Ranking the best NBA Rookie of the Year bets from a ho-hum 2024 draft, with the No. 1 pick lower than you might expect

The first round of the NBA Draft is in the books, and the first few picks went exactly as many experts expected. Zaccharie Risacher was the No. 1 player off the board to the Atlanta Hawks, followed by Alex Sarr to the Washington Wizards and Reed Sheppard to the Houston Rockets.

However, while Sarr and Risacher have the first and second best odds, respectively, to win the 2025 NBA Rookie of the Year award, none of the top three picks are my best bet to win it.

Now that we know where the league’s newest top prospects will be playing, we can start putting their odds for Rookie of the Year into perspective. And let me tell you, making a decision this year is not nearly as easy as last year when we all knew it was either going to be Victor Wembanyama or Chet Holmgren.

Any number of players could make a case this year. So I took into account their odds at BetMGM versus the opportunity they’ll likely have for the teams they play on to come up with a list of eight players whose value I like the most. Here they are.

Related: NBA Draft winners and losers