NBA Most Improved Player odds preview: Why Jalen Williams is value pick, plus other longshots to consider

Every year, I write a preview for the impending Most Improved Player race, and every year, I remind you that the award’s name is a lie. This award does not go to the player who improves the most. It goes to the player who improves in a specific way. This is the first-time All-Star award. The only active player to win Most Improved Player outside of his All-Star debut was C.J. McCollum. Four of the six Western Conference guards chosen that season were MVP winners: Stephen Curry, Kobe Bryant, James Harden and Russell Westbrook. The fifth was an MVP runner-up in Chris Paul. The sixth, Klay Thompson, was on a 73-win team. If McCollum had been in the Eastern Conference we’d likely have a clean sweep.

Sure enough, last season’s race boiled down to a first-time All-Star (Tyrese Maxey) and a non-All-Star (Coby White). Maxey eeked out the vote by 14 points despite entering the 2023-24 season as a 20-point scorer a year earlier. White more than doubled his scoring total. It didn’t matter. One was an All-Star and the other was not. Gone are the days when Bobby Simmons and Aaron Brooks earned trophies. This is a star award now.

And we’re looking for a certain kind of star. No second-year player has won since Monta Ellis in 2007, but third-year players have won six of the past 14 awards, while fourth-year players have taken home four of the remaining eight. Of the past 17 winners, 16 have been first-round picks. We’re looking for former high draft picks in the second half of their rookie deal. Nine of the past 12 winners have been on playoff teams, so we want a winner, and while it isn’t necessary, four of the last eight winners have been in either their first or second season with a new team. The easiest way for improvement to come across statistically is usually for a player to find himself in a better situation.

It may not be just to box out no-name second-round picks who become valuable role players, but this award just isn’t for them anymore. The voters have spoken. They’re giving this award to first-time All-Stars. So let’s attempt to figure out who those players could be and what sort of value they offer in the betting market for this award.

The favorites

The following players have odds no longer than +1000

This is the second award we’ve covered in which Victor Wembanyama is literally alone in the favorites tier. He’s available at +850 or shorter. Everyone else has four-figure odds on the board. As I covered, I absolutely would not make a preseason bet on Wembanyama to win Defensive Player of the Year. But Most Improved Player? Well… that’s another story.

Wembanyama is by far the likeliest first-time All-Star this season. He’s practically a lock if he stays healthy and plays at the level he did after the All-Star break a season ago, and he’s likely to be far better in his second season. If you assume that there are, say, five first-time All-Stars in any given season, you are locking up 20% of the pool of possible winners for a price that implies a 10.53% chance of winning. That’s just good value. I don’t think Wembanyama is going to win the award. He’s a second-year player on a team unlikely to reach the playoffs, and even if he didn’t make the All-Star Team, he’s starting from such a high point at the end of last season that I suspect he’s already too good to win this thing. 

But I’d want the peace of mind that would come with owning a Wembanyama ticket. I suspect there will be three or four real candidates in the middle of the season. Even if Wembanyama isn’t at the top of the list, you’re buying injury insurance or “Wembanyama exceeds even our wildest expectations” insurance at a reasonable price.

The middle of the pack

The following players have odds between +1000 and +2500

Something to keep in mind at this point on the list is that odds tend to vary wildly between books for this award. This is an award where you really need to shop for the best price. In this tier, for example, Scottie Barnes is between +1500 and +1600 at three major books… but at +2900 at another and +3000 at his longest odds. This isn’t an award like MVP or Defensive Player of the Year, in which you generally know the five or six strong candidates before the season. It’s inherently based on surprises, which means different books are likely taking different amounts of money on different candidates, and the odds reflect that.

With that said, I’m not fond of anyone with odds shorter than +2000. Josh Giddey (+1700) is an extremely common MIP pick right now based on the logic that Chicago traded for him to put the ball in his hands, but how much will they really be able to do that? Coby White and Zach LaVine are still in place. Nikola Vucevic only provides value on offense. Even Ayo Dosunmu and Matas Buzelis need touches. Giddey, frankly, isn’t good enough to pass the first-time All-Star test. 

Evan Mobley (+1200) is… just not on his current roster. If Jarrett Allen gets traded in the 2025 offseason, I will be all over Mobley’s 2026 odds. Until then, he’s a center stuck playing power forward. He’d basically need to start making 3-pointers to win this award. I’m not betting on that. Jonathan Kuminga (+1400) is going to shake off the perception that last year was his Most Improved Player campaign and take another significant leap on top of what he’s already done. With Andrew Wiggins hopefully returning to form and the Warriors going out of their way to pump up Brandin Podziemski as their next big thing, I just don’t think the volume will be there unless he takes a big step forward as a jump shooter. I don’t see that.

So who do I like in this range? Jalen Williams (+2200) is the clear “first-time All-Star” candidate in this group. He made a real push at a selection last season, and between Christmas and the end of March, he averaged a shade below 21 points per game on absurd 56-46-77 shooting splits. He’s a very good defender on what will probably be the NBA’s best defense, and he will be the secondary shot-creator on a very good offense. If you expect the Thunder to be the No. 1 seed in the West, they are going to have multiple All-Stars. I’d probably advise taking both, though Chet Holmgren’s status as a player functionally in his second season scares me a bit.

Jalen Johnson (+2200) is similar to Kuminga in that he made his run last season. Some voters have said publicly he would have been their choice had he been eligible, but he didn’t play enough games. He’s probably not making a double-digit scoring leap again this season, but there’s so much room for a volume jump in Atlanta that he’s still a viable play. Dejounte Murray is gone. Someone has to take those extra shots, and Trae Young is going to make his life easier on offense. In that sense, he’s a similar candidate to Miles Bridges in 2022: maybe not All-Star-caliber, but an athletic forward taking a leap next to a strong playmaker on young team.

No thank you on Podziemski (+2500). Maybe he’ll eventually be the star the Warriors want him to be. He’s still playing in an offense with many more mouths to feed. Draymond Green controls it and Stephen Curry defines it. Warriors players don’t exactly fight over touches as players on other teams do. It’s a much more egalitarian system. But with Kuminga, Wiggins, Buddy Hield, Kyle Anderson, Trayce Jackson-Davis and De’Anthony Melton involved, the volume just isn’t here.

Immanuel Quickley’s (+2500) per-minute and efficiency stats all declined when he went from being a sixth man in New York to a primary ball-handler in Toronto. That’s obviously a big adjustment and I’d expect him to improve this season, but as we’ll soon cover, there’s a Raptor I like much more here.

The long shots

The following players have odds longer than +2500

RJ Barrett (+4000) is my Raptor of choice. He actually did improve a great deal in Toronto last season, making just about every shot he took except for his free throws. Nobody noticed because the Raptors were tanking, but Barrett put up “sniffing the All-Star conversation” numbers as a Raptor: 21.8 points, 6.4 rebounds, 4.1 assists on 55-39-63 shooting. If he maintains the shooting and hits his free throws in a higher-volume role, he’s going to be in this conversation.

Remember those odds disparities I mentioned earlier? You can get Jalen Suggs at +10000 at BetRivers at the moment when no other book is offering better than +5000. This one basically comes down to your draft evaluation. Did you think Suggs was going to be a primary ball-handler coming out of Gonzaga? He hasn’t been thus far, but his 3-pointer improved massively last season and the Magic haven’t added any high-usage guards. He’ll have every chance to prove he’s still capable of being a traditional point guard, and if he comes reasonably close, his stellar defense gets him into the All-Star conversation. At this point I think his future is likelier to fall into the 3-and-D camp, but at +10000, I’ll gladly take the swing on him looking more like his Gonzaga self and continuing to grow on a very young roster.

Alperen Sengun, like Kuminga and Johnson, took his run at this award last season. The difference? He’s available at +10000 at multiple books. Their odds aren’t close to that. Sengun was a genuine All-Star candidate last season. If he’s slightly better this year on a potentially improved Rockets team, he falls into the first-time All-Star camp. From that perspective, this is the more profitable version of the Wembanyama play. You’re slicing off a percentage of the first-time All-Star candidate pool at a minuscule price.

So who are our other first-time All-Star candidates? Cade Cunningham (+3000), Coby White (+6000) and Cam Thomas (+4000) are possible statistical candidates, but their teams probably aren’t going to be good enough. We covered Holmgren (+6000) already, but I prefer Williams among the Thunder candidates. So much of Holmgren’s value is going to come on a defense that has several other All-Defense candidates. I want the standout offensive player in Oklahoma City, though I don’t mind pairing their odds together to cover my Oklahoma City bases. Jalen Green (+4000) looked like an All-Star down the stretch last season, but that was with Sengun out. With Sengun back and so many other guards needing minutes and touches in Houston, I’m staying away from Green.

I’m intrigued by Michael Porter Jr. (+5000). He’s talked openly about increasing his scoring volume this season. Jamal Murray has obviously dealt with injuries since the postseason, and he’s never a quick starter. There was a push to make Aaron Gordon Nikola Jokic’s first All-Star teammate last season. If Porter increases his scoring and is the only reliable 3-point shooter on a team that badly needs it, there could be an almost ironic push to get Porter to San Francisco. “We all thought Murray was Jokic’s All-Star teammate, but what if it was meant to be Porter all along?” I wouldn’t take these odds if they were any shorter, by I see a first-time All-Star path, so I like it at 50-to-1.

The last player that really has my attention is Devin Vassell (+10000). He’s fighting an uphill battle because usually only contenders get two All-Stars. If the Spurs get one, we know it won’t be Vassell. San Antonio would probably need to be a top-six team in the Western Conference in January for Vassell to make the All-Star Team, but he’s the second-best player on an ascending team whose first-best player might already be too good for this award. Desmond Bane was in the running when Ja Morant won. This would be a similar situation. At 100-to-1 I’m comfortable thinking of this as a Wembanyama hedge more than anything else.