NBA Finals MVP Odds, Picks & Best Bets Ahead of Pacers/Thunder Game 7
By Chris Amberley in NBA Basketball
Published:
- Shai Gilgeous-Alexander remains the NBA Finals MVP ahead of Game 7 with -205 odds to win the award
- SGA leads all players in points per game, but hasn’t been a dominant force in the series
- See below for the updated NBA Finals MVP odds, plus my picks and best bets ahead of Pacers/Thunder Game 7
Since the NBA Finals started, the MVP award has been Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s to lose in the minds of online sportsbooks. Prior to Game 7, that hasn’t changed, although there are multiple scenarios where we could see someone else handed the hardware.
SGA’s price to win NBA Finals MVP peaked at -650 prior to Game 3, but it’s steadily declined ever since. Here are the updated NBA Finals MVP odds, plus my picks and best bets.
NBA Finals MVP Odds
As it stands on the eve of Game 7, Gilgeous-Alexander is -205 to win the award in the NBA odds. Pascal Siakam has leapfrogged Tyrese Haliburton in second place at +370, a far cry from his +1100 odds prior to Game 4 when we encouraged everyone to buy stock in the former NBA champion.
Haliburton is next on the oddsboard, but it would take Herculean performance, playing through a calf strain, for him to steal MVP honors.
Odds as of June 21 at DraftKings. Get the DraftKings promo code before signing up, and get a profit boost for Game 7 of the NBA Finals.
NBA Finals MVP Picks and Best Bets
- Pascal Siakam (+370 at DraftKings)
- Jalen Williams (+1100 at DraftKings)
If you’re looking to make a play in this market you should only be targeting players from the team you think will win Game 7. Only once in NBA history has the Finals MVP been awarded to a player on the losing team, and it hasn’t happened since 1969.
Sticking with historical trends, winning Game 7 in the Finals on the road has not been an easy task. It’s happened only four times in NBA history, and only once in the last 50 years (Cleveland Cavaliers, 2016). That explains why OKC is such a heavy favorite in the NBA Championship odds. However, this Pacers team has been defying the odds all playoffs, so it would only be fitting if they pulled off the rare feat.
If backing Indy, Siakam has to be your man. I’m sitting on a +1100 ticket from nine days ago, but I do still think there’s value at his current odds if you believe in this Pacers squad. Siakam is leading the team in the Finals in points and rebounds by a wide margin. He’s third in assists, and second in steals and blocks. Siakam also owns a 2.2 assist-to-turnover ratio, better than SGA and Haliburton.
NBA Finals Scoring Leaders
The 31-year-old has been a jack of all trades, and there’s no one who can realistically match his case on the Pacers. Even before his injury, Haliburton was underwhelming in the series, and now he’s been relegated to a glorified decoy due to his calf strain. If you were going to make a case for anyone else on Indy, I’d argue for Andrew Nembhard, but the little things he’s been doing will go unnoticed by voters.
Nembhard has been instrumental in slowing down Gilgeous-Alexander and making his life miserable both on and off the ball. Unfortunately, that doesn’t show up in the box score.
Speaking of SGA, if the Thunder do hold serve and win the title on Sunday, it’s difficult to envision a scenario where he won’t win the MVP. Difficult, but not impossible.
Thanks to Nembhard’s defense, Gilgeous-Alexander has not been the same dominant force he was in the regular season and first three rounds of the playoffs. Sure, he’s still averaging 30 points a night, but he’s had multiple games where he hasn’t been the best Thunder player on the court. Take Game 6, for example. He committed a season-high 8 turnovers, and scored only 21 points. SGA’s shooting just 47% from the field and 29% from three, numbers that are significantly worse than his season-long averages.
He’s been outplayed by teammate Jalen Williams multiple times, including J-Dub’s Finals high 40-point effort in Game 5. Williams has been more aggressive and more efficient than Gilgeous-Alexander since Game 2. His offensive ceiling is sky-high, and one more signature performance could propel him to an NBA Finals MVP.
I like targeting his +1100 odds if you think the Thunder win the title, as Nembhard and the rest of the Pacers main focus will be on slowing down Gilgeous-Alexander. That could free up J-Dub to the point where he’s the story of Game 7, and then impossible to ignore when it comes to the MVP discussion.
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Sports Writer
As SBD's resident Swiss Army Knife, Chris covers virtually every sport including NFL, PGA, NBA, MLB, NCAAB, NCAAF and the Olympics. A true grinder, he'd rather pick off small edges in the player props market than swing for the fences with a 5-leg parlay.
