NBA voter who had Victor Wembanyama 4th place on MVP ballot reveals reasoning originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
NBA writer for The Athletic, Fred Katz, shared the reason he placed San Antonio Spurs superstar center Victor Wembanyama in fourth place in MVP voting.
Danny Parkins of First Things First weighed in on X, writing, “I’d love to hear from a SGA 4th place voter, the 2 Wemby 4th place votes and the 2 Cade 1st place (!!) votes.”
Katz went on to explain his reasoning.
"I voted Wemby fourth. Was about aggregate production for me. Way fewer minutes. Than the other guys on the list and that matters to me," Katz wrote.
Victor Wembanyama’s minutes became major MVP debate
The Spurs superstar placed third in NBA MVP voting, finishing with five first-place votes, 36 second-place votes, 47 third-place votes, 10 fourth-place votes and two fifth-place votes.
Wembanyama averaged only 29.2 minutes of action, playing significantly fewer minutes than any other traditional MVP winner and other top candidates. Those issues became one of the biggest talking points surrounding a close race that was this past season.
Most MVP seasons include heavier nightly usage, 34-37 minute workloads and carry a larger possession burden over full games, like winner Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Nuggets superstar Nikola Jokic.
Wembanyama certainly made a strong case to win his first-ever MVP, as he averaged 25 points per game, displayed elite rebounding, dominant rim protection and proved to be a massive impact on both sides of the ball.
There was a strong counterargument that Wembanyama producing those types of numbers despite averaging less than 30 minutes is impressive in itself.
While that could have carried him to the hardware in other rare seasons, that was far from the case this season.
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