The NBA regular season is right around the corner, and now is the best time to get in on our futures picks. We’ll start with the MVP award; as the most coveted individual award, the competition is fierce, and tons of superstars are vying for the crown. Let’s look at the favorites, make a prediction, and dig into some best bets for the 2027 NBA MVP.
NBA MVP Favorites
Here’s a look at the top players in MVP odds on the DraftKings Sportsbook:
There’s been a bit of reshuffling at the top. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, coming off two straight MVP awards, drops to second. Nikola Jokic, who has six straight top-two MVP finishes, has fallen to fourth. Luka Doncic, seeking his first MVP win, rises to third place. And it’s Victor Wembanyama, the rising Spurs superstar, who takes the top spot. The reigning DPOY finished third in the race last season, but got the last laugh over Shai and Jokic by winning the West. If healthy enough to play 65 games, Wemby is a great bet to take home more hardware.
Now that we know the field, who is the safest bet to capture the MVP award?
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (+380)
You get in the conversation for MVP with elite production, but you win it with narrative. SGA has a whole lot of narrative on his side this year.
In every way, the Thunder and Spurs are joined at the hip this season. They’re far and away the two best teams in the Western Conference, fresh off a seven-game Conference Finals series, and they have the league’s two leading MVP candidates. Not only will it be a race to finish with the top seed in the West, it’ll be a personal race between SGA and Wemby for the top award.
I’m backing SGA to beat the voter fatigue for two reasons. First and foremost, the offseasons these two teams had; Oklahoma City was forced to trade a few rotation players due to cap constraints, while San Antonio managed to add Tobias Harris. With OKC stagnating somewhat from a roster-churn perspective, the Spurs have become the West’s favorite. And even if it’s not a surprise, capturing the No. 1 seed is a big feather in the cap for any MVP candidate.
But that’s where we come to the second point. If the Thunder win the top seed, voter fatigue for SGA will decrease. Their offseason losses will be negated, as will San Antonio’s gains. Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren are elite players, but they’re viewed as decidedly secondary to Shai and have their own injury concerns. A 60+ win Thunder season and the top overall seed will be a hard case to argue against.
Tyrese Haliburton (+15000)
Walk with me.
It’s been more than a year since we saw Tyrese Haliburton on an NBA court in a regular-season game. His Indiana Pacers were trying to go to Oklahoma City for Game 7 and steal the NBA Finals out from under the favorites. After a hot start, Haliburton collapsed with a torn Achilles, not to be seen on the court for a full season.
Much has changed for the Pacers and for the league since Hali went down. Without Tyrese, the Pacers whiffed on making the playoffs, while the Knicks took over the East and won the championship. And it seems in only a year, the Indiana Pacers have been completely forgotten.
Here’s the weird thing: Indiana’s team is better now than it was two years ago. Myles Turner worked for this team, but head coach Rick Carlisle had to squeeze every ounce of production out of him. Now Ivica Zubac has replaced him, a true roll man partner for Haliburton, and an improvement on the defensive end of the floor. All of their core secondary players—Pascal Siakam, Andrew Nembhard, Aaron Nesmith, Obi Toppin, and TJ McConnell—remain on the roster.
And we’ve seemingly forgotten the leaps Hali made before his injury. In his first 33 games of the 2023/24 season, Hali averaged 23.6 points and 12.5 assists, shooting 50/40/87 with just 2.5 turnovers per game. Those numbers would make prime Steve Nash jealous. A hamstring injury hobbled him for the remainder of the season, and forced him to miss playoff games, but the Pacers still pushed to the Conference Finals. Persistent lower-body injuries hampered him during the 2024/25 season, and yet he still drove his team to within one game of a championship.
What happens if Tyrese Haliburton is healthy for the entirety of 2026/27?
It’s a long, long shot, but all the pieces are there for the Pacers to win a ton of games. The narrative is already built: the comeback from the injury, the lost 2025/26 season, and the Indiana underdog vibes. If Hali averages 20/10 on strong efficiency and the Pacers win a top-three seed, he’s firmly in the mix; given the stringency of the 65-game rule, the award has an extra flavor of randomness, which works in his favor.
