NBA Basketball Betting: NBA Rookie of the Year Futures Update

In the aftermath of Zion Williamson’s injury the NBA futures odds ‘Rookie of the Year’ market at BetOnline.ag experienced a shakeup.  For the first time since odds were posted, the former Duke star and #1 overall pick in the draft by the New Orleans Pelicans is not the favorite to win the ‘ROY’ award.  The new favorite to be named best rookie is Memphis Grizzlies’ pointguard Ja Morant at +200.  The former Murray State first team All American put up a solid line in his pro debut against the Miami Heat on Wednesday night and despite losing the game 120-101 he definitely gave Grizzlies fans cause for optimism.  Morant scored 14 points and added 4 rebounds and four assists in 25 minutes.  Grizzlies head coach Taylor Jenkins is impressed not only with Morant’s obvious athleticism but his court vision and head for the game:

"When you sit down with the guy and you talk about basketball, you talk about what he's seeing on the floor, he's a step ahead. He's already seeing plays before they develop. I think our entire team is going to benefit from his unselfish style of play."

Morant downplayed his individual performance and was more focused on the loss:

"I'm looking forward to tomorrow, practice. That's where we can get better, study film and go out there and fix our mistakes."

His goal for the 2019-2020 NBA season?

"To be the best Ja I can be.”

Williamson remains the second overall choice at +300 despite his preseason injury.  He’s expected to miss several weeks following arthroscopic surgery but looked monstrous in preseason play averaging 23.3 points, 6.5 rebounds, 2.3 assists and 1.5 steals in four games.  Most impressively, his size, strength and athleticism looked just as formidable against NBA level talent as it did during his college competition at Duke.  Look for an in-depth analysis of Williamson’s injury and what it means to the ‘Rookie of the Year’ race in the next few days.

The third overall betting choice at BetOnline.ag at +500 is New York Knicks swingman RJ Barrett who was Williamson’s teammate at Duke.  The Knicks hoped that Barrett would give a boost to their offense and the early returns are definitely encouraging—Barrett scored 21 points in his pro debut though New York lost their opener to the Spurs at San Antonio.  With New York needing all the scoring they can get they’ll be giving the 19 year old 6’6” Barrett a lot of playing time along with the ‘green light’ to shoot.  That combination could give Barrett the opportunity to put up some serious numbers and potentially compete with Williamson for the best per game scoring average among first year players.   

The fourth choice in the ‘Rookie of the Year’ betting market is an intriguing and somewhat under the radar player—Washington Wizards’ forward Rui Hachimura at +700.   Hachimura played 25 minutes of the Wizards’ 108-100 opening game loss to the Dallas Mavericks and put up a ‘double/double’ with 14 points and 10 rebounds.  Hachimura was born in Toyama Prefecture, Japan and played college ball at Gonzaga.  In 2017, he became the first Japanese national to play in the NCAA Division I Basketball tournament.  He’s the second Japanese player to be drafted into the NBA following Yasutaka Okayama who was an eighth round pick of the Golden State Warriors in 1981 (incidentally, Okayama is the answer to another trivia question—at 7’8” he’s the tallest player to be drafted in NBA history).  Hachimura is now the only Japanese player to be selected in the first round of the draft (#9 pick overall). 

The only other player priced at single digits already has some big shoes to fill.  Being a guard out of the University of North Carolina playing for the Chicago Bulls definitely sets the ‘expectation bar’ high and while Coby White might not become the next Michael Jordan he had an excellent NBA debut.  White played 27 minutes off the bench scoring 17 points along with 7 assists and 3 rebounds.  Look for him to pick up even more minutes if he maintains this level of play and he’ll move into the starting lineup sooner rather than later.  He’s a nice value at +900 and will get plenty of chances to produce for a Bulls team that ranked #27 in points per game last season.