Wembanyama bullies his way into top 5 MVP rankings with NBA's best

Spurs fans are, as the kids say, "eating good" right now. San Antonio entered the New Year with a record above .500 for the first time in years, Stephon Castle looks like the best player in the 2024 draft, Chris Paul has been everything we wanted in a veteran, and now Victor Wembanyama has risen to fifth on the NBA's Kia MVP Ladder.

SA's front office, led by Brian Wright, has been doing a spectacular job of positioning this team to make noise for years to come. Wemby is sitting behind Nikola Jokic, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and Jayson Tatum—the elite of the elite in NBA talent—sitting ahead of Luka Doncic, Karl-Anthony Towns, Donovan Mitchell, Anthony Davis, and Alperen Sengun.

Wembanyama is crashing through his early glass ceiling

Most players take the stairs to growth when they enter a professional league. We're always impressed when stars come in and show that the escalators work, moving toward their peak faster than usual. When Luka Doncic entered the league, he was scoring on everyone. It was baffling to see this slightly overweight European kid come to the NBA and start whipping tails on that end of the floor.

He was an offensive savant, but his defense left something to be desired. That was okay, though. Nobody expects young players to enter the league as elite talent on both sides of the court, and whatever your specialty, crafting it into a reliable tool still takes time. Some players improve their weaknesses, but many never enter the elite status in those areas.

Doncic, for example, has improved his defense, but he's still not going to end up on anyone's Defensive Player of the Year ballots. Guys like Jimmy Butler and Kawhi Leonard are rare because they came in as defensive stalwarts and morphed themselves into guys who could get you 30 or 40 points on any given night.

That's why Victor Wembanyama is such a menace. He's the best defender in the league and a top-10 offensive player in his second year, and we haven't even reached the halfway point of the season yet. Depending on what night it is, Wemby is a top-five player on offense based on his wide-ranging impact.

The Alien can pass, shoot, dribble, etc. If you can do it with a basketball, Victor can do it. We've never seen it before, and the NBA is acting accordingly. Some will be upset because the Spurs are the 10th seed, and a team seeded that low can't have the MVP, but that's why he's not going to win at this rate.

San Antonio would need to make moves at the trade deadline and get into the top six to be seriously viable to win the honor. Russell Westbrook and the Oklahoma City Thunder were sixth-seeded when he won the MVP off the strength of being the first player to average a triple-double for the entire season since Oscar Robertson.

That doesn't mean you can't acknowledge the season he's having, and the NBA shouldn't be punishing Vic for playing in a much more difficult Western Conference. Giannis is third on this list, and the Bucks are fifth in the East with a 17-15 record, so it would be a bit hypocritical to use the record as the end-all for making it onto the ladder.

Interestingly enough, for Spurs fans, Alperen Sengun is on this list. Seeing a player from the Houston Rockets on this list is nasty because it means they have top-level talent on their roster. But it's a good thing he's doing what he'll continue to do for the rest of his career—lose to Wemby.