The NBA is back, baby!

As the season comes to an end, it’s a great time for predictions.

One NBA award that has always been a hot topic among friends is the MVP. This year, more than ever, a handful of guys were able to get away with it, which led to contentious preseason discussions in my personal group chats.

Who is the best player in the league right now? Well, the current favorite to win the award at BetMGM is Luka Dončić at +350. Rounding out the top 5 on the betting list are Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (+400) and Nikola JokiC (+475), Giannis Antetokounmpo (+850) and Jayson Tatum (+1000).

The MVP award is given to the best NBA player of the regular season who also appears in at least 65 games. But who is the best player from game to game? Who would you want in a single game when everything is on the line? From a betting perspective, this can be measured by assigning each NBA player a value for actual points spread on a game-by-game basis.

So which players do the bookmakers consider to be the most valuable players in terms of points distribution and therefore the most valuable players from game to game?

To explore this topic further, we turned to experts Jeff Sherman (Vice President of Risk Management at Westgate Superbook) and Thomas Gable (Director of Sports Betting at The Borgata, a BetMGM operation in Atlantic City).

And finally, my fearless predictions for the coming season: https://t.co/nVZLIwie9n

— John Hollinger (@johnhollinger) October 22, 2024

Who are the most valuable players in the NBA based on point distribution and how much are they worth per game?

Sherman: Giannis Antetokounmpo (4.5 points), Nikola JokiC (4.5), Steph Curry (4) and Luka DončiC (4)

Gable: Nikola JokiC (5.5), Giannis Antetokounmpo (4.5 points) and Joel Embiid (4)

“It really starts with the strength of their respective teams and how much you can catch up behind them,” Sherman said of “The Greek Freak” and “The Joker” being rated above the other.

“I still have JokiC as the most valuable asset for the spread,” Gable explained. “In my estimation, he has a spread of essentially 5.5 points per game. Without him on the field, Denver had a net rating of -11.1 last year, so he is vital to Denver’s success as much of the offense runs through him.”

Even though Embiid probably won’t qualify for MVP due to not enough games being played, he is incredibly valuable to his team every night (shocking!). And while Dončić is leading the way as the MVP favorite of the entire season, JokiC and Antetokounmpo are ahead in terms of game-to-game value. Quantifying players’ influence on the spread and the prism through which bookmakers view this topic can be a fun topic of conversation among friends or potentially useful before investing a few dollars in a game.

(Photo: Stacy Revere/Getty Images)