Anthony Edwards earns Kobe Bryant trophy as Kia 2026 NBA All-Star MVP
Anthony Edwards scores 32 points in 3 games for USA Stars as they win the 2026 All-Star Game Championship over USA Stripes.
LOS ANGELES – Anthony Edwards genuinely looked surprised when NBA commissioner Adam Silver announced that he had been named the Most Valuable Player of the 2026 All-Star Game Sunday at the Intuit Dome.
Modesty? Perhaps. But it was admittedly a little trickier to track MVP prospects through a set of four mini-games, a fresh format deployed for the showcase’s 75th edition. Instead of going with the night’s biggest scorer, the panel of media voters had to monitor and weigh each player’s production and impact across multiple 12-minute contests.
So there was no slam-dunk choice, with rivals for the honor – Kawhi Leonard and Victor Wembanyama – losing their last games of the day.
That’s why, in the end, it was Edwards holding up the Kobe Bryant Trophy that goes to each year’s most valuable All-Star. The Minnesota Timberwolves’ effervescent 24-year-old wound up being the best overall player on the winning team, his USA Stars squad surviving the round-robin, single-day tournament.
“It means a lot,” Edwards said. “I love Minnesota, and I know Minnesota loves me. I said I wasn’t going to put on a show for them, but I gave them a show.”
The MVP trophy was named after Bryant, an appreciation of his MVP-winning performances in four of the 15 games in which he played (he was selected as an All-Star 18 times but missed three games to injuries).
It was Edwards’ production in the fourth and final game that clinched his MVP and won the night for USA Stars. His stats were relatively modest: 8 points on 3-of-5 shooting. But added to his body of work across the Stars’ three games overall, the numbers spoke loudly: A total of 32 points in 26 minutes, hitting 13 of his 22 shots overall (6-15 3PM).
Edwards sank the three that sent his team’s first game into overtime and gave them a lead moments later. He also hit from deep late in the Stars’ next game, temporarily confusing himself.
“We didn’t know you play the whole 12 minutes out,” he said. “We thought it was the first to 40. I hit a 3 to get to 40, and we thought the game was over. [De’Aaron] Fox came back and hit a three, and they won. I kind of felt like we got wigged out, but it’s all good.”
