[3] In February 2020, Commissioner Adam Silver renamed the NBA All-Star Game Most Valuable Player in honor of four-time winner Kobe Bryant, who died in a helicopter crash a few weeks earlier.
Oscar Robertson, Michael Jordan, Shaquille O'Neal, and LeBron James have each won the award three times, while Bob Cousy, Julius Erving, Isiah Thomas, Magic Johnson, Karl Malone, Allen Iverson, Russell Westbrook, Kevin Durant and Stephen Curry have all won the award twice.
Duncan of the U.S. Virgin Islands, Kyrie Irving of Australia, and Giannis Antetokounmpo of Greece are the only winners not born in the United States.
Pettit (1956), Bob Cousy (1957), Wilt Chamberlain (1960), Bill Russell (1963), Oscar Robertson (1964), Willis Reed (1970), Dave Cowens (1973), Michael Jordan (1988, 1996, 1998), Magic Johnson (1990), Shaquille O'Neal (2000), and Allen Iverson (2001) all won the All-Star Game MVP and the NBA Most Valuable Player Award in the same season; Jordan is the only player to do this multiple times.
[7] Fifteen players have won the award playing for the team that hosted the All-Star Game: Macauley (1951), Cousy (1957), Pettit (1958, 1962), Chamberlain (1960), Adrian Smith (1966), Rick Barry (1967), Jerry West (1972), Tom Chambers (1987), Jordan (1988), Malone (1993), John Stockton (1993), O'Neal (2004, 2009), Bryant (2011), Anthony Davis (2017), and Curry (2025); Pettit and O'Neal did this multiple times.