Bryant and O'Neal in 2009. O'Neal became the first player in All-Star history to share two MVP awards. The Los Angeles Lakers have had eleven winners while the Boston Celtics have had eight. Duncan of the U.S. Virgin Islands is the only winner not born in the United States. Duncan is an American citizen, but is considered an "international" player by the NBA because he was not born in one of the fifty states or Washington, D.C. No player trained entirely outside the U.S. has won the award; Duncan played U.S. college basketball at Wake Forest. The 2013 All-Star Game MVP was Chris Paul.

Read more about NBA All-Star Game MVP Award:  Winners

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