Draymond GreenForward, Golden State Warriors

NBA MVP Race 2026: Who Wins if SGA and Jokic Miss Out? Candidates Who Actually Meet The 65-Game Rule

28 Feb 2026 · 1 min

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1:09

In this YouTube monologue, Draymond Green reacts to the NBA’s 65‑game eligibility rule for MVP consideration, which could disqualify Nikola Jokić and Shai Gilgeous‑Alexander if they fall short of the game count. Green proposes his own top‑three alternatives: Cade Cunningham (referred to as “Kade”) as his first choice, Jaylen Brown as second, and Victor Wembanyama as third, citing Wembanyama’s limited minutes per game but strong team success. He critiques the rule as an overreaction to load‑management concerns, referencing LeBron James winning MVP in 2011‑12 with only 62 games and Kawhi Leonard earning Defensive Player of the Year after playing 58 games, arguing that such historical precedents show the rule is unfair and punitive.

Chapters

With Joker and SGA on the brink of reaching their quota for games played in order to still be in the MVP discussion, there's been a lot of chatter around who's the next top 3 candidates if those guys don't qualify. I think your top 3 is Kade, Jaylen Brown, and Wemby. And I say Wemby due to the amount of games, but he was on a minute restriction, you know, and played 20 minutes, 22 minutes, under 25 minutes. I think that has to matter. You know, they have a really good team, so they were still able to win. So I would put Wemby at 3, I would put Kade at 1, I would put Jaylen Green at 2. They be at 2 if ultimately those 2 guys didn't qualify. It honestly just sucks that we're even having this discussion that this rule is in place. LeBron James won MVP in 2011 and '12 season playing 62 games. Kawhi Leonard once won a Defensive Player of the Year award. I think he played 58 games if I'm not mistaken. Because no one's load managing that many games. And so I think it's a reaction to the public saying, oh man, these guys load managed this game when they came to this arena. I think it's an overreaction to that. That ultimately has these consequences that I think are completely unfair. Woo!