The advantage of betting on awards is that they are comparatively predictable. No, I cannot tell you with perfect accuracy who the 2027 NBA MVP will be... but I can tell you how the prior winners have been selected. Awards voters are humans.
Humans are predictable, even if performance is not. While there will be injuries and unexpected candidates and circumstantial changes we can't yet foresee, we can at least use the history of these awards to land on the type of players who tend to win them, and then work backward from there. So we're going to reverse engineer some best bets for NBA awards season now that opening night is nearly upon us.
These are not, strictly, NBA awards picks. If you could pick one player to win Defensive Player of the Year, for example, you should pick Victor Wembanyama. But if you're trying to find the best return on investment in that category, paying minus money on the hope that Wembanyama plays 65 games seems like a high-risk, low-reward proposition.
The goal here is to find the players that best fit the prior history of these awards in a way that maximizes profit. With all of that in mind, let's begin. The MVP formula points very clearly toward a single candidate this year.
Every MVP since LeBron James in 2012 has checked two boxes: they have been between the ages of 24 and 28, and they were either a First- or Second-Team All-NBA selection in the prior season. That's essentially the criteria: a top-10 player in the previous season peaks at some point in his prime and gets a trophy. Victor Wembanyama is too young (and has the shortest odds... and carries 65-game concerns).
Only three players check both boxes. The first is two-time defending champion Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who's facing the notable challenge of seeking his third consecutive trophy. Nobody has won three straight MVPs since Larry Bird, and that became a major topic when Jokić tried and failed to three-peat in 2023.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
