nba players who won mvp as a rookie
NBA Most Valuable Player Award Every player who has won this award and has been eligible for the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame has been inducted. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar won the award a record six times.[3] Both Bill Russell and Michael Jordan won the award five times,[4] while Wilt Chamberlain and LeBron James won the award four times. Russell and James are the only players to have won the award four times in five seasons.[5] Moses Malone, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson each won the award three times, while Bob Pettit, Karl Malone, Tim Duncan, Steve Nash and Stephen Curry have each won it twice.[4] Only two rookies have won the award: Wilt Chamberlain in the 1959–60 season and Wes Unseld in the 1968–69 season.[6] Hakeem Olajuwon of Nigeria,[b] Tim Duncan of the U.S. Virgin Islands,[c] Steve Nash of Canada[d] and Dirk Nowitzki of Germany are the only MVP winners considered "international players" by the NBA.[9]