Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo was named the Most Valuable Player of the 2024 NBA Cup on Tuesday night after leading Milwaukee to a 97-81 victory over the Thunder in the championship game in Las Vegas (Twitter links).

Antetokounmpo was selected as the MVP by all 20 media members who voted on the award and also received three of the five fan votes (Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander got the remaining two).

The two-time regular season MVP guided the Bucks to victory on Tuesday with a 26-point, 19-rebound, 10-assist triple-double. He also added three blocked shots and a pair of steals.

“I mean it’s… I could try but you know, I’ll just keep it simple: He’s the best player in the world,” Bucks center Brook Lopez told Jim Owczarski of The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel after the game in trying to describe Giannis’ play. “He just keeps finding ways to get better in the offseason, in-season, every day, every game, it’s just so impressive.”

The MVP award is based on Antetokounmpo’s performance over the entire NBA Cup, including group play and the previous knockout round games. He averaged 30.5 PPG, 10.2 RPG, 7.7 APG, and 2.8 BPG across six NBA Cup contests as the Bucks went undefeated (7-0) in the in-season tournament.

As Owczarski notes, Antetokunmpo and last year’s in-season tournament Most Valuable Player LeBron James are now the two players in league history who have won MVP awards for the regular season, NBA Finals, All-Star Game, and NBA Cup.

While the NBA Cup championship game doesn’t count toward the Bucks’ regular season record or toward Antetokounmpo’s regular season stats, Tuesday’s win served as an exclamation point on the team’s early season turnaround — Milwaukee has won 13 of 16 games (including the NBA Cup final) since opening the season with a 2-8 record.

Antetokounmpo, meanwhile, is making a strong case for his third regular season MVP award. His 32.7 points per game lead the NBA and he’s also in the top five in rebounds per game (11.5) and field goal percentage (61.4%).