Former NBA Legend Makes Bold Prediction Dropping Three Names For MVP Race Of 2026-2027 Season

Charles Barkley gets bold with MVP predictions© Instagram/ Charleswbarkley

Former NBA legend Charles Barkley has named his MVP contenders for the 2026-2027 season, and none of them plays in the Eastern Conference. Talking with Ernie Johnson, the former NBA star said the award is going to a Western Conference player, then listed three names, all of them among the conference's leading scorers. Whether he turns out to be right will take a few months to find out.

Charles Barkley Gets Bold With MVP Predictions

The conversation took place on The Stream Room, where Johnson and Barkley covered a range of subjects, including a few of the disputes currently running through the league. At one point Johnson turned to the MVP race and asked: “So, if you had to pick, Charles, an MVP, who you think will be the MVP this year?”

Barkley had his answer ready. “I would probably go with Shai or Anthony Edwards. They both are great players. I think their team will be in the thick of it all year.” From there he widened it to the whole conference, saying, “I think the MVP will definitely come from the West. Because Jokic's going to be there. Victor got off on a really slow start. A crawl, basically. But Shai, Jokic and Anthony Edwards, I think it will come down to those three.”

Charles Barkley Explains Possible Difficulty For Shai Gilgeous-Alexander

Barkley then talked about what a second straight MVP would take for Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Johnson had pointed out that a win this season would make it back-to-back, and Barkley said the label of reigning MVP makes things harder. “It's difficult because you are a marked man,” he said. Then he added, “The toughest thing about being a great player is that you have to be ready to go every night because the coaches have schemes to stop you. But that's every player's Super Bowl.”

His point was that stars rarely get a quiet night, since the team across from them has spent the day working out how to slow them down. Barkley said he saw this firsthand during his own career, when opposing coaches would put together a short list of five or six things his team could not allow whenever they faced a great player, and the whole game plan revolved around it.