Victor Wembanyama has pushed to the top of the NBA's official Kia MVP Ladder, ending Shai Gilgeous-Alexander's hold on the No. 1 position with the regular season entering its final weeks.

The San Antonio Spurs superstar's rise was confirmed on March 27, coinciding with one of the most dominant team runs in the league this season.

The timing could not carry more weight. With the regular season closing on April 12 and the playoffs beginning April 18 (AEST).

Wembanyama's ascent raises the stakes of every remaining fixture for both clubs.

Wembanyama's Monster Run Through the Stretch

The 7-foot-4 Frenchman has been extraordinary across the Spurs' 23-2 run, recording 90 blocks and an NBA-best plus-minus of +388 in that stretch - 97 points clear of the next closest player.

Remarkably, he is producing at this level while averaging under 30 minutes a night.

Wembanyama leads the league with 3.1 blocks per game and has logged 38 double-doubles this season.

His most recent landmark came against the Chicago Bulls on March 30, when he reached a double-double in just 8 minutes and 31 seconds.

The Elias Sports Bureau recorded it as the third-fastest double-double in the play-by-play era, behind only Boban Marjanovic (8:13 in 2017) and Jonas Valanciunas (8:08 in 2025).

He finished with 41 points and 16 rebounds in a 129-114 Spurs victory - their ninth straight win.

San Antonio has surged to the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference.

An extraordinary turnaround for a franchise that spent several seasons in a deliberate rebuild around its young star.

What Gilgeous-Alexander and the Thunder Still Have

Gilgeous-Alexander held the top spot on the Kia Ladder for most of the season and his numbers remain outstanding.

The Thunder guard is averaging 31.4 points, 6.5 assists, and 1.4 steals on 55.1 per cent shooting across 63 games, and Oklahoma City sits at 59 wins and 16 losses - the best record in basketball.

SGA has also extended his streak of 20-point games to 135 consecutive outings, an NBA record.

The central tension in the debate is the traditional MVP question: team performance versus individual dominance.

Gilgeous-Alexander's Thunder have been historically good, and that has been the backbone of his case all season.

Wembanyama's counter-argument rests on two-way dominance of a kind the game has arguably never seen - now playing out on a team winning at an equally elite rate.

At 22, Wembanyama would become only the second player to win the award at that age, after Derrick Rose in 2011.

He would also end a long wait for San Antonio - David Robinson remains the only Spur to win MVP, back in the 1994-95 season.

Every remaining regular-season game carries extra weight, with the schedule closing on April 12 (AEST) and the playoffs beginning April 18.

The last chance for either man to make his final case to voters.