By now, all of us know Bronny James’ story. It’s impossible to miss it.
James, the son of NBA legend LeBron James, played one unproductive season at USC and then entered the NBA Draft. That poor season happened after James suffered cardiac arrest during a summer practice, but even if that excuses his lack of production, the reviews of him as an NBA prospect haven’t been great at the scouting combine.
James is not considered a sure NBA prospect by many, and if he wasn’t the son of one of the NBA’s greatest all-time players we probably wouldn’t hear much about a 6-1 guard out of USC who averaged 4.8 points as a freshman.
And yet, somehow, tied for the most bets at BetMGM for the No. 1 overall pick of the NBA Draft is James. That’s just odd.
As of Monday, 22.5% of all bets at BetMGM on the No. 1 overall pick of the NBA Draft are on James. That’s tied with Alexandre Sarr, the 7-foot-1 French center who is widely expected to go first overall.
There is nobody who expects James to go first overall, aside from those bettors at BetMGM. Sarr is -300 to go first overall. James is 200-to-1.
The explanation is in the odds. Only 2.4% of all the money bet on the first overall pick is on James, meaning there are a lot of very small bets on James as bettors hope for something weird from the Atlanta Hawks with the first overall pick.
There have been rumors for a while that any team drafting James would get his famous father on a minimum deal as well. That scenario might be why some misguided bettors are taking Bronny James to go first overall. But James isn’t planning to switch teams to join his son, according to a report. Bettors apparently didn’t see that story.
However, bettors are still into the LeBron-Bronny possibility. The most bets at BetMGM on which team will draft James are on the Los Angeles Lakers (22.1%), LeBron James’ current team, and second is the Cleveland Cavaliers (18.3%), James’ previous team.
There’s a much, much better chance of James not being drafted at all than him going first overall. But this is considered a historically bad NBA Draft class and without many interesting prospects to talk about, we’re about to hear a lot about James.
There will also be more bets on James to go first overall, as unlikely as that is to happen.
