On Thursday afternoon, the San Antonio Spurs announced that second-year phenom Victor Wembanyama will miss the remainder of the regular season due to deep vein thrombosis in his shoulder, which is a crushing blow for a Spurs team that recently traded for De'Aaron Fox and hoped to continue building chemistry between their two young stars.
The news of Wembanyama's injury also created an enormous shakeup on the Defensive Player of the Year odds board, as Wemby was previously listed as a heavy -2500 favorite, ahead Evan Mobley and Jaren Jackson Jr. both listed at +3000.
With Wembanyama now off the board, the latest odds to win NBA Defensive Player of the Year can be found below:
NBA Defensive Player of the Year Odds
Odds at BetMGM as of 5:30 p.m. ET
- Jaren Jackson Jr. (Grizzlies) -130
- Evan Mobley (Cavaliers) -110
- Dyson Daniels (Hawks) +1100
- Lu Dort (Thunder) +1400
- Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (Thunder) +2000
- Jalen Williams (Thunder) +2000
- Rudy Gobert (Timberwolves) +5000
Regarding the latest odds to win Defensive Player of the Year following the Wemby news, BetMGM trading manager Christian Cipollini said, "It's a big shakeup. Jaren Jackson Jr. now becomes the favorite, who the book does not want."
Some more context, prior to today's news: At BetMGM, Wemby and Mobley were 1st and 2nd in ticket count for DPOY. But Wemby had taken twice as many tickets as Mobley.
Money wagered was more lopsided. Thirty-percent% of all DPOY dollars at BetMGM were on Wemby. He was taking 2.5-times more money than Gobert/Holmgren, who were taking the 2nd and 3rd-most money, respectively.
Wemby was also seeing almost 4-times more money than Jackson and 4.5-times more money than Mobley.
