Kevin Porter Jr., Christian Wood among favorites for Most Improved Player award

The Houston Rockets have been featured a lot in NBA betting lines. From Jalen Green and Alperen Sengun among the top favorites for Rookie of the Year, to a $1500-$1800 payout per $100 if Houston makes the playoffs, the Rockets are sure to garner a lot of betting action this year.

Now, Draft Kings have released their odds for Most Improved Player of the Year, and both Kevin Porter Jr. and Christian Wood are among the top 10 betting favorites.

Porter has the fourth-best odds in the NBA at a +800. That means for every $100 you would bet on Porter, you’d get an $800 payout. The only players with better odds than that are Michael Porter Jr. (+600), Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (+700) and Zion Williamson (+750).

As for Wood, he sits tied for the seventh-best odds with Jaren Jackson Jr. at +1400. That means a $1400 payout for every $100 bet on Wood.

That Porter line looks really juicy to me. I think there’s a really good chance he could take a leap this year with some added team talent from the draft and an offseason working with the team and connecting with John Lucas. Porter’s already shown immense promise with a 50-point game this past year and finishing the year averaging 16.6 points, 3.8 rebounds, and 6.3 assists on 42.5 percent shooting from the field and 31.1 percent from deep.

Wood’s chance are a little more nebulous. The biggest opportunity area for Wood is health. He already had numbers last season worthy of the MIP award, putting up 21 points, 9.6 rebounds, 1.7 assists, and 1.2 blocks per game on 51.4 percent from the field and 37.5 percent from three. That’s up from averages of 13.1 points, 6.3 rebounds, 1 assist, and 1 block per game the previous season.

The issue was, however, that Wood only played in 41 games due to injury. That’s been a career issue for him, so if he stays healthy, who knows? But it’s going to be hard to improve on those numbers a ton, so I think Wood might even be potentially over-slotted here.

Porter’s definitely on my short-list for the MIP award this year, however, so if you have a benny burning a hole in your pocket, this is one of your better Rockets-related wagers. Probably second only to Houston making the playoffs at +1600.

Catch the full MIP odds over here at Draft Kings.