Denver Nuggets superstar big man Nikola Jokic has now won back-to-back MVP awards, but it wasn’t a particularly big surprise.
Jokic was the clear favorite to win the award based on analytics, no matter how much you may dislike those advanced stats. He made massive strides on the defensive end of the floor, and he is who USA TODAY’s experts believed should have won the award.
This wasn’t a surprise because, back in March, ESPN’s Tim Bontemps released a strawpoll predicting as much. Here is his methodology (via ESPN):
“To gauge where the race stands with less than two weeks remaining in the regular season, ESPN asked 100 media members to participate in an informal poll that mimics the postseason awards voting. To make the balloting as realistic as possible, there were at least two voters from each of the league’s 28 markets, as well as a cross section of national and international reporters.”
Golden State’s Stephen Curry was projected to win when the first edition dropped in December, then Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid was the predicted winner when the story was released in February.
According to our partners at Tipico Sportsbook, Embiid (-145) was the favorite over Jokic (+130) on March 22. He maintained those odds on March 29, before the final straw poll was published.
But in the final straw poll, Denver’s Jokic pulled ahead to take the advantage over Embiid. After that article was published, on April 1, Jokic (-200) became the betting favorite over Embiid (+230) to win MVP. That suggests an implied probability shift of Jokic winning the award from 43.5% to 66.7% once the story had been published.
That’s a pretty massive swing, and the story’s release likely played a massive role in why bettors changed their tunes.
The NBA Awards are still several months out, but we are confident that Nikola Jokic will win MVP once again 🃏
Today, we will be paying out all Jokic MVP bettors, and we will be giving all Joel Embiid MVP bettors a free bet! pic.twitter.com/j9IG9YQiiN
— PointsBet Sportsbook (@PointsBetUSA) April 21, 2022
One sportsbook was so convinced that Jokic would win that they paid out the bets early.
This isn’t a massive surprise considering that ESPN surveyed the actual individuals who vote on the award. ESPN’s straw poll predicted Jokic would win the award in 2021. The year prior, in 2020, Antetokounmpo was the predicted winner.
Bontemps had a similar poll when he worked at the Washington Post. Before he was at the Worldwide Leader in Sports, Bontemps’ poll predicted Harden would win MVP in 2018. However, it is worth mentioning that the poll did not yield correct results in 2017.
Considering the predictive success of the survey since then, however, it’s worth following this closely when making your NBA MVP bets next year. Wait until the final edition of the straw poll is released, then simply hammer the player Bontemps predicts.
Gannett may earn revenue from Tipico for audience referrals to betting services. Tipico has no influence over nor are any such revenues in any way dependent on or linked to the newsrooms or news coverage. See Tipico.com for Terms and Conditions. 21+ only. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER (NJ), 1-800-522-4700 (CO), 1-800-BETS-OFF (IA).
