NBA’s Most Improved Player Odds: The best bets at every level and why the Thompson twins are the favorite

Kudos to Dyson Daniels for breaking one of my least favorite lines in NBA. Last season, he won Most Improved Player honors without making the All-Star team. The last player to do so was Pascal Siakam, and he and CJ McCollum are the only active players to win the award without also making their first All-Star Game that season. With Ivica Zubac taking second, Cade Cunningham was third, the only All-Star to finish in the top five for the first time.

Could Daniels represent a change in how voters view this award? It will take years to be implemented. What we can see now is that we had six first-time all-stars last year as well as three second-time all-stars and three third-time all-stars. In other words, many young players who were blocked by older stars in the past have already broken through. It’s certainly possible that there could be a fresh crop of new players this season, but there are fewer logical candidates for that than usual.

So, without our North Star being a first-time All-Star, what do we look for in a more improved player? Timing is the starting point. Seven of the last 15 awards went to third-year players, and four of the remaining eight went to fourth-year players. No sophomore player has won the award since Monta Ellis in 2007. So, we’re looking for players at the end of their rookie deals, and since 17 of the previous 18 winners were first-round picks, we’re looking primarily at a pool of 60 players: the 2022 and 2023 first rounds. NBA Drafts.

Even within those groups, we can reduce fat even further. Three players were ruled out because they had already made the All-Star teams (Paolo Banchero, Jalen Williams, Victor Wimpanyama), and 10 others for not earning full-time roster spots (Johnny Davis, AJ Griffin, David Roddy, Marjon Beauchamp, Wendell Moore, Patrick Baldwin, Tete Washington, Jalen Hood-Scevenau, Olivier Maxence-Prosper and Nick Smith) and we’re already up to 47th place. Even before considering team conditions and individual performances over two years. The majority of candidates we will seriously consider will come out of this pool of players.

But for now, we’ll keep it open. Below, we’ll break down the most improved player odds into three tiers: favorites (those with odds of +2000 or less), middle of the pack (odds between +2000 and +4000) and long shots (+4000 and beyond) to try to figure out where the best betting value lies in this always controversial market.

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Favorites

There are only four players in this level. For reasons we’ll explain shortly, we’ll hold off on covering one of these reasons. There’s another guy I don’t care for as much: Andrew Nembhard (+1200). There’s another Pacer that offers even more value in the future. The difference between Nembhard’s regular season 3-point shooting (33.5%) and his 3-point shooting in the playoffs (47.3%) has thrown people off his nightly value a bit. Unless you think he’s going to shoot the ball like he does in the playoffs, he’s not going to score enough to realistically factor into this race.

So we’re left with two candidates I like, who happen to be brothers: Amin Thompson is the favorite at +900, while Ozar Thompson isn’t far behind at +2000. Amen’s logic is clear. With Fred VanVleet out, the ball will be in his hands a lot more than it was a year ago, and with Kevin Durant in place and Red Shepard likely getting more minutes, Houston should have more space to work with offensively. This is the formula Thompson uses to get to the basket quite a bit and rack up points and assists, which in turn is the formula for a first-time All-Star selection if the Rockets are as good as we expect them to be. If so, he’s an obvious candidate.

As for Ausar, we’re cheating a little. We saw Amen break out in his sophomore season, but Ausar missed the start of his sophomore campaign due to a blood clot. He worked his way into a starting role midway through the season, but the theory here is that he is set to have a similar run to his brother with his role now confirmed and a full training camp to prepare. He won’t have the ball as much as Amen, but the bar here is lower because he doesn’t start with the same expectations. Osar was impressive last season and should be able to build on that success now.

Middle of the package

We mentioned a top-tier player that we were passing over. That would be Deni Avdija (+1700). We did this because there are two other Blazers that have reasonably short odds that should also be covered, so we’ll group them together. Shaedon Sharpe is at +3000, while Scoot Henderson is at +4000. The theory here is that Portland’s defense will be good enough to at least make the Blazers a top-caliber team. So, if one of these players strikes out, they could compete for a real spot in the playoffs.

Avdija having the shortest odds doesn’t mean much to me. For starters, his breakthrough has already happened. He’s been great down the stretch, and when his shot falls, he’s a very good offensive player. But he is more of a secondary creator than a primary offensive option. Portland’s long-term hopes hinge on Henderson and/or Sharpe making a big jump to a more athletic and superior upside. I think both can be a good bet, but in different ways. If you want to bet on one now, bet on Sharpe. It was reportedly one of the highlights of the training camp. Henderson is recovering from a hamstring injury and will miss the start of the season. You will get much better odds if you wait until his odds drop before he returns. Someone will become the favorite here, and Henderson, without playing, will be a distant player.

As for the rest of this group, I’m immediately ruling out Matas Bozlis (+2000) and Reed Sheppard (+2200) for being second-year players. Both Josh Giddey (+3000) and Payton Pritchard (+3500) are more interesting for reasons beyond their ages. Both will have more possession of the ball than ever this season. Jedi averaged 20 points, 8.5 assists and 9.9 rebounds after the Zach LaVine trade last year. If he does that over the course of the entire season while shooting anywhere near the 45.3% he has from 3-point range in this stretch, he will finish near the top of the ballot. Even if his three-point shooting drops predictably, he can make up for it with more size. The same goes for Pritchard, who is playing without Jayson Tatum, Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzinis ahead of him in the pecking order. Do I expect him to post All-Star caliber stats in a role with unlimited freedom? Maybe not. But the value here isn’t crazy.

Outside of Sharpe and maybe Giddey, my favorite player at this level is Benedict Mathurin (+2500). Mathurin has always been an odd fit in Indiana’s free-flowing system. He wants to have the ball in his hands and act like a traditional goalscorer. We saw how fickle this style was in the playoffs, when he was seemingly either great or invisible with no in-between. Well, now that Tyrese Haliburton is out, Indiana desperately needs someone to step into a scoring role. Mathurin, in a contract role, will eagerly oblige.

The final two players in this range are Michael Porter Jr. and Jonathan Kuminga, both at +4000. I’m out for both. Kuminga could be great when he is inevitably traded, but he won’t get enough minutes before then to realistically factor into this race. The theory for Porter is that, on a regular bad team that had more possession of the ball than he did in Denver, he could emerge as the high-usage scorer he was supposed to be as a prospect. Frankly, nothing that happened in Denver suggests he can handle the ball well enough to consistently score 25 points. This is the bar, and I can’t see it reaching it.

Long shots

We’ll divide the long shots into two groups. The first is a plausible all-star debut. The second is that players are due massive increases in roles after toiling in obscurity.

For the first group, we have four names: Trey Murphy (+5000), Jalen Johnson (+6000), Coby White (+6000), and, I can’t believe I’m saying this, Deandre Ayton (+20000). Let’s get the obvious out of the way: I have no doubt that Ayton is in fact an All-Star. I just play the combo game on incredibly long odds. If the Lakers are great and look like they did in Phoenix, there will be a groundswell of support behind them similar to the one Julius Randle received when he won in 2021. The model here is basically for Ayton to be a model citizen, playing great defense, setting screens, getting to the line more and taking advantage of the great playmaking he will have in Los Angeles. I don’t think he’ll end up competing for this award, but I can’t pass up the opportunity to go 200-to-1.

The other three are more logical. White set All-Star scoring records in the second half of last season. Johnson would have been an All-Star last year if he hadn’t gotten hurt. But Murphy is my favorite player in that group as he can step up if Zion Williamson gets hurt or play well with him if he doesn’t. He was an upside star last season when injuries made him the primary option down the stretch, and he’s a nerd favorite, so if he plays like he did at his best last year, there’s support already.

Then there are the less obvious candidates. Here, we have the Obviously we have two players in the front court here. One is a former No. 8 overall pick who is buried on the depth chart but has looked good in small doses. The other is likable by the minute and has the skill set best suited to replace the bulk of Myles Turner’s role. Either are solid options. Queta, simply thanks to the jump from minor leaguer to potential starter on a top-level team, will get some attention early in the season if he plays well. He’s not the traditional model for Boston’s center as a runner rather than a shooter, but the Celtics still have so much shooting in place that he should be able to take advantage of plenty of easy buckets.

There is an unusual candidate I would like to mention. In our MVP odds preview, I mentioned Alperen Sengun as a 300-to-1 long shot that I liked. For the same reasons, I want his MIP odds to be +10,000. One of Houston’s young players is on the cusp of making a big leap just thanks to the extra touches available without Fred VanVleet. We’ve already covered Amen Thompson. Well, if you’re betting on Thompson, you basically have to protect Sengun as well in case he’s the one to shine in VanVleet’s absence. Sengun was one of the best players at EuroBasket, drawing notable comparisons to Nikola Jokic. It’s not likely that he’ll actually make the All-Star Game, but there’s a world in which he’ll make a pretty big leap into the NBA, and there are voters who tend to reward that kind of leap.