Victor Wembanyama made the 2026 All-NBA First Team with 99 out of 100 votes.
Justin Termine, host of NBA Today on SiriusXM NBA Radio, placed Wembanyama on the second team instead of the first, casting the only ballot in the entire voter pool that did not give Wembanyama first-team honors. In a video posted to social media, he made clear this was not a slight on the player, widely considered one of the most must-see athletes in any sport.
“I voted for Wembanyama third for MVP, and I actually think he’s a better player than [Shai Gilgeous-Alexander],” Termine said. “I think he is the best player in the world right now, but I thought [Nikola] Jokić had a better regular season at the same position… I’m a massive fan of Victor Wembanyama, but this year, he was the second-best center, and I vote by position.”
Why I was the lone voter to leave Wemby off 1st Team All-NBA. pic.twitter.com/jWuwKdx46s
— Justin Termine (@TermineRadio) May 25, 2026
Termine has voted by position his entire career, and his argument has nothing to do with Wembanyama and everything to do with what happened to Patrick Ewing in 1994, when one of the most dominant centers of his generation finished fifth in MVP voting and was left off every All-NBA team entirely because Hakeem Olajuwon, David Robinson, and Shaquille O’Neal happened to be playing at the same time.
“So historically speaking, years from now people will look, and they’ll go, ‘Well, Wembanyama and Jokić made these many first teams, but why didn’t Patrick Ewing make this many?’” asked the SiriusXM host.
The rule Termine is pushing back against was itself born out of the Jokić-Embiid era, when Joel Embiid spent several seasons as arguably the second-best player in the league and had nothing to show for it because Jokic was the better center. The NBA changed the positional restrictions specifically so that the situation could never happen again.
“But in my opinion, that’s not fair to the centers of the past who got screwed,” Termine added.
Wembanyama is currently lighting up the Western Conference Finals against the Oklahoma City Thunder in a series that has only burnished his reputation as one of the most captivating players the sport has ever produced. Mike Tirico has said he has to actively fight the urge to gush about him on NBC broadcasts. None of it moves Termine, who sees his lone dissenting vote not as a slight against Wembanyama but as a debt owed to the players who came before him.
“Obviously, as you can see, I’m the only person that did it,” he said. “This rule of voting without going by position, I think it’s done a great disservice to the history of the sport.”
