Victor Wembanyama has surged to No. 1 on the NBA MVP ladder, putting him on track to break Derrick Rose's record as the youngest MVP in league history.
Credit: AP/Scanpix nuotr.
Victor Wembanyama did not just move to No. 1 on NBA.com's latest Kia MVP Ladder. He moved into the range of one of the most famous age records attached to the award.
Victor Wembanyama
Victor Wembanyama
Victor Wembanyama
MIN: 29.13
PTS: 24.1 (59.38%)
REB: 11.14
AS: 2.95
ST: 1.05
BL: 3.08
TO: 2.47
GM: 59
NBA's newest ladder placed the San Antonio Spurs star first after he climbed from No. 3 the previous week, a sign that with the regular season entering its final stretch, Wembanyama is no longer being discussed as a fun long-shot case. He is being treated as a real favorite.
And that is where the Derrick Rose conversation becomes unavoidable. Rose was 22 years and 191 days old on the final day of the 2010-11 regular season, making him the youngest MVP in league history.
Wembanyama's birthdate is Jan. 4, 2004, and the NBA's regular season ends on April 12, 2026. By that same standard, Wembanyama would be 22 years, 3 months, and 8 days old on the final day of this season, roughly 92 days younger than Rose's benchmark.
Credit AP - Scanpix
In other words, if he converts this late push into the actual award, he would not merely join Rose as a 22-year-old MVP. He would pass him.
That is what makes this story feel bigger than a normal ladder update. Rose's MVP season has lived in NBA memory for 15 years because it represented something rare: a star so young, so explosive and so central to winning that voters ignored the usual instinct to make a player wait his turn.
Rose did it in his third season, averaging 25.0 points, 7.7 assists, and 4.1 rebounds while leading Chicago to a 62-20 record and the East's No. 1 seed. He did not sneak in, either. He won convincingly, collecting 113 of 120 first-place votes.
There is a symmetry here that makes Wembanyama's climb even more fascinating. He is also in his third NBA season. He is also leading a team that has jumped from promising to dangerous much faster than expected.
Credit REUTERS-SCANPIX
What separates Wembanyama from Rose is the shape of the case, not the age of the candidate. Rose's 2011 MVP campaign was built around shot creation, downhill pressure, fourth-quarter scoring, and the image of a young guard dragging a contender uphill.
Wembanyama's argument is different and, in some ways, even stranger. He is averaging 24.2 points, 11.2 rebounds, 3.0 assists, 3.1 blocks, and 1.1 steals while shooting 50.5% from the field, 35.1% from three, and 81.8% from the line. Those are not just star numbers. They are numbers that blend franchise-player offense with Defensive Player of the Year-level destruction.
The team's success is now there, too, and that is usually the last box a young MVP candidate has to check. San Antonio, as of March 28th sit at 55-18, second in the West.
That is also why the Rose parallel works so well. Rose did not win MVP just because he was young and electric. He won because the Bulls' rise forced voters to stop treating him like a future MVP and start treating him like the present one.
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