In case you didn’t know, the Chinese zodiac is a repeating 12 year cycle based on the Chinese lunar calendar where each year is represented by a different animal. Those animals are, in order: the Rat, the Ox, the Tiger, the Rabbit, the Dragon, the Snake, the Horse, the Goat, the Monkey, the Rooster, the Dog, and finally the Pig. The cycle begins every year on Chinese New Year which is always sometime around late January to late February, and the current animal at the time of writing this thread is the Snake. So if a baby is born this year you would say that they’re a Snake or born in the year of the Snake. There’s also lots of folklore and superstitions about how a person’s animal sign influences their personality, their relationships, their careers, and all kinds of stuff that I won’t go into.

But what does any of this have to do with the NBA? Well it’s the offseason and there’s not a lot going on, so I thought it would be a fun exercise to go through the list of all the NBA MVP winners and sort them by their sign and then rank the signs. Plus data is always beautiful.

So which sign reigns supreme? Here are the results that nobody asked for!

Pig (12): Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (1971), Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (1972), Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (1974), Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (1976), Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (1977), Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (1980), Magic Johnson (1987), Magic Johnson (1989), Magic Johnson (1990), Nikola Jokic (2021), Nikola Jokic (2022), Nikola Jokic (2024)

Dragon (10): Bob Cousy (1957), Bill Walton (1978), Tim Duncan (2002), Tim Duncan (2003), Kevin Garnett (2004), Derrick Rose (2011), Kevin Durant (2014), Stephen Curry (2015), Stephen Curry (2016), Russell Westbrook (2017)

Rat (10): Wilt Chamberlain (1960), Wilt Chamberlain (1966), Wilt Chamberlain (1967), Wilt Chamberlain (1968), Dave Cowens (1973), Shaquille O’Neal (2000), LeBron James (2009), LeBron James (2010), LeBron James (2012), LeBron James (2013)

Rabbit (10): Bob McAdoo (1975), Michael Jordan (1988), Michael Jordan (1991), Michael Jordan (1992), Charles Barkley (1993), Michael Jordan (1996), Karl Malone (1997), Michael Jordan (1998), Karl Malone (1999), Allen Iverson (2001)

Tiger (6): Oscar Robertson (1964), Julius Erving (1981), Hakeem Olajuwon (1994), Steve Nash (2005), Steve Nash (2006), Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (2025)

Monkey (5): Bob Petit (1956), Bob Petit (1959), Larry Bird (1984), Larry Bird (1985), Larry Bird (1986)

Rooster (5): Bill Russell (1958), Bill Russell (1961), Bill Russell (1962), Bill Russell (1963), Bill Russell (1965)

Dog (4): Wes Unseld (1969), Giannis Antetokounmpo (2019), Giannis Antetokounmpo (2020), Joel Embiid (2023)

Horse (3): Willis Reed (1970), Dirk Nowitzki (2007), Kobe Bryant (2008)

Goat (3): Moses Malone (1979), Moses Malone (1982), Moses Malone (1983)

Snake (2): David Robinson (1995), James Harden (2018)

Ox (0)

Immediately a few things stick out. First of all, where are all the Ox?! In the entire history of the award dating back to 1956 we haven’t got a single Ox? That’s crazy. Secondly, as you probably would’ve suspected, the results are skewed heavily by players who won the award multiple times. The Pigs have the most selections but they are split by only three players. Meanwhile guys like Bill Russell carried team Rooster all by himself. So what if we try looking at this from a different angle, and focus not on the selections themselves but by the amount of unique players? Here is the list ranked a different way where no player appears more than once. A somewhat different story emerges.

Dragon (8): Bob Cousy, Bill Walton, Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett, Derrick Rose, Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry, Russell Westbrook

Rabbit (5): Bob McAdoo, Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, Karl Malone, Allen Iverson

Tiger (5): Oscar Robertson, Julius Erving, Hakeem Olajuwon, Steve Nash, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander

Rat (4): Wilt Chamberlain, Dave Cowens, Shaquille O’Neal, LeBron James

Pig (3): Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson, Nikola Jokic

Dog (3): Wes Unseld, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Joel Embiid

Horse (3): Willis Reed, Dirk Nowitzki, Kobe Bryant

Monkey (2): Bob Petit, Larry Bird

Snake (2): David Robinson, James Harden

Rooster (1): Bill Russell

Goat (1): Moses Malone

Ox (0)

Still a bad day to be team Ox.

And there we have it! If y’all enjoyed this totally pointless study maybe later I can try doing the same exercise using western zodiac signs (Aries, Libra, etc). That would definitely be a lot more work but that sweet sweet data might be worth it. Thanks for reading.

Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_zodiac#Chinese_calendar
https://www.basketball-reference.com/awards/mvp.html