5 NBA Stars Ready for an MVP Leap
Seven different champions in the last seven years suggests parity reigns in the NBA, but the MVP race tells a different story.
Repeat winners are the norm when it comes to the league's highest individual honor, and top-five finishers tend to hold onto that status for years on end.
We need some new blood.
Here, we'll highlight five players poised to make their debuts among the top five in MVP voting. That'll naturally disqualify past winners like Nikola Jokić and Giannis Antetokounmpo, but it'll also exclude the likes of Donovan Mitchell, Luka Dončić and Jalen Brunson, all of whom have earned top-five recognition from voters in the past.
Let's see who's ready to crack the top five—and maybe even win the whole thing—for the first time.
Anthony Edwards, Minnesota Timberwolves
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Anthony Edwards added extremely high-volume three-point shooting to his repertoire last season, ultimately leading the league with 320 makes and 811 attempts from long range. Flash back to a pre-draft scouting report that raised real questions about his shot, and that fact seems impossible.
Improvement is Edwards' calling card. He's upped his points-per-game average and true shooting percentage in every season of his career, a two-step almost nobody ever pulls off over a half-decade run.
If Edwards can sustain his deep shooting gains while also getting better at leveraging his elite athletic burst, he has a shot to join Damian Lillard and James Harden as the only players in league history to average at least 4.0 made threes and 7.0 made free-throws per game over a full season.
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Considering the way Edwards has added elements to his game over every summer of his career, we should probably expect some new wrinkles that go beyond better balance between deep shooting and downhill attacking. A better handle, quicker floor-mapping, more intuitive passing—it's all on the table.
Victor Wembanyama, San Antonio Spurs
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If not for the deep vein thrombosis in his shoulder that cut 2024-25 short, Victor Wembanyama might not have qualified for this list.
Prior to injury, he was playing at a level that warranted top-five MVP consideration.
Wemby only appeared in 46 games, which disqualified him from awards consideration, but he still managed to lead the league in total blocks while posting a 99th percentile Defensive Estimated Plus/Minus figure.
Defensive stats don't tend to generate MVP buzz, but Wembanyama paired his DPOY-worthy production on that end with tantalizing offensive developments that hint at massive two-way upside.
Wemby set an all-time record by becoming the first 7-footer to average at least 8.8 three-point attempts per game, knocking down a respectable 35.2 percent of those shots. It seems reasonable to expect either the volume or the accuracy to increase as Wembanyama enters his age-22 season, and it'd only take modest gains to get him up around 27.0 points per game on excellent efficiency.
That's without factoring in the likelihood that Wembanyama will add layers to his offense in other areas. He's a good bet to shoot more than 4.1 free throws per game next season, for example, and it's very easy to imagine him becoming a more punishing interior scorer as continues to gain muscle.
The only thing standing in the way of Wembanyama crashing the Jokic/SGA/Giannis tier of perennial MVP front-runners is team success. The Spurs won just 36 games a year ago, and they'll probably need to knock on the door of 50 for voters to give Wembanyama serious thought.
Of course, if he can put together the kind of individual season his track record suggests is possible, Wemby might just haul the Spurs to that victory total on his own.
Paolo Banchero, Orlando Magic
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Paolo Banchero owns career averages of 22.4 points, 4.6 assists and 7.5 free-throw attempts per game. Since 2000, only LeBron James, Luka Dončić, Dwyane Wade and Trae Young are in that club alongside the Orlando Magic's star forward.
Banchero also enters 2025-26 with a shot to put up numbers for a serious winner, and that'll up his MVP profile.
Orlando was a defensive monster a year ago, but the offense has been substandard for over a decade. With Desmond Bane and Tyus Jones joining up over the summer, and with Jalen Suggs hopefully healthy after an injury-hit campaign, Banchero should have the best offensive supporting cast of his career.
If Franz Wagner could ever hit a three, Orlando might even push for a spot just outside the top 10 in scoring efficiency.
Banchero's bully-ball strength and surprising handle for a player his size should get him to the line even more than the 8.4 times per game he visited it last year. If he becomes a league-average three-point shooter and hits another foul shot or two every night, we'll be talking about a scoring average approaching 30.0 per game.
As long as Orlando delivers on the promise of its offseason retooling, that should be enough to get Banchero onto the MVP short list for the first time.
Evan Mobley, Cleveland Cavaliers
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Evan Mobley continued his steady climb up the NBA hierarchy last season, winning Defensive Player of the Year while also showing major growth on offense.
He displayed never-before-seen physicality as a driver, finishing with the kind of brutal authority that other big men used to employ against him in his younger string-bean days. Mobley has become the aggressor now, and he's added that overpowering layer to his game while also tuning the finer points.
After never averaging more than 1.2 long-range tries per game in his career, he fired off 3.2 in 2024-25, hitting 37.0 percent of them. Though Mobley's assists per game stayed steady at 3.2, his overall touch time and average seconds per touch both spiked. Long story short: Cleveland trusted Mobley to handle the rock and make decisions like never before.
Mobley has in-house MVP competition; Donovan Mitchell finished fifth last year and is still in his prime.
No matter. Mobley is a lock to contend for Defensive Player of the Year for the next decade or so, and there's no sign he's done developing on the other end. Expect DPOY consideration, a scoring average that gets over 20.0 points per game for the first time and a broad acknowledgement that he, not Mitchell, is the main reason the Cavs will probably finish first in the East again.
Cade Cunningham, Detroit Pistons
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Cade Cunningham ranked seventh in MVP voting last season, and it may be a while before he finishes that low again.
The No. 1 pick in the 2021 draft got his first taste of league-wide award recognition by making his first All-Star appearance and landing a spot on the All-NBA third team. In leading the Detroit Pistons to 44 wins, tied for the franchise's highest total since 2008, Cunningham firmly established himself as a star-level first option who could create good looks for himself and others.
Cunningham's growth as a passer and three-point shooter gave defenses few good options. He hit a career-high 35.6 percent of his triples on increased volume and bumped his assists per game up to 9.1.
The list of players to average at least 25.0 points (Cunningham clocked in at 26.1) and 9.0 assists this century is short, and the only guy to do it in his age-23 season was Trae Young. The rest of the list is riddled with MVPs and superstars.
Ahead of his age-24 season Cunningham seems primed for further growth. He still has plenty of room to improve his foul-drawing craft and could definitely benefit from better ball security after turning it over 4.4 times per game a year ago.
He was knocking on the door of top-five MVP status last year, and Cunningham could barge through in 2025-26.
Stats courtesy of NBA.com, Basketball Reference and Cleaning the Glass. Salary info via Spotrac.
Grant Hughes covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Bluesky and subscribe to the Hardwood Knocks podcast, where he appears with Bleacher Report's Dan Favale.
