NBA 2024-25 Rookie of the Year (ROY) Winner Betting Preview – Odds, Tips & Predictions

Last season saw one of the more high quality battles for the Rookie of the Year Award, with Victor Wembanyama and Chet Holmgren both putting together fantastic debut seasons. It’s safe to say that the 2024-25 race has not started in quite the same fashion. No rookie has yet set the world alight and indeed most have struggled – though it’s safe to say that our expectations of what first-year players can do right off the bat is probably a bit skewed after last year. Still, this season’s race is wide open. Zach Edey entered the season as a slight favourite, and while he has struggled in a lot of his early season games – with foul trouble certainly not helping – a breakthrough game against the Nets showed what he is capable of. Elsewhere, Wizards pick 14 Carlton Carrington is getting good minutes which will give him a chance, while French prodigy Alexandre Sarr and first pick Zaccharie Risacher round out the top four. There are plenty of others still in the mix in a tough race to pick a winner, but below, we take a look at the favourites for the award.

Zach Edey (Memphis Grizzlies)

After being taken with the 9th pick in last year’s draft, Zach Edey was always expected to make a relatively immediate impact at the top level. For starters, he’s 22 years of age, but he also joined a team on which he has walked straight into the starting centre role. His first few games didn’t go quite to plan, with foul problems in a number of them resulting in limited minutes, though he did still have his moments. But he exploded in his eighth game in the big league, scoring 25 points in 29 minutes on an impressive 11-12 shooting against the Nets, while also grabbing 12 rebounds and swatting 4 opposition shots. That game will have given the Canadian a huge boost of confidence, and saw him reaffirm his position as favourite for Rookie of the Year after a first couple of weeks of the season in which none of his fellow first-year players have really yet found their feet.

Standing at a tick over 7’4” and weighing in at a casual 136 kilograms – oh, and with a wingspan of nearly 7’11!!! – Edey has the physical tools to more than fit in at the NBA level, and he has plenty of pedigree behind him, too. He is coming off a college season in which he led his Purdue Boilermakers to the NCAA Division I Championship. He comes into the big time after two consecutive seasons being voted both the Big Ten Player of the Year and the consensus National Player of the Year, last season averaging 25.2 points, 12.2 rebounds and 2.2 blocks per game. Of course, while he was able to replicate that in the aforementioned game against the Nets, he’s not going to be able to put up similar numbers all that often in his first year in the NBA. But if he can continue to hold out Jay Huff, the Grizzlies’ back-up centre who has been playing reasonably well, and clock up some good minutes, then there is no reason he can’t put up close to a 15-point double-double. Last year, that would not have been enough to get close to either Wembanyama or Holmgren, but this season is a whole different story. If he consistently plays decent minutes for the Grizzlies this season, Edey will be hard to beat in the Rookie of the Year race.

Bet on Zach Edey to win the Rookie of the Year Award at $4.50 with Unibet 

Carlton ‘Bub’ Carrington (Washington Wizards)

Carlton Carrington was not one of the top-end favourites to win the Rookie of the Year award heading into the season after being picked just inside the lottery by the Wizards, but the early signs are that he is going to be given plenty of responsibility on his new team – one of the benefits of being drafted to an organisation in as poor a shape as what Washington is. Not to detract from Carrington’s worthiness of getting minutes, but the Wizards simply don’t have many good players and won’t be winning many games this season, so they may as well get their latest young lottery pick on the floor as often as possible – and that’s exactly what they have been doing early in the year. Carrington played 26, 25 and 21 minutes in his first three games, but he performed reasonably solidly in those minutes and subsequently went on to play in at least 33 in each of his next three. He has not exactly set the world on fire and has struggled from a scoring perspective, but he has been reasonably solid, dishing out a few assists, grabbing a few boards and putting up around 10 points per game.

That’s not all that dissimilar to what he did at a college level. In his only year at that level, Carrington averaged 13.8 points, 5.2 rebounds and 4.1 assists, doing his damage courtesy of a filthy mid-range game that had him drawing comparisons to the likes of Lou Williams. There are certainly plenty of holes in his game – that ability to make tough shots has not extended to beyond the three-point line – he shot just 32.2% from the college arc last season – while he doesn’t get to the rim much either, but he is the kind of guy that you can give the ball to when the offence is stagnating and let him go to work – something which can certainly come in handy on a Wizards offence which, to put it nicely, stagnates with alarming regularity. He will probably have his moments this year given his penchant to explode on any given night, and when he does his name – which for the time being remains relatively unknown – will be up in lights. Over the course of a long season at the top level, however, he will likely have plenty of nights on which he struggles, too, and it’s hard to imagine him finishing the year with a field goal percentage much over 40%. But that’s part and parcel of the rookie life sometimes, and if he can continue playing mid-30 minutes per night he could easily average something around 15 points and a handful of assists a night. That will have him one of the most productive rookies of this class, and will put him right in the mix to be a surprise winner of this award.

Bet on Carlton Carrington to win the Rookie of the Year Award at $6.00 with Unibet 

Zaccharie Risacher (Atlanta Hawks) 

Zaccharie Risacher was far from a unanimous pick one throughout the course of last season, and was actually rated as low as pick 11 by The Ringers’ well-credentialed draft board, with somewhat unflattering comparisons to Harrison Barnes and Tobias Harris. But his all-round talent made him an attractive proposition for the Hawks. Risacher does have a lot of tools at his disposal; he is a very capable outside shooter, has all the tools to be a high-quality defender, and can make good reads on offence, and though he is not a typical generator of offence, that’s not what the Hawks need given how ball-dominant Trae Young is. Risacher last season averaged 11.1 points per game in France, shooting 38.7% from three-point range, as well as 4.0 rebounds and 0.9 assists. They are certainly not numbers that jump off the page and the Hawks didn’t exactly luck into a generational number one pick the way the Spurs did the year previous, but Risacher is exactly the kind of player who can elevate a team’s ceiling in the NBA, even if he isn’t necessarily the star of the show.

And the French rookie has started the season reasonably well. As is so often the case, his field goal percentages are not particularly good, with 2-8, 1-5, 1-8 and 1-9 efforts all within his first six games. But he’s had his moments too, and has certainly not been shy in front of the bright lights of the NBA. Risacher has been more than willing to get his shots up, taking at least 12 of them in half of his first eight games, and at times he has looked like a solid NBA player already at both ends of the floor. He has shot really poorly from the outside early on in the season, hitting just 21.1% of his 38 shots through his first 8 games, but that should prove to be a good thing. He has proven that he is a good shooter and his outside shooting will not stay as cold as it has been, so expect his numbers to trend upwards as the season wears on. Risacher is getting a growing number of minutes on the Hawks and it looks as though they are more than happy for him to play a relatively extensive role on offence, which bodes well for his chances of putting up decent numbers this season. Risacher is not talked about a whole lot for a number one pick, particularly in comparison to Wembanyama last season, and while he is not exactly a standout, he is probably underrated in the Rookie of the Year conversation. He looks set to play a reasonably significant role on the Hawks this season, and could be decent value to take out the Rookie of the Year award.

Bet on Zaccharie Risacher to win the Rookie of the Year Award at $6.00 with Unibet 

Alexandre Sarr (Washington Wizards)

Alexandre Sarr very nearly followed in the footsteps of compatriot Victor Wembanyama as the second number one pick to hail from France in as many years, but while he ultimately went at pick two behind Zaccharie Risacher – another Frenchman. But though he wasn’t top of the list, Sarr came into the league with a ceiling as high as anyone in the draft. He is a big man, standing at 7’0” tall with a 7’4” wingspan, but like Wembanyama he has the traits of a smaller player, able to handle and pass the ball – he shoots a fair bit too, though he didn’t make all that many of those shots in his solitary year with Perth in the NBL. He’s a raw prospect who struggled at NBL level, meaning the jump to the NBA was never going to be particularly easy, but the potential is clearly there. And early in the season, he has been surprisingly impactful for the Wizards.

Like Carrington, being selected to the Wizards meant the opportunity for minutes was always going to be there, and Sarr has walked straight into a starting role on one of the worst teams in the league. He went 1-7 from the floor and grabbed just 5 boards in 22 minutes in his first game, but he’s had a few moments since then, scoring in double figures most nights, grabbing a few boards, dishing out a couple of dimes, and swatting at least two shots in each of his first six games. As expected, Sarr has not been efficient from the field and has really struggled from long range, and that might not change over the course of the season given it’s in line with how he has performed in lower leagues anyway. If he’s to truly compete for the Rookie of the Year award, his field goal percentage will probably need to get out of the 30s, but if it does he could easily give this award a shake. With so much potential, there is every possibility that Sarr will develop rapidly throughout the course of the season, and could feasibly end the season averaging well into double figures in points, a few boards and potentially up to 3 blocks or so. Those would be decent numbers for a rookie, and in a race in which no one is going to set the world on fire, it would be enough to have him right in the conversation for the best first year player in the NBA.

Bet on Alexandre Sarr to win the Rookie of the Year Award at $7.00 with Unibet

Ryan Dunn (Phoenix Suns)

Alexandre Sarr very nearly followed in the footsteps of compatriot Victor Wembanyama as the second number one pick to hail from France in as many years, but while he ultimately went at pick two behind Zaccharie Risacher – another Frenchman. But though he wasn’t top of the list, Sarr came into the league with a ceiling as high as anyone in the draft. He is a big man, standing at 7’0” tall with a 7’4” wingspan, but like Wembanyama he has the traits of a smaller player, able to handle and pass the ball – he shoots a fair bit too, though he didn’t make all that many of those shots in his solitary year with Perth in the NBL. He’s a raw prospect who struggled at NBL level, meaning the jump to the NBA was never going to be particularly easy, but the potential is clearly there. And early in the season, he has been surprisingly impactful for the Wizards.

Like Carrington, being selected to the Wizards meant the opportunity for minutes was always going to be there, and Sarr has walked straight into a starting role on one of the worst teams in the league. He went 1-7 from the floor and grabbed just 5 boards in 22 minutes in his first game, but he’s had a few moments since then, scoring in double figures most nights, grabbing a few boards, dishing out a couple of dimes, and swatting at least two shots in each of his first six games. As expected, Sarr has not been efficient from the field and has really struggled from long range, and that might not change over the course of the season given it’s in line with how he has performed in lower leagues anyway. If he’s to truly compete for the Rookie of the Year award, his field goal percentage will probably need to get out of the 30s, but if it does he could easily give this award a shake. With so much potential, there is every possibility that Sarr will develop rapidly throughout the course of the season, and could feasibly end the season averaging well into double figures in points, a few boards and potentially up to 3 blocks or so. Those would be decent numbers for a rookie, and in a race in which no one is going to set the world on fire, it would be enough to have him right in the conversation for the best first year player in the NBA.

Bet on Ryan Dunn to win the Rookie of the Year Award at $17.00 with Unibet

This is not an easy Rookie of the Year race to pick, and beyond the above four names there are plenty of others who could easily put themselves in the mix as the season wears on, too. It’s in stark contrast to last season, when Holmgren and Wembanyama established themselves as the clear frontrunners and were ultimately going to be impossible for anybody else to beat. Of course, with confusion can sometimes come value, and certainly there are decent odds on offer for, well, everyone in this year’s ROTY race. Edey deserves to be favourite at this point in the season, particularly after his dominant showing against the Nets, but it’s Risacher who looks to be sneaking under the radar the most – unusual given that he was the number one pick. He has had a decent start to the season, albeit with some growing pains that inevitably come in a player’s first few games in the NBA, and there is no reason to think that he won’t continue to develop in his first year given that he will be playing a fairly significant role for his Hawks. This is a race which will probably see plenty of fluctuations throughout the course of the season, but at $6 or even more with some betting sites, the number one pick Zaccharie Risacher looks like a decent bet.

• The top pick has secured the Rookie of the Year award 5 times in the last 10 seasons.
• Forwards and centers (PF/C) have seen limited success in recent NBA ROY history, with only 5 victories in the past 20 seasons.
• In this century, only one Rookie of the Year winner (Malcolm Brogdon, 36th pick in 2016) was drafted outside the lottery.
• In 16 out of the last 20 seasons, the Rookie of the Year has been selected among the Top 5 picks.

Last 10 NBA ROY Winners: