Here in the belly of America, claims to fame are few, yet proudly declared. Like, surely you knew about this region’s massive concentration of petroleum, and we’re not talking jelly. And there’s natural gas, enough to warm a cold heart.

Farming? This place produces some produce.

And NBA MVP winners? More per capita than even Boston and L.A.

About that last commodity: Unlike all those other precious state exports, its MVPs don’t harken back to the stagecoach days. It wasn’t too long ago when Oklahoma City had no team, just a dream. This is a small NBA market with a basketball footprint that’s still relatively fresh. Which makes its MVP assembly line all the more amazing and admirable.

When a teary-eyed 30-point scorer once famously proclaimed, “You the real MVP,” he was saluting his mom and the hardships she endured raising him. That said, those stirring words from Kevin Durant could also be attached to the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Three MVP winners now for a franchise that relocated to OKC just 17 years ago? And a fourth MVP who won the award elsewhere?

Durant and Russell Westbrook were drafted by OKC, as was James Harden, who later raised his MVP trophy in Houston. The latest is Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, acquired in a trade with the Clippers. Some franchises go years before celebrating such a player; eight of 30 NBA teams are still searching for their first MVP.

Save the applause for Sam Presti, the Thunder general manager responsible for the high density of MVPs (and also the winner of the 2024-25 Basketball Executive of the Year award). Presti was groomed right out of college by the Spurs organization. He urged them to draft a relative unknown French guard named Tony Parker, and the rest was history.

But in this situation, the more unexpected basketball ascent belonged to Presti, not Parker. In 2007, the Seattle SuperSonics took a chance on Presti, then 29, and made him the second-youngest general manager in history (after Jerry Colangelo of the Suns). Clay Bennett had recently purchased the chaotic franchise and wanted a drastic change. The Sonics were coming off a 31-win season and needed a new arena that they would never get, leading to the relocation to Oklahoma City before the following season.

In his first draft, blessed with the No. 2 pick, Presti didn’t take a chance — Durant was the choice. The next summer, just months before the move to OKC, Presti had the fourth overall selection and took a late-blooming but high-energy guard from UCLA: Westbrook.

In the very next draft, Presti used the No. 3 pick on Harden. Three drafts, three future MVPs, never been done before.

Getting the fourth involved some soul-searching, hard-line negotiation and unexpected luck. It began when Kawhi Leonard, fresh off a championship in Toronto, wanted to go home to Los Angeles and told the Clippers he’d sign as a free agent on the condition they get Paul George as his teammate.

George just had the best season of his career — 28 points, eight rebounds and a league-leading two steals made him an MVP finalist. And Presti had big plans for him and Westbrook as a long-term tandem in OKC.

But plans change when there’s blood in the negotiating waters. The Clippers were desperate, and Presti sensed it. He could stick with the status quo, but Damian Lillard indirectly nudged this trade by waving OKC home that summer with an iconic first-round winning shot for the Blazers. Had the George-Westbrook team reached its ceiling? Presti had an opening, if he wanted one, to rebuild OKC — still, pretty bold for a team that won 49 games.

He asked the Clippers for a record haul of five first-round picks and four swaps, and as if that weren’t enough, demanded Gilgeous-Alexander — who showed promise as a rookie but not MVP promise — be included in the package. Doc Rivers, the Clippers’ coach, urged Kawhi to stick with Gilgeous-Alexander, but Leonard wanted proven help now, not a developing co-star.

With the trade done and George gone, Presti saw no reason for Westbrook to stick around after losing both Durant (who signed with the Warriors two summers earlier) and now George as co-stars. Presti shipped Westbrook to Houston for more draft capital and also landed Chris Paul.

Getting Paul was a turning point, not for the franchise (Paul was always seen as a one-year rental and ultimately shipped to the Suns) but for Gilgeous-Alexander and his development. Paul schooled Gilgeous-Alexander on the finer points of the point-guard position and especially sold him on the mid-range shot, a lost art in a league that had shifted to 3-point shooting.

Five years later, OKC has its third MVP. Here’s what KD, Russ and Shai did to raise that trophy:

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He was already an established shot-maker before that season, which became his fourth as the league’s scoring champion. He went 41 straight games scoring at least 25 points, and his 32-point scoring average was a Thunder record until Gilgeous-Alexander erased it this season.

It also helped that OKC won 59 games and Durant hadn’t won the award before. He was due, and it was earned, winning comfortably over LeBron James (119 first-place votes to 6).

With his mother, Wanda, sitting in the first row at his news conference, that’s when Durant’s You-The-Real-MVP speech resonated with mothers of all walks of life.

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This award was helped twice by Durant, his teammate. First: In his acceptance speech three years earlier, Durant mentioned Westbrook and predicted he’d get the trophy one day. Second and more important: Durant bailed on OKC in the summer of 2016 for Golden State, giving Westbrook motivation … and the ball to himself.

And so, throughout that season, Westbrook’s furnace was lit. This was post-Durant, post-Harden and pre-George. This was Westbrook on an island, anxious to be historic, which he was, recording the first of his four triple-double seasons. Until then, only Oscar Robertson dropped a triple-double for a season. Westbrook made it routine in his prime.

He had a 58-point game. He broke Robertson’s record for most triple-doubles in a season, including a 50-point triple-double with a 35-foot game-winner against the Nuggets, rallying from 14 points down.

He was a one-man show, and because of that, OKC didn’t rule the West. In fact, Westbrook became the first MVP on a non-50-game winner since Moses Malone in 1982.

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Having finished runner-up last year to the Nuggets’ Nikola Jokić, Gilgeous-Alexander found himself engaged in a more spirited and intense chase this season. With Jokić averaging a triple-double, ranked among the league leaders in four statistical categories (never been done) and in his opinion the best season of his career — he’s a three-time MVP winner saying this — it would take plenty for Gilgeous-Alexander to convince voters.

Which he did. Gilgeous-Alexander was impactful at both ends, leading the league in scoring (getting more 50-, 40-, 30- and 20-point games than anyone) and ranking among the leaders in steals and among guards for blocked shots. What tipped the verdict in his favor? He was the centerpiece for OKC’s dominant 68-win season.

This cemented OKC as an MVP maker and creator. What the franchise lacks in championships — none for right now — it makes up for in MVPs. OKC has three different winners, tying the Rockets (who were gifted Harden from OKC) and trailing only the Celtics, Lakers and Sixers in that regard, teams with a head start by decades.

There’s the hope in OKC that Gilgeous-Alexander can do what the two previous winners couldn’t — capture the franchise’s first championship.

And also this — stick around for the remainder of his career.

At least there’s one very important figure in this MVP conversation who doesn’t appear to be bolting OKC anytime soon, if ever.

Presti is the one constant, never-changing figure in this entire equation. Which means there’s always a chance for OKC to add to its MVP collection.

Shaun Powell has covered the NBA for more than 25 years. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on X.

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