NBA Futures: Best Bets for 2019-20 MVP

The start of the second half of the NBA season often provides clarity for the top 3 favorites for this season’s NBA MVP.

As a star-driven league, the NBA is a master of marketing their best players, which makes an exciting and drama-filled race for their most coveted player award.

Winning the NBA MVP requires a perfect balance of elite individual accomplishments and team success. It is hard to assign player value without team success, yet a strong team record does always translate to a specific player deserving MVP consideration.

Let’s take a look at the favorites for the NBA’s most elite individual award and examine their respective betting values.

(Odds from FanDuel)

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Player: Giannis Antetokounmpo
Team:  Milwaukee Bucks
Odds:  -390
Stats: 30.1 points, 13.5 rebounds, 5.8 assists, 1.1 steals, 1.1 blocks, 32.3 PER

Summary: The Bucks’ superstar is playing at an even higher level than last year’s MVP season. Antetokounmpo has increased his points, rebounds, and 3P% despite playing the lowest minutes per game (30.9) of any year since his rookie season in 2013-2014. Kudos for head coach Mike Budenholzer for guiding the Bucks to an NBA-best 46-8 record while also prioritizing rest for their elite player. Milwaukee is 4.5 games better than last year’s All-Star break record and on pace for 69.9 wins with Antetokounmpo ranking second in scoring, fifth in rebounds, and first in PER (player efficiency rating) among all players. 

Value:  As the odds-on favorite, it’s hard to get attractive value on an Antetokounmpo bet at this point in the year. Milwaukee’s 60-22 record was also the NBA’s best last season when he garnered 77.2% (78 of 101) of the votes. He is averaging 10 more points per game than the next highest Bucks player (Khris Middleton 20.4), easily establishing his importance. Antetokounmpo trails only Houston’s James Harden in scoring and has improved his 3P shooting to a respectable 31.3%. His only weakness comes at the free-throw line, where Antetokounmpo is currently at a career-low 61.4%. That would be the lowest free-throw shooting percentage of an NBA MVP since 2000 when Shaquille O’Neal won his only honor at 52.4%. Regardless, with his efficiency at an all-time high and the Bucks with the best record in the NBA, Antetokoumpo is worth consideration even at his low odds. 

Player: LeBron James
Team:  Los Angeles Lakers
Odds:  +700
Stats: 25.0 points, 7.8 rebounds, 10.8 assists, 1.3 steals, 25.3 PER

Summary: James is once again putting forth an incredible individual performance, even at the advanced NBA age of 34. Despite being nine years older than Antetokounmpo, he is logging more minutes (34.9) per game and has played three more games (51). The Lakers 41-12 record is first in the Western Conference, and already represents the second-most seasonal wins for the franchise in a season since the 2010-2011 year. He always makes his teams better, which has served as the foundation for James’ four MVP awards over a five-year period from 2009-2013. 

Value:  The incredible improvement of the Lakers’ franchise is the crux of the James for MVP argument. His 3P (34.5%) and free-throw (68.7%) are better than Antetokounmpo, but so is his second-best teammate, Anthony Davis. To that point, Davis is actually averaging more points per game (26.6) and rebounds (9.2) than James, which will always weaken the “value” argument for the MVP. Is James deserving? Absolutely. But will the voters bestow upon him a fifth career award when he has a potential Hall of Famer as a teammate? His +700 odds are certainly tempting, but there are better values on the board. Without an injury to Antetokounmpo, its hard to build an argument that James is more worthy than the Bucks superstar. 

Player: Luka Doncic
Team:  Dallas Mavericks
Odds:  +700
Stats: 28.9 points, 9.5 rebounds, 8.7 assists, 1.0 steals, 29.2 PER

Summary: The candidacy of Doncic is based primarily on the historical precedence set by Russell Westbrook. He is close to averaging a triple-double with numbers similar to Westbrook’s MVP season in 2016-2017.  He was last year’s runaway pick for Rookie of the Year (receiving 98 of 101 votes) and is trying to become the first player to win a subsequent MVP since Bob Pettit in 1954-1955 & 1955-1956.  Doncic has improved his per-game averages in points, rebounds, assists, field goal percentage, and free throw percentage from last season. 

Value:  Since the 1975-76 season, only two players have been named MVP in a season where their team won less than 50 games. Westbrook accomplished the feat in 2016-17, but it is certainly a rarity for a player from a mediocre team. With 33 wins on the season, the Mavericks are on pace for 49.2 wins and currently sit in seventh place in the Western Conference playoff race. If Dallas were to reach 55-plus wins, Doncic would have a legitimate argument as a sleeper candidate. Teammate Kristaps Porzingis (18.4 ppg, 9.1 rpg) has played well in a supporting role, but Doncic is clearly one of the most valuable players in the NBA to his team. He has also missed time with an ankle injury and has played in only 44 of the Mavericks 55 games. If he and Porzingis can both stay healthy during the second half of the season and the Mavericks push past 55 wins, the 20-year-old Slovenian-born superstar could make a late push towards a historical accomplishment. 

Player: James Harden
Team:  Houston Rockets
Odds:  +1100
Stats: 35.3 points, 6.5 rebounds, 7.3 assists, 1.1 steals, 1.1 blocks, 29.0 PER

Summary: Harden raised his scoring average for each of the past six seasons and is currently hovering slightly under last year’s career-high of 36.1 ppg. His incredible numbers have remained relatively constant with only a slight decrease in FG%, 3P%, and free-throw shooting from last season. Harden is also averaging 37.1 minutes per game, his highest average since the 2015-2016 season. His 35.8% 3P is the best of any of these five contenders. Harden is averaging more minutes, points, rebounds, and blocks per game than during his amazing 2017-2018 MVP campaign.  

Value:  I struggle to find value in a Harden bet. First, his team is on pace for only 51.7 wins and a fifth-place finish in the Western Conference, meaning the Rockets are not even among the top four teams in their own conference. As a comparison, in his magical 2017-2018 year, Houston finished first in the West with the best overall record in the NBA at 65-17. Also, Harden was clearly the dominant player on his own team, with Chris Paul (18.6 ppg, 7.9 apg) an All-Star level support player. This season, he is playing alongside another former MVP in Russell Westbrook, who is averaging 27.2 ppg with more rebounds (8.0) and the equivalent amount of assists (7.2) as Harden himself. While his scoring has increased, it is fair to question Harden’s value with the presence of Westbrook and a much less successful team. While the candidacy of each player should remain mutually exclusive to prior seasons, with several other worthy candidates in the mix it is likely voters could be influenced by those external factors. Harden is well below Antetokounmpo, James, and even Doncic in terms of MVP odds value. 

Player: Jimmy Butler
Team:  Miami Heat
Odds:  +10000
Stats: 20.6 points, 6.8 rebounds, 6.1 assists, 1.8 steals, 24.1 PER

Summary: The best long shot on the board is Jimmy Butler of the Miami Heat. The mercurial 30-year-old NBA veteran has put forth his finest all-around NBA season, leading a relatively unknown bunch of players to the fourth-best record in the Eastern Conference at 35-19. Butler leads his team in per-game averages for minutes, points, assists, steals and is second to Bam Adebayo in rebounds. In terms of value to his team, a strong argument can be made that he is second on this list to only Antetokoumpo. Miami is the surprise team of the NBA, and Butler is clearly the main reason. 

Value: With the acquisition of Jae Crowder, Miami is poised to make a run at the second or third seed in the conference. While his numbers aren’t as elite as the other contenders, his value is immense to the Heat. Butler will need to increase his scoring and providing more late-game heroics certainly wouldn’t hurt, but he is an injury away to one of the top contenders from being a legitimate sleeper candidate for NBA MVP. Lower scoring averages have not been obstacles in past MVP voting with Stephen Curry (23.8 ppg), Steve Nash (18.8 ppg, 15.8 ppg), and Karl Malone (23.8 ppg) all grabbing the award near Butler’s current production. His profile is based on “mini” triple-double averages combined with surprising team success.  If you are looking for a long-shot bet, Butler at +10000 is the best choice. 

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Mike Randle is a featured writer at BettingPros. For more from Mike, check out his archive and follow him @randlerant.