There is a mad sprint to the finish for the NBA 2025-26 Season MVP crown. Five magnificent athletes are charging ahead relentlessly, like thoroughbreds with nostrils ablaze, their muscular legs pounding down the track, with their eyes focused singularly on the finish line up ahead. Five familiar names, all with legit credentials that – in previous MVP race iterations – would have assured them of the title easily.
First, there’s current MVP title-bearer, Shai Gilgeous Alexander, who is now the record-holder for consecutive games of 20 or more points, a record that belonged to the great Wilt Chamberlain for a long time. SGA’s team – the defending champs Oklahoma City Thunder – has the league’s best record at 61-16. His season stats stand at 31.6 points, 4.4 rebounds, 6.5 assists.
Then, there’s the Denver Nuggets’ 3-time MVP, Nikola Jokic, who is jockeying to be the first player ever to lead the league in rebounding and assists averages in the same season, while finishing in the top ten in scoring. Jokic has a record number of triple doubles (32) this season for the 4th-seeded Nuggets, which totes a 49-28 win-loss record. While checking in with a sizzling triple-double season stats at 27.7 points, 13 rebounds, 10.8 assists.
And then we have the league’s scoring leader, the LA Lakers’ Luka Doncic, who’s also close to posting a triple-double for the season. Doncic averaged a scorching 37.5 points per game this March on nearly 50% shooting. Elevating his team to third in the West at 50-27 with his season stats at 33.8 points, 7.8 rebounds, 8.3 assists. (Although Doncic’s season could be over due to a recent injury suffered.)
And there’s that big anomaly-of-a-success-story, Jaylen Brown of the Boston Celtics. Everyone had written off the Celtics with the injury that sidelined their top gun, Jayson Tatum. Brown’s able stewardship had led the team to a mind-blowing No. 2 seed in the east with an astonishing 51-25 record. All these while delivering a career year at 28.8 points, 7 rebounds, 5.3 assists.
The last one, however, is literally head and shoulders above the rest. The San Antonio Spurs’ Victor Wembanyama, in all his reed-thin, 7’4″ glory, looms over the rest of this illustrious pack. At only 22 years of age, and just 3 years of active service in the NBA under his belt, the spindly Victor is making his mark, and could go all the way to snatch the coveted crown. Wemby is leading the surprising San Antonio Spurs to its first post-season playoff run with a 59-18 record and a 24.7 points, 11.5 rebounds, 3.1 blocks season average.
Wemby is revolutionizing the game this year, in the same way Steph Curry readjusted the league’s defensive reach with his deadly 3-pt shooting a decade ago. Wemby’s size and reach is transformative for the league, forcing other teams to innovate with new game plans and new ways to deal with the gangling center and the Spurs’ defense. Wemby’s 3 blocks per game is terrorizing the league; making opposing players adjust their shot trajectory, while making many more hesitate to drive to the basket. On the offensive end, his array of offensive moves require a variety of defensive strategies to keep him guessing.
And as the Spurs start to be more comfortable with Victor’s vast potential, the Spurs will only get better and better. Curry chimed in on Wemby’s potential recently: “It’s just a natural progression that you can’t really force until your talent becomes so undeniable in your style. And if it leads to winning, it becomes like a collective effort, unlocking it, unleashing it, and then you being able to uplift players around you. So it’s a two-way street.”
Victor is now learning to assert himself on the team. He is becoming more confident vocalizing himself on the floor and in the locker room. In return, the rest of the team is now learning about Victor, and how to harness that potential that opens up a totally new dimension. And possibly a new era for the San Antonio Spurs.
And there’s the veteran Harrison Barnes to help the team through the process of maturation. Barnes was with the Warriors when Curry started mesmerizing the league with his deadly shooting, which revolutionized the teams’ offensive reach. His experience in how the transformation played out for the rest of the league will help the Spurs understand more about Victor and his style. Not just on the defensive end, which is already problematic for the opponents, but on the offensive end as well. In just his third year, Victor has already ignited the next big thing in the evolution of basketball.
The case for Victor Wembanyama as MVP rests on the fact that he is not just a physical anomaly, but a tactical inevitability that is rewriting the geometry of the court. While the other candidates offer elite production within traditional frameworks, Wembanyama is transforming the Spurs from a rebuilding project into a powerhouse by anchoring the league’s most feared defense while simultaneously serving as a 7’4″ offensive in-out threat engine. To watch him play is to witness this new dimension in the game. His presence is not just game-changing, he could be ‘an existential threat’ to the rest of the teams in the NBA, boldly defining the game’s new boundaries. Indeed, this could be the end of another traditional NBA era. The Wembanyama era has just begun.
Cover pic courtesy of AP Photos/John Locher. Other pics courtesy of BasketNews.com, Marca, Heavy Sports, the New York Times, Basketball Network, X.com, the Sun Sentinel, the San Antonio Express News, and Time Magazine. For a closer look, please click on the pic.
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