The last five years have seen four different players win the NBA scoring title.
That list includes Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, James Harden and Russell Westbrook -- the latter of whom is the only player who has done it twice in the last five years.
Despite the fact that oddsmakers don't expect a ton of variance in the final result for the 2018-2019 NBA season (the Golden State Warriors are implied for over a 65% chance to win the championship, based on the -190 odds at the FanDuel Sportsbook), the NBA season is never going to be entirely predictable. And that is especially true on the player level.
Four different players winning it in the last five years shows plenty of variance, and Harden's win last year was the first of his career. We also saw a new name breaking into the top-five in Giannis Antetokounmpo, who averaged 26.9 points per game after never cracking 23.0 in a previous season.
This year, the betting lines suggest little potential for surprise on this front. Between the top two players (Harden at +195 and Anthony Davis at +240), oddsmakers imply over a 60% chance that one of those two leads the NBA in scoring. Even if we account for some wiggle room in the lines, which combine for more than 100% probability if we include all players, we're still looking at something in the area of a coin flip that either Harden or Davis take the honors.
With so much variance in the winner over the last few years, this top-heavy pricing can create some huge betting value. Let's take a look at who our projections have as the best bets based on the lines available at the FanDuel Sportsbook.