How NBA Finals MVP Voting Works

Official name and when it started

The award is officially the Bill Russell NBA Finals Most Valuable Player Award, usually shortened to FMVP. It was first handed out in 1969, and the inaugural winner was Jerry West of the Los Angeles Lakers — still the only player ever to win it while losing the series. In 2009 the NBA renamed the trophy after Bill Russell, an 11-time champion, the first time the Finals MVP carried a namesake.

Who gets to vote

A panel of roughly 11 sportswriters and broadcasters who cover the Finals casts the ballots. Panel membership changes from year to year, but the principle never does: this is a media award. There is no player vote, no coach vote and no fan vote — unlike All-Star starters, where fans do have a say. In that respect it works exactly like the regular-season MVP.

When the vote happens and how it is counted

Ballots are cast as soon as the final game of the series ends, leaving very little time for tape review — which is one reason clutch moments and "series memory" carry so much weight. Voting uses a points system: each panelist submits a first choice, every first-place vote is worth one point, and the player with the most points wins. With only about 11 ballots in play, each one carries real weight.

Why there is no statistical threshold

The only requirement is that the winner be the most valuable player of the Finals. There is no minimum scoring average, no minutes requirement, and no rule saying the winner must come from the winning team. That open-ended wording produced two famous outliers:

• Jerry West, 1969: the Lakers lost Game 7 to the Celtics, yet West took the award on the strength of a dominant series — the only Finals MVP from a losing team.
• Andre Iguodala, 2015: Iguodala came off the bench for most of the season and the early part of the Finals, but his defense on LeBron James swung the series, making him the only non-starter ever to win.

The practical takeaway is that the box-score leader does not automatically win. Defense, clutch shot-making and whether a player changed the direction of a series all enter the discussion.

Records

• Michael Jordan holds the record with six Finals MVPs (1991, 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 1998), all of them in championship runs with the Bulls.
• LeBron James is second with four.
• The award has been presented 58 times in total (1969–2026), and all but one of those went to a player on the champion.

Use the related hubs above to browse the full all-time list, the 2026 winner, and how Finals MVP differs from regular-season MVP.