Last season, it took a career- and league-high 33.1 points per game, and perhaps a bout of voter fatigue, for Joel Embiid to dethrone Nikola Jokic as the NBA’s Most Valuable Player.
This season, the two superstar big men are the front-runners for the honor yet again, with Embiid taking a lead in the betting odds — +140 on ESPN BET as of Saturday morning — after a historic 70-point performance Monday pushed him to 36.0 PPG on the season.
Embiid and Jokic will go head-to-head for the second and final time this season when the 76ers face the Nuggets in Denver on Saturday (5:30 p.m. ET, ABC), a game that will presumably be another pivotal moment in the heated race.
But there’s an added twist in this season’s MVP competition that affects Embiid more than any other player vying for the NBA’s top individual honor — and that bookmakers have had to reckon with more and more as the season unfolds.
“Joel Embiid’s main competition for NBA MVP at this point in the season is playing 65 games,” BetMGM senior trader Halvor Egeland told ESPN. “In previous years, Embiid would have a minus in front of the [140] instead of a plus. It’s an added wrinkle to the awards this year that we’re closely monitoring.”