I think we have enough information to make educated decisions at this point.
+280 GIANNIS ANTETOKOUNMPO - Coming off an MVP season, it's no surprise he is favored here. Having said that, it's pretty dang hard to go back to back. And he still has no jump shot. And his roster arguably got worse with the removal of Brogdon. And the Sixers could be better in the East.
+500 STEPHEN CURRY - With Durant gone and Klay injured for the majority of the regular season, Curry will have the ultimate green light. Could someone average 40ppg in the modern game? Curry is pretty energy efficient in comparison to someone like James Harden who kills himself by consistently driving to the basket. Then again, maybe not, he's constantly running hard to get open and setup his team, and now the other two big threats are missing. We might start seeing some new defenses being played against this team.
+600 JAMES HARDEN - Cancelled out by Westbrook, I'm really excited to see the Rockets play though.
+650 LEBRON JAMES - Cancelled out by Davis, also Load Management.
+750 KAWHI LEONARD - Canceled out by George, also Load Management.
+800 ANTHONY DAVIS - Canceled out by Lebron
+1400 JOEL EMBIID - He's got a chance, but ultimately cancelled out by Simmons (people gotta realize how good Simmons is at some point, right?). In the offseason, the Sixers lost Jimmy Butler but picked up Al Horford and Josh Richardson, a good young defender that can shoot 3s.
+1400 RUSSELL WESTBROOK - Cancelled out by Harden
+1600 PAUL GEORGE - Cancelled out by Kawhi
+1700 NIKOLA JOKIC - My pick for MVP. The most impactful player on a nightly basis. People slept on his MVP bid last year. This team just added Jerami Grant and otherwise have continuity from being a 2 seed last year, which contrasts strongly with all of the newly consummated teammate pairings this summer. I expect them at the top of the league in terms of record.
+2500 KARL-ANTHONY TOWNS - Great player, but not in the playoffs; not in contention.
+2600 DAMIAN LILLARD - Not impactful enough.
+3300 KYRIE IRVING - Ditto
+5000 LUKA DONCIC - 2nd year player probably not making the playoffs, unless Porzingis goes beast mode. He's already great though.
One other possibility is one of these powerhouse 2 man teams lose one player to injury and the team still overachieves: Lebron / Davis / Russ / Harden / Kawhi / PG13 / Embiid / Simmons
PS: I checked another betting site about Jokic and he's not even listed lol. You can take 1 player from the "Field" for +2300 though...
