MVPreview and Manalytics Update
A new contender appears, and we continue to write off many of Vegas' favorites as serious NBA finals teams.
As we approach the Christmas break, we have enough inventory to start taking stock of the NBA. And, because we believe in star power, that means taking stock of the NBA MVP race. Is it too early to be crowning an MVP? Probably. But is it too early to start to guess where certain stars might finish? Not at all.
In fact, we can already feel pretty confident about the MVP field. While there can always be injuries that take players out of the race, this year looks to be a five-man race. These five can be broken down into two groups: the favorites and the longshots.
Favorites and Longshots for MVP
For the favorites, we have the perennial Jokic, who is reigning as the best player in the league going on his fourth consecutive year, and we have Embiid, who won the MVP last year and has returned in excellent form.
For the longshots, we have SGA, Luka Doncic, and Jayson Tatum. Each of these three would need their team to be spectacular down the stretch in order to claim the MVP title. If the Celtics win 65 games, or the Thunder or Mavericks develop a commanding lead of the Western Conference, it is plausible that each team’s star would start to garner more MVP attention.
Vegas believes that in the majority of scenarios (51%), either Jokic or Embiid is bringing home the MVP hardware. And that our “longshots” account for another 31%, leaving a 1-in-5 chance any player besides those three is crowned MVP.
I’m more bullish on the in-group than the longshots in this case, because the tail is made up of players who have big names—but are not having big seasons: Giannis Antetokounmpo, Damian Lilliard, Anthony Davis, Kevin Durant, LeBron James, Stephen Curry all soak up a few percentage points from Vegas. But there’s lots of evidence pointing to these players being good but not great at this point in their careers.
Antetokounmpo and Lilliard would be the exception to the rule above. They could be seen falling into the same category as Doncic, Tatum, and SGA. It is plausible that Minnesota pulls off a big mid-season run and wind up with a commanding division lead and a very pretty stat block for each of their stars. But even if that happens 10% of the time, you still need a favorite or two ahead of them to collapse—and there are enough of those at this point, including Jokic—that I’d put the likelihood at 2.5% or less.
Manalytics Implications
So, what does this mean for the playoffs. After all, the reason we care about the MVP race is because the MVP race is connected to hoisting the championship trophy at the end of the season.
Heading into the season there were six teams with a Manalytics Score sufficient to be considered reasonable playoff contenders:
Milwaukee
Denver
Philly
Dallas
Golden State
Boston
Golden State, I think it is safe to say, can be crossed off this list. Golden State. Whether Steph is no longer good enough to be a number one option on a championship team, or the team around him has just deteriorated so much I cannot say—but this is not their year.
Milwaukee, Denver, and Philly can all be considered in. Denver and Philly’s stars are the favorites this year for the MVP award, so we know they have the star power and top end talent. On top of that, they are both winning teams who will be high seeds heading into the summer.
Dallas and Boston are more risky. Dallas has a new lineup that has invigorated Luka Doncic—maybe the best scorer in the game. Doncic has to be a slim favorite at this point to take home the scoring crown. We are projecting him with a top 5 MVP-voting finish, so come the end of the season, Dallas will be over the Manalytics Score threshold suggestive that they could win an NBA title.
Our projections have Dallas between 15 and 17 Manalytics score heading into next season—which is similar to the ‘22 Warriors, ‘20 Lakers, an ‘19 Raptors.
Boston has been missing a truly game-dominating player on its roster. And it is not clear if Tatum has the room on this star studded team to demonstrate if he has become that or not. His 30% usage rate is the lowest of the likely MVPs, meaning the ball is out of his hands more. In past seasons, his usage rate was 2 points higher—suggesting Tatum can pick up more of the load than he’s handling right now.
With our projections, Tatum will add between 5 and 8 points to Boston’s Manalytics score this year. That would put the Celtics between 17 and 20 going into next season. That is the right range for your “average” finals winner. So as far as we are concerned, Tatum has Boston in the mix.
And then there’s the newcomer: Oklahoma City. Oklahoma City had a Manalytics score of only 6 coming into the season, but with SGA projected to finish the season between 2nd and 4th in voting, we might see Oklahoma City’s Manalytics score as high as 15 heading into next year. At 15, as noted with Dallas, it would not be surprising to see them win the title. The 2014 Spurs, 2008 Celtics, and 2000 Lakers all won titles with Manalytics scores below 15.
Put Oklahoma City on your watch list.
Tell me the odds: Betting NBA futures
Because Vegas likes so many teams that we do not believe have enough star power to win (e.g., Phoenix, the Lakers, Golden State) — all of the teams we do like are good bets.
Denver, Milwaukee, and Boston each getting a 1-in-5 chance of winning the playoff feels about right. Philly seems very undervalued, considering they are playing great and they have the reigning MVP who is again an MVP contender. Shipping James Harden off seems to have addressed many of the concerns about their supporting cast.
And of course, there is good value on Dallas and OKC. We don’t have to like these teams too much to like them more than Vegas.
If we like teams with Manalytics scores above 10 to win the title 9 years in 10—historically it has been a smidge higher—and then we like the favorites (Boston, Denver, Milwaukee, Philly) to win 90% of those titles, then we would still like Dallas and Oklahoma City to win about 4.5% of the time each. Right now, Vegas has Dallas at 3.5% and Oklahoma City longer than that.
The best news here is that you can bet all of these teams and come out ahead, with a clever mix of bets.
You might also consider matchup-based bets for Oklahoma City. Because their path to the title likely goes through weaker Eastern Conference teams (e.g., Magic, Heat), if you can find those matchups, they may be good for a long odds bet. Right now OKC over Miami is +25,000.