While Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James may not ever catch Michael Jordan's six NBA championships, James could tie Jordan's five regular-season MVP Awards this summer as LeBron is the clear-cut +120 MVP favorite on the William Hill Sportsbook moneyline odds. James is also taking by far the most betting action of any player.
LeBron opened the season at +700 to win MVP; most NBA "experts" expected the Lakers to heavily limit James' minutes this season and give him a handful of games off considering that LeBron is 36 years old and the Lakers barely had two months off between the end of the 2020 NBA Finals in the Orlando bubble and the start of the 2020-21 regular season on Dec. 23.
The Lakers have been good about LeBron's minutes as he's averaging 34.7 per night, second-fewest of his career (34.6 last year), yet he hasn't missed a game. The King is averaging 25.5 points, 7.9 rebounds and 7.9 assists for the NBA reigning champions and current +240 title favorites.
On Wednesday, LeBron hit the game-tying three-pointer with 19.6 seconds remaining to send the Lakers to overtime against the visiting Thunder. It was LeBron's 33rd game-tying or go-ahead field goal made in the final 20 seconds in his career. That's tied with Dirk Nowitzki for the fourth-most over the last 25 seasons. L.A. won its sixth game in a row and hosts Memphis on Friday.
A total of 18 percent of all tickets sold on the NBA MVP prop at William Hill is on James and a whopping 35 percent of all money wagered. Brooklyn's Kevin Durant (+900 to win) is second on tickets sold at 14 percent, while Philadelphia's Joel Embiid (+500) is second on money wagered at 12 percent.
A Nevada bettor placed $5,000 on Embiid when he was at +600 for a total potential payout of $30,000, which is the largest 2020-21 NBA MVP taken so far at the book. Another bettor put down $1,000 on Miami's Jimmy Butler at +15000 for a potential payout of $150,000, but Butler has no shot of winning.
Dallas' Luka Doncic opened the season as the +400 favorite with two-time reigning MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo of the Bucks next at +500. Giannis is now +1100 and isn't among the top-five in tickets sold or money wagered. Doncic is +800 and has taken the fifth-most action in terms of money wagered at seven percent.
Denver's Nikola Jokic is the +400 second favorite and ranks third in total number of tickets and total dollars wagered at 10 percent in both – he's the only player in double digits on both lists other than James.
The SportsLine Projection Model simulates every NBA game 10,000 times, and it returned over $5,000 in profit on its top-rated NBA picks last season. The model is also up more than $8,300 on top-rated NBA picks over the past two-plus seasons. Dating back to last season, it enters Week 8 of the 2020-21 NBA schedule on a stunning 79-46 roll on top-rated NBA picks against the spread. Anybody who has followed it has seen HUGE returns.
