NBA betting preview: Luka Doncic favored to win MVP, but is he among our best bets?

·Senior writer

13 October 2022 at 11:30 am·3-min read

Oddsmakers might just keep making Dallas Mavericks guard Luka Doncic the NBA MVP favorite until he finally wins one.

Doncic is the MVP favorite for the third straight season. He didn't come through the first two times but that doesn't matter to oddsmakers. Doncic is +400 to win MVP at BetMGM this season. Doncic is just 23 years old and it's a decent bet that he'll win an MVP before he's done.

Here are the top NBA MVP favorites with their odds at BetMGM:

Doncic +400

Joel Embiid +600

Giannis Antetokounmpo +650

Kevin Durant +850

Nikola Jokic +900

Jayson Tatum +1200

Ja Morant +1400

Stephen Curry +1400

LeBron James +2500

Luka Doncic of the Dallas Mavericks is the favorite to win NBA MVP. (Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images)

Here are our best bets for NBA MVP for the 2022-23 season:

GREG BRAINOS: You could make the case that Joel Embiid deserved the award last season. This year, he’ll eliminate all doubt and bury the haters to cash +600 MVP tickets as voters turn their backs on Nikola Jokic like they’re Markieff Morris. I wouldn’t fault anyone who also grabs Giannis Antetokounmpo at +650. Keep your Embiid and Giannis slips under your pillow and sleep soundly knowing that you have MVP bets on the two most dominant players in the NBA.

NICK BROMBERG: The East looks stupidly competitive so I’m going to wager that the MVP comes from that side of the NBA. Giannis Antetokounmpo feels like the smart bet among the players at +900 or lower because the Bucks are the favorites to win it all and he could be extremely motivated after nearly single-handedly beating the Celtics in the playoffs. But 2022-23 could also be another step forward for Jayson Tatum (+1200), especially without Ime Udoka on the sidelines. If Tatum becomes dominant and the Celtics continue the form they found over the second half of last season, he’s an MVP frontrunner.

FRANK SCHWAB: It’s not like voters were dying to give a Denver Nuggets player the MVP award. The past two seasons, Nikola Jokic has given them no choice. He won back-to-back MVPs because he was the obvious pick both times. I get why Jokic is +900, which is the fifth-shortest odds. Voters want to spread the award around and they probably won’t want to put Jokic among the basketball royalty that has won three MVPs in a row: Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain and Larry Bird. But Jokic’s incredible efficiency and all-around dominance might again give them no choice. I also like Ja Morant a little further down the list at +1400 as well. It's tempting to take Giannis Antetokounmpo, as my two teammates said above, but Giannis' regular-season games will keep dwindling. The Bucks want to win another championship and know they don't need the No. 1 seed in the East to do it. They do need Giannis to be fresh for the postseason though.

Jokic doesn't have that luxury on a good but certainly not great Nuggets team. His playing time and usage might go down a bit with Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr. back, but it’s also possible Murray and Porter take some of the pressure off Jokic and he’s even more efficient, though that seems impossible given the bar he has set. The king stay the king.

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