The 2024-25 NBA Rookie of the Year race might end up as the most wide-open competition ever
Summer League is over and we still don't have a good idea who the best rookie is.
Welcome to Layup Lines, For the Win’s basketball newsletter. Subscribe here to get it delivered to your inbox every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Have feedback for the Layup Lines Crew? Leave your questions, comments and concerns through this brief reader survey. Now, here’s Prince J. Grimes.
Hi, folks. Welcome back to Layup Lines. With Summer League officially over, I know we’ll all be turning our full attention to the Olympics soon, but before that I want to talk about one strange anomaly I’ve noticed with this year’s rookie class.
I can’t remember a time where my confidence in a Rookie of the Year front-runner has diminished so much through each stage of the summer quite like it has this year.
Before the draft, I was pretty sure Alex Sarr was the best player entering the league and the likely best Rookie of the Year candidate. After Sarr slid to No. 2 in the draft, I still felt good about him but had to at least consider there was maybe a better bet out there. Now, after Summer League, I’m not even sure he’s the best bet on his own team (I see you Bub Carrington!). And I have absolutely no clue who should be considered the favorite.
I know I’m not alone because Bronny James is BetMGM’s most-bet player and biggest liability to win the award. Bronny James!
Oddsmakers still favor Zach Edey, who only needed one Summer League game to overtake Sarr as the favorite. But even that doesn’t feel quite right either.
At +600, Edey’s odds at BetMGM are still relatively long. In fact, they’d be the longest odds of any Rookie of the Year favorite since at least 2006, the first year on record at SportsOddsHistory. Just think about that. Even in 2013 when Anthony Bennett was the No. 1 overall pick, the ROY front-runner had shorter odds than this year’s favorite (Victor Oladipo at +300).
The 2024-25 award is shaping up to be the most wide open competition in that entire span, and probably before that time too. Just look at how little it took for Edey to move up from opening odds of +2500.
Reed Sheppard, who opened at +1100, is now second at +650. Sarr plummeted from +425 to +1000. No. 1 pick Zaccharie Risacher dropped too (+600 to +800). And this is all after just a few Summer League games.
Nine players have odds shorter than 20-1. That doesn’t include Tidjane Salaun, who moved from +1000 to +3500, or Cody Williams, who moved from +1500 to +2000.
If nothing else, the unpredictability means there’s money to be made on this race. But if you know who to bet on, please fill me in. I’d very much like a piece of that pot.
The Caitlin Clark effect is real
Alex Slitz/Getty Images
It’s been fun to watch Caitlin Clark’s growth as a professional the first two-plus months of her WNBA career, blossoming from a player who was trying to catch up to the speed of the game to a playmaking All-Star in what’s basically been the blink of an eye.
However, one thing that was never lacking as she entered the W was the attention that came from her record-breaking college career. Clark helped to bring new eyeballs to the league from the very start, and we’ve already seen that translate in record attendances and record television viewership.
Now, we have another way to measure just how impactful the Caitlin Clark effect has been: betting.
“BetMGM has already taken as many bets for the first half of the 2024 season as we did for all of 2023,” BetMGM senior sports trader Michael Ranftle said. “Between more player prop offerings, the ‘Caitlin Clark Effect’ and the incredible rise in popularity of the WNBA, we’re experiencing historic increases in betting on the WNBA.”
BetMGM has taken three times as many bets in the first half of the WNBA season as it did in the first half of 2023, and two times as many women have bet on the first half of the WNBA. Clark alone has almost five times more player prop bets than any other player in the first half of the season.
Of course, she isn’t the only one responsible for the league’s growth. The W was already trending in a positive direction, and many of her fellow rookies also brought their own fanfare — Angel Reese is second in player prop betting. But Clark is certainly the main catalyst, and with the fourth-best odds to win MVP, her rapidly improving game is only going to continue that trajectory in the second half.
Shootaround
— Kentavious Caldwell-Pope really said the Lakers had Denver’s number in a series the Nuggets won
— Here’s Paul George on constantly reminded the Clippers were Los Angeles’ ‘B Team’
— TNT is matching Amazon’s contract with the NBA, and things might get messy