SAN FRANCISCO — After putting up an easy 41 points and 18 rebounds in a Wednesday night runaway road win, San Antonio Spurs center Victor Wembanyama reiterated to ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt that the MVP award is squarely in his sights.
“I do care deeply about it,” Wembanyama told ESPN. “I think that of the greats that are in the Hall of Fame — or the best of all time — they have fought and grabbed everything they could grab early on in their career. If I want to make my spot among the greats, I got to try to not miss any occasion to put my name up there.”
Wembanyama and the Spurs are on a heater. They went into San Francisco on Wednesday night and throttled the depleted Golden State Warriors, leading end-to-end and finishing a 127-113 win after jumping out to a double-digit cushion within three minutes.
The Spurs have won 10 straight overall and 15 consecutive games in which Wembanyama has appeared. During that streak, Wembanyama averaged 27.9 points and 12.3 rebounds.
Included in that stretch is five straight games of at least 15 rebounds, which is the longest run by a Spurs player since Dennis Rodman in 1995, passing Tim Duncan’s and David Robinson’s career-best four-game streaks of 15 or more rebounds.
“Wow,” Wembanyama said of the statistic. “I watched a lot of highlights [of Rodman], mostly on the Bulls than anything else. They don’t make them like [him] anymore.”
The Spurs are 26-2 in their past 28 games, putting heat on the Oklahoma City Thunder for the top seed. The Thunder are two games up on the Spurs with six games left, but San Antonio holds the tiebreaker because of a 4-1 head-to-head record.
The defending MVP and current favorite for the award, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, is also on a closing flourish. Oklahoma City has won 15 of its past 16 games, and Gilgeous-Alexander is on another scoring binge, eclipsing 40 points three times in the past two weeks.
Even if Wembanyama doesn’t win MVP, he is considered a lock for his first Defensive Player of the Year award. Prior to Wednesday’s game, Warriors coach Steve Kerr called Wembanyama “obviously the best defensive player in the league.” After the game, Kerr continued his praise of Wembanyama’s growth.
“He’s got unbelievable confidence now,” Kerr said. “He looks like he knows exactly what to do on both ends. His first couple years, he looked young at times. He doesn’t look young anymore. He just looks like he knows exactly what he’s doing. Dominated the glass. There’s plays you can’t do anything. Several lobs where it looked like a Nerf hoop. He’s brilliant.”
