We’re still months away from the start of the 2024-25 NBA season, but it’s never too early to start looking at the futures market. You can typically find some pretty good value in the various award categories before the start of the season because heavy favorites have yet to emerge. However, that’s not the case in the Defensive Player of the Year market.
Spurs center Victor Wembanyama is the heavy favorite to win the DPOY award, sitting at a whopping -250 at BetMGM. That gives him an implied probability of 71.43% to win the award. There is then a massive jump to Bam Adebayo owns the second shortest odds at +1200. Rudy Gobert is the reigning DPOY, becoming just one of four players in NBA history to earn the award on four different occasions. His odds for the upcoming season sit at +1300, which gives you an idea of just how dominant the books expect Wembanyama to be on that side of the floor this year.
Gobert finished 2023-24 averaging 12.9 rebounds, 2.1 blocks and 0.7 steals, which topped Wembanyama’s full-season average of 10.6 boards per game. However, over the last two months of his rookie season, Wembanyama's defensive impact surged, averaging 4.2 blocks, 1.4 steals, and 11.4 rebounds.
He also led the league in blocks with 3.6 per game, significantly ahead of Walker Kessler and Brook Lopez who tied as the next closest players with 2.4 blocks per game.
Expecting those numbers from a rookie is almost unfathomable, but if Wembanyama had recorded numbers throughout the entire season, one could easily argue that he would have won the award.
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Given how he finished last season, and with the expectations that he’ll take another massive step forward in his sophomore season, it's no surprise that he’s considered the frontrunner for this year's Defensive Player of the Year.
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