Fred VanVleet has seen enough of the MVP ladder shuffle. The Houston Rockets guard unloaded on his podcast this week, questioning how Victor Wembanyama climbed to the top of the rankings after a press conference declaration while Luka Dončić keeps sliding despite averaging historic numbers.
Why Fred VanVleet Questioned Victor Wembanyama’s MVP Case Over Luka Dončić
“Luka’s been averaging 40, 10 and 10 for the last two, three weeks. He’s going down the list,” VanVleet said.
“Wemby gets up there at a press conference and says, ‘I’m the MVP.’ He goes up now?” The 2019 NBA champion clarified he finds Wembanyama deserving but couldn’t mask his frustration with the mechanics of the race: “Sometimes it’s like what is this? What is this Sh** really about?”
Fred VanVleet on Victor Wembanyama campaigning for MVP 👀
“This is my one thing I don’t like. Luka been averaging 40, 10, and 10 for the last 2-3 weeks and he’s been doing down. Wemby gets up there in a press conference and says ‘I’m the MVP’ and he goes up?”
(Via… pic.twitter.com/6BG8hnk6tu
— NBA Courtside (@NBA__Courtside) April 4, 2026
VanVleet isn’t alone in noticing the peculiar dynamics at play. Former NBA player Quentin Richardson criticized Wembanyama for trying to “politic” his way to the award, arguing his play should speak for itself.
Udonis Haslem, Steve Nash, and Dirk Nowitzki all acknowledged Wembanyama’s defensive brilliance on NBA on Prime but questioned whether 24.7 points per game is enough offensive production to claim the league’s highest individual honor.
What makes the skepticism sharper is the contrast with Dončić. The Lakers guard leads the league at 33.5 points per game, becoming the first Laker since Kobe Bryant in 2012-13 to record 100 steals in a season.
He joined Michael Jordan as the only players to average 40 points over a six-game road stretch. Yet after a 41-point outing against Brooklyn in late March, Dončić dropped from second to fourth on NBA.com’s official ladder.
“The better I play, the more I go down in the ratings,” he said afterward. “I don’t know what more I can do.”
Dončić’s reluctance to campaign stands in stark relief to Wembanyama’s approach. When asked to make his case, Dončić declined: “I never made a case for myself. I’m not the one voting.”
The irony is that some who championed Wembanyama’s self-advocacy also exposed the system’s contradictions.
Draymond Green said he “hated” and “absolutely loved” Wembanyama’s press conference. He hated that the Spurs center had to explain that defense is 50% of the game for voters to notice, but loved that he was bold enough to say it.
“Everybody wants to crush Luka Dončić when he doesn’t live up to the standard of defense,” Green said. “But we’ve got this guy defending entire teams and nobody took it into account until he said defense is 50% of the game.”
Warriors coach Steve Kerr called Wembanyama “brilliant” after watching him drop 41 points and 18 rebounds in a victory, noting the 22-year-old’s unshakeable confidence. The praise is warranted. So is Wembanyama’s candidacy.
But VanVleet’s core question lingers: Why does one player’s words carry more weight than another’s production? Dončić has now suffered a Grade 2 left hamstring strain and will miss the rest of the regular season.
His MVP case, already uphill, might be finished. The numbers were never the problem. The narrative always was.
