San Antonio Spurs superstar Victor Wembanyama received some really bad news on Thursday, indicating that he is dealing with deep vein thrombosis in his right shoulder, which is a condition that involves a blood clot. Obviously, that is terrible news for the young budding big man, and it is going to keep him out of the lineup for at least the remainder of the regular-season. Hopefully he can make a full recovery as quickly as possible.
Meanwhile, this has had a massive impact on betting markets, including Defensive Player of the Year. Wemby was the huge favorite to win that honor, reaching a whopping -3500 before his injury. Unfortunately, with only 49 games played, he is disqualified now to win it. That means that someone else is now going to take it home, but who could that be?
Femi Abebefe, who hosts “You Better You Bet” on the BetMGM Network with Nick Kostos, talked about this market and how he thinks it changes with Wemby out of the race.
“This was supposed to be Victor Wembanyama’s award, the betting market told you that he was going to win this award, it was his. Now that you remove that guy, I think it gives the voters a little bit of room for imagination about what they want to do with it,” said Abebefe. “This is not an award that you typically think about until late March and early April, when voters are filling out their ballots with MVP, All-NBA and those awards. DPOY is a prominent award, but it’s not like MVP that is in constant conversation.”
He also talked about why the current favorite, Jaren Jackson Jr., might be a fade for the award going forward.
“Writing down JJJ for DPOY isn’t very inspiring. We have to remember this is an awards market, and we are dealing with human beings. These voters might say ‘if it is close, well, it is this guy's time’. We just saw this with the NFL MVP, where a lot of people thought Lamar Jackson was the best player in the league, he was first-team all-pro quarterback, but when it came time to name an MVP, it was ‘Oh it’s Josh Allen’s time, he deserves one, we’re going to vote for Josh Allen.’ I don’t think it’s JJJ’s time, which was a couple of years ago, when he already won the award.”
Abebefe discussed his process on how he goes about handicapping the DPOY award, and how that led him to his best bet.
“Talking about inspired stories, look at the Oklahoma City Thunder. The best way to handicap this award is taking a look at it from a team perspective before narrowing down the guy you want to go to war with. The OKC Thunder, by every single defensive metric, are the No. 1 defense in the NBA by margin. This is a special defense, potentially historic, because this is a juggernaut type of season by OKC. The guy I am looking at that is a bit further down the board, but not too far, is Lou Dort, AKA the Dorture Chamber.”
He then got into who he is betting to win the 2025 NBA DPOY award, Oklahoma City Thunder guard Luguentz Dort, and why he thinks there is value on him at 14/1 at BetMGM.
“Dort is pretty widely acknowledged as the best defensive player on the OKC Thunder. Typically you give it to a guy that has been All-NBA first team defense that has a big reputation. Lou Dort has never been that, he kinda flies under the radar a bit. However, if you talk to all of these first team and second team All-NBA guys, and they have all been on record saying it, Luka Doncic has said it and plenty of others, you ask them who is the best perimeter defender in the league and the guy they struggle with the most? It’s Lou Dort, and people realize that. He has a big reputation without having all of the awards on his resume. So Lou Dort, to me at 14/1, is a bet to win the NBA Defensive Player of the Year award.”
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