The Long Shots: 2024-25 Edition

Picking the long-odds award winners for the upcoming NBA season

Last year, I did a little experiment. Despite purposely distancing myself from gambling in every other space of sport, I decided to take a look at the players who had the best chance to win the 2023-24 season’s NBA awards, but with a crucial catch: No players inside the top 5 of FanDuel odds.

Of course, that made predictions quite a bit more difficult. Choosing anyone but Wemby made the ROTY race moot (I chose Ausar Thompson — okay, but a miss), Tyrese Maxey took home Most Improved after being 2nd on FanDuel (my pick was Franz Wagner), and my Kelly Oubre 6MOY campaign was derailed by him getting hit by a car. Fun times.

However, my general rule was that if a player jumped into the top 5 in their respective award at the end of the year, it was a success. So my picks for Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (MVP, 2nd to Jokic) and Tyrese Haliburton (In-Season Tournament MVP, beat out by LeBron) felt pretty darn good. This time around, we’ve got more unpredictability across the board, which means we might just be a bit better this year, maybe.

For Part 1, we’re taking a look at Sixth Man of The Year, Most Improved Player, and Rookie of The Year, with Part 2 to come later this week. Let’s dive into it!