2023-2024 NBA MVP Late-Season Betting Odds - March 16
All odds provided by Sports Interaction.
| Player | NBA MVP Odds |
| Nikola Jokic, DEN | -303 |
| Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, OKC | +400 |
| Luka Doncic, DAL | +850 |
| Giannis Antetokounmpo, MIL | +2,000 |
| Jayson Tatum, BOS | +4,000 |
| Anthony Edwards, MIN | +15,000 |
Nikola Jokic, Denver Nuggets (-303 odds)
The man they call the Joker has already won this award twice, back in 2021 and 2022, and probably should have won again in 2023, though Joel Embiid was a deserving winner in his own right. Jokic looks like he’s well on his way to his third MVP in four years, a feat which Michael Jordan didn’t even accomplish. The elite company Jokic would be joining includes Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell, Larry Bird, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and LeBron James.
If you caught Jokic’s odds prior to the start of February, you would have gotten some decent value, as his odds stayed between +400 and +150 from the start of the season to around All-Star weekend. However, now, at -303, he’s not offering up enough value to chance a bet on those chalky odds, especially with SGA nipping at his heels very capably.
If the Nuggets do end up as the top seed, Jokic has got this in the bag: he’s top 15 in scoring, top five in rebounding and assists, and he’s even averaging about one block and one steal per game. Not to mention he’s second in the NBA in both double-doubles and triple-doubles (behind Domantas Sabonis in both categories, who is having a helluva season in his own right). The only way Jokic’s MVP stranglehold is loosened is if another team can knock the Nuggets off their perch atop the Western Conference.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Oklahoma City Thunder (+400 odds)
The only man who has a realistic shot of overtaking Jokic is OKC’s young leader, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. After enduring a seemingly endless string of seasons as one of the worst teams in the league while Sam Presti attempted to hoard all of the draft picks in the land, the Thunder have finally reached their destination: they’re contenders again.
They’ve been at or around the top of the Western Conference standings for nearly the entire season, sitting half a game behind Denver for the top spot as of this writing. If they can finish ahead of the Nuggets, SGA should be given very serious consideration for the award: they won the season series against Denver 3-1, including wins in the last three meetings. In those four meetings, SGA averaged 26 points, including a 34-point effort in the most recent meeting and a 40-burger in a matchup in late December.
SGA is second in the league in scoring, with 31.1 points per game, which is a mark that would usually indicate a serious MVP candidate. And that’s exactly what SGA is. His volume has been impressive, but so has his efficiency: his 54/38/88 shooting line is unmatched in the NBA this year for a guard that’s shooting as often as him. He’s not sensational, he doesn’t complete insane passes like Jokic or bring the house down with dunks like the Greek Freak, but he’s as consistent as they come.
SGA has scored fewer than 20 points in just three games this season, and he leads the league in 30-point games, with 49 in 65 appearances. Every night, SGA gets to his spots in the mid-range and punishes defenses. There hasn’t been a night since October where the Canadian kid has disappeared in a game.
What OKC’s leader is doing individually is quite literally unprecedented: no player in NBA history has averaged 30 points while shooting at least 54 percent from the field, 35 from three-point range, and 85 from the charity stripe. Not to mention that his story in taking the hapless Thunder to contention for the top seed in just one year should be rewarded. If OKC finishes as the top seed, SGA deserves the award, so his +400 odds are still very much worth consideration, even this late in the season.
Luka Doncic, Dallas Mavericks (+850 odds)
The only other player with odds lower than +1,000 is Luka Doncic, who continues to do things the league has never seen on a seemingly semi-nightly basis. Doncic leads the NBA in scoring, with 34.3 points per game on a 49/38/79 shooting line. If he was able to finish with over 34 points per game this season, he’d become one of just seven players to do so.
The feat has been achieved nine times, however, and only three times did that player go on to win the MVP. Jordan averaged 37 and lost to Magic, James Harden did it twice and lost the MVP to the Greek Freak both times, and Kobe Bryant finished fourth in MVP voting after averaging 35.
Players need to do more than score to win the award, and while Doncic’s 9.0 boards and 9.8 assists are nice too, a player who’s team is in the play-in can’t win the MVP award unless they have a truly historical season, like when Russell Westbrook averaged a triple-double and won the award as an eight seed. Doncic isn’t having a season quite as unique as that, so unless the Mavs somehow finish in the top four, which seems impossible, he’ll have to wait another year.
