If placing a bet on the NBA Champion (check out Isaiah’s update on NBA championship odds), it could be also worth it to make a small wager on Finals MVP. Generally, the best player on a given team takes home Finals MVP, so correlating a championship bet with an MVP bet has potential for a big win. With that in mind, let’s take a look at the NBA Finals MVP odds heading into the Play-In Tournament, and don’t forget to check out OddsShopper’s betting model for picks closer to tipoff of the Play-In Tournament!
NBA Finals MVP Odds: Any Value With Longshots Before Play-In?
First of all, it helps to take a look at recent history to see who has won Finals MVP. Common sense suggests that the best player on a title team is going to win every year, and that has largely been the case: Of the last 20 NBA Finals MVP winners, 12 have been indisputably the team’s No. 1 guy, five have had a strong case (Kevin Durant twice, Paul Pierce, Dwyane Wade 2006, Chauncey Billups), one was an obvious No. 2 (Tony Parker) and only two were role players who stepped up (Andre Iguodala, Kawhi Leonard 2014).
So essentially, with either a No. 1 or a 1A/1B winning 17 of the last 20 MVPs, that is where the value is going to lie with any Finals MVP bets made before the Play-In Tournament.
The top 6 in Finals MVP odds go hand-in-hand with NBA championship odds. The current championship odds order goes Bucks, Celtics, Suns, 76ers, Warriors, Nuggets, with each team’s top player sitting in the same spot for Finals MVP. It is not until No. 7 that the pattern shakes up, as Jaylen Brown and Devin Booker rank comfortably ahead of LeBron James and Ja Morant, whose Lakers and Grizzlies are seventh and eighth, respectively, on the championship odds board.
There is not much value at the very top — Giannis Antetokounmpo, Jayson Tatum and Kevin Durant are comfortably ahead of the field, and the Finals race seems as wide open as it has been in years. They make sense as correlative plays with an NBA champion bet but not much else.
Nikola Jokic at +1200 has a bit more weight since the Nuggets are the No. 1 seed in the West and there is basically no chance of any other Nugget snatching the award from under him. Jamal Murray is +15000 at the moment. Plus, Jokic has made it deep into the playoffs (Western Finals in 2020) and has the best team he has ever had. With the West being such a crapshoot right now and the Suns offering little value as a championship bet at +425, the Nuggets championship paired with Jokic MVP is worth a flier at a +15500 payout when combined.
One other No. 1 play here is Kawhi Leonard at +5000. The Clippers have a rough first-round matchup against Phoenix, and Leonard will have to make do without Paul George for at least part of the series, if not all of it. That said, Leonard has shown the ability to will a team to a championship in the recent past, and the Clippers have a good enough supporting cast to make the series competitive without George. It is a longshot of longshots for a team with little hope of making a deep run, but more than anyone outside of the top group, Leonard has proven he can carry a team that far — though it has been four years now.
Interestingly, James Harden is all the way down at +10000 despite his teammate, Joel Embiid, fourth shortest at +1000. Obviously, Harden’s checkered past in the postseason makes a straight play on him winning Finals MVP tough to justify, but Embiid’s playoff history is inarguably worse. If making a bet on the 76ers to win the title, there is some merit to parlaying that with a Harden MVP run on the off chance he goes off while Embiid falters. Granted, this goes against the above rule to only play No. 1 guys, but Harden — despite being the clear No. 2 — is closer to a 1B than most of the others No. 2’s on the list, so he could fit the Tony Parker mold.
If you want to find more NBA Finals MVP bets, or any other wagers and props, be sure to use OddsShopper tools throughout the NBA playoffs to find the best value on a weekly basis!
