As the basketball offseason rolls, fans are already looking towards the start of the 2021-22 NBA season. While some people are focused on who’ll go on a championship run, others have turned their attention to individual awards. One of those happens to be the 2021-22 Rookie of the Year Award, which you can’t blame people for betting especially after a group of talented prospects was just drafted last week.
BetOnline has released odds on who’ll be next season’s top rookie. At +275 odds, the sportsbook is favoring this year’s first overall pick, Detroit Pistons PG Cade Cunningham. Nobody was surprised when he was selected at No. 1 in the 2021 NBA Draft because he’s just that good. Cunningham averaged 20.1 points, 6.2 rebounds and 3.5 assists per game for the Oklahoma State Cowboys in 2020-21. He also shot the ball efficiently, averaging .438/.400/.846 shooting splits. The fact that he’s a 6-foot-8 guard means that he’ll have an advantage at guarding players who are traditionally smaller than him.
Cunningham also has the advantage of playing for a Pistons team that doesn’t have a lot of other scoring options as of right now. That could change over the offseason, but the fact is that he should be the team’s No. 1 point guard for the entire campaign. He’ll see a lot of scoring opportunities, which should boost his chances of winning the NBA Rookie of the Year Award.
2021-22 NBA Rookie of the Year Award Odds
Odds via BetOnline as of Monday, August 2
- Cade Cunningham (+275)
- Jalen Green (+500)
- Evan Mobley (+550)
- Jalen Suggs (+750)
- Scottie Barnes (+800)
- James Bouknight (+1200)
- Alperen Sengun (+1600)
- Josh Giddey (+1600)
- Davion Mitchell (+2000)
- Corey Kispert (+2500)
- Jonathan Kuminga (+2500)
Complete NBA odds available at BetOnline.ag.
Jalen Green Rookie of the Year Odds
At +500 odds, Houston Rockets SG Jalen Green has the second-best shot at taking home next season’s NBA Rookie of the Year Award. Unlike Cunningham and a lot of the other 2021 draftees, Green opted to play for Team Ignite — a developmental team for upcoming prospects in the NBA G League. Playing against men who had a lot more professional basketball experience than him didn’t stop Green from performing well. By the time the season ended, he had averaged 17.9 PPG/4.1 PPG/2.8 PPG.
Green is the type of player who loves to shoot, which is made evident by the 13.6 field goal attempts he averaged per game last year. Considering how the Rockets doesn’t exactly have a strong team, it’s not out of the realm of possibility to think that he could average double-digit attempts again this year. A lot of rookies don’t have that luxury, so Green needs to make it count. Nevertheless, he did shoot 46.1% from the field and 36.5% from the 3-point line in 2020-21, so the potential is there for some decent point totals — especially if Houston is playing catchup throughout the season.
NBA Rookie of the Year Odds: Can Mobley Win the Award?
There was no doubting that Evan Mobley was the best center available at the 2021 NBA Draft, which is exactly why the Cleveland Cavaliers used the third overall pick on him. Now, at +550, he has the third-best odds to be named 2021-22 Rookie of the Year.
Mobley is coming off of a campaign that saw him average 16.4 points, 8.7 rebounds and 2.9 blocks per game for the USC Trojans. However, there’s no guarantee what role he’ll play in the Cavaliers’ lineup. Fellow center Jarrett Allen has yet to re-sign with Cleveland and could leave via free agency. If that’s the case, Mobley will obviously have a bigger role with the team, which would ultimately pad his stats. If Allen does stay, it’ll be interesting to see how many minutes Mobley gets. He’s certainly capable of playing power forward minutes, so the Cavaliers could run both at the same time. Only time will tell exactly what happens, though.
