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

After one of the highest quality battles for Rookie of the Year in recent memory last season, battled out between Victor Wembanyama and Chet Holmgren, the 2024-25 race is not quite living up to the high standards set by its predecessor. But what it may lack in quality, it has more than made up for in intrigue. This market has seen plenty of wild fluctuations through the course of the season and a number of different favourites, but as we near the playoffs a likely winner appears to have finally emerged.

Of course, while Stephon Castle is looking increasingly hard to beat, there is still plenty of water left to go under the bridge and given how volatile this market has been this season, no one should be counting their chickens just yet. Below, we take a look at the prospects of Castle and those with the best chance of beating him in the race for the 2025 Rookie of the Year.

Stephon Castle (San Antonio Spurs)

Without wanting to sound too condescending, it’s indicative of the glaring lack of standout rookies this season that Kel’el Ware is favourite to win this award. Through nearly exactly the first half of the season, Ware played 25 of a possible 40 games, and in that time averaged 13.2 minutes per game for 6.6 points, 3.8 rebounds and 0.5 assists. Even in a season like this, they are not even close to Rookie of the Year numbers – not even enough to get him in the conversation. Then out of the blue, Ware had three consecutive 20+ point games and moved into the starting lineup, and with the prospect with a lot more minutes over the back half of the season, his odds shortened quickly.

Ware has had a couple more good games since then, but more often than not he has struggled to produce a great deal, with four of his six games after that burst of 20-point efforts yielding 7 points or less. The Heat big man has plenty of talent and looks likely to get minutes if he earns them, which in a season with no standout rookies puts him in a good position to win this award. But with the All-Star break just around the corner and well over half the season already in the books, Ware is currently averaging 8.4 points, 5.5 rebounds and 0.6 assists for the season. He still has work to do to get those numbers up to what a couple of his fellow rookies are doing, and while coach Erik Spoelstra will likely put him in a position to do that, he looks like yet another favourite to avoid in this market for the time being.

Bet on Stephon Castle to win the Rookie of the Year Award at $1.20 with Unibet 

Jaylen Wells (Memphis Grizzlies)

Alongside Castle, Jaylen Wells has been the most consistent rookie in the 2024-25 season. He has started nearly every game for a contending team in the Western Conference, and while his numbers do not jump off the page, he has slotted in to a team with already established stars and played a pivotal role. For the season, he averages 11 points, 3.3 rebounds and 1.7 assists; those numbers are unequivocally inferior to those of Castle, but as mentioned he has been on a better team and playing a lesser role.

In Wells’ favour is the fact that he has been more efficient than Castle, shooting 43.7% from the floor and 36.7% from three-point range, as well as over 80% from the line. His consistent presence in the starting line-up is also indicative of the high regard in which he is held by the Grizzlies’ coaching staff, and demonstrate how well he has been able to fit into the existing structure in a potentially top-four team in the stronger Conference. There will likely be a few voters who value those more intangible factors highly and will potentially see them as sufficient to overcome the gap in statistical production between those two, but with Castle continuing to extend that gap, there are unlikely to be enough voters thinking that way. It has been a really impressive season for Wells and he should be getting plenty of interest from voters, but he will likely fall just short.

Bet on Jaylen Wells to win the Rookie of the Year Award at $9.00 with Unibet 

Zaccharie Risacher (Atlanta Hawks)

The number one pick from last season’s draft, Zaccharie Risacher has hung around in this market all season long without ever really looking like a genuine threat. He has had a solid enough rookie season for the Hawks, albeit certainly not dominant – though given he was far from a unanimous number one pick that is not a huge surprise. His numbers at the time of writing are very similar to those of Jaylen Wells; 11.7 points while shooting 43.8% from the field and 34.5% from three-point range, as well as 3.6 rebounds and 1.3 assists. Also like Wells, he has started just about every game for his team.

Given how similar that production is, the Hawks wing should probably be closer in value to his counterpart in Memphis. The difference likely stems from the fact that the Hawks are just a middling team in the Eastern Conference for whom earning a starting spot is not quite as difficult as it is on the Grizzlies, but Risacher has still been reasonably consistent without, by any means, setting the world on fire. A few breakout games have shown what he is capable of, but realistically if he is to challenge Castle for this award then he will need to have quite a few more of them to boost his numbers in the run home.

Bet on Zaccharie Risacher to win the Rookie of the Year Award at $15.00 with Unibet 

Zach Edey (Memphis Grizzlies)

Of all the erratic movers in the Rookie of the Year market this season, Zach Edey might be at the top of the list. He started the season as a tepid favourite and shortened slightly before injury saw him balloon way out. But he returned quicker than usual and in fine form, and came back into the shortest-price favourite he had been all season as a result. He has since secured himself in the Grizzlies’ starting line-up alongside Wells, but his production has waned quite a lot as the season has worn on. He is a long way back with just a month or two to go in the season, though he is not entirely without a chance if he could return to some of the form he showed earlier in the season.

Overall, the Canadian big man is averaging 9.2 points, 7.9 rebounds and 1.2 blocks in a little over 20 minutes per game. The advantage he has in this market over the others chasing Castle such as Wells and Risacher is that his stats are basically incomparable to the nominal favourite given he is a completely different player. While the gap between Wells and Risacher compared to Castle is plain to see from the stats, Edey’s impact comes a lot from rebounding and his interior defence. If he can find a way to boost his points average to over 10 per game and get close to averaging a triple-double and 1.5 blocks per game, he could be a sneaky chance if Castle falters a little over the remainder of the season. It is very unlikely, but if Edey can put together a couple of big games – we’re talking 20/10 games with 3 or 4 blocks – he will probably shorten a fair bit. I personally won’t be betting on him, but as far as value outsiders go he’s not the worst of them.

Bet on Zach Edey to win the Rookie of the Year Award at $26.00 with Unibet

Kel’el Ware (Miami Heat)

No one has really taken the bull by the horns when it comes to the Rookie of the Year race in 2024-25, and Kel’el Ware’s wild odds fluctuation to win it are indicative of as much. He wasn’t really in the picture at all for the first half of the season, missing around half the games over the first two months and only playing very limited minutes when he did see time on the floor. That continued into January, albeit with a couple of anomalous games thrown in, until a 25-point effort saw him thrust into the starting lineup in late January and he followed it up with back-to-back 20-point double-doubles.

Incredibly, those three performances were enough to see him catapult into favouritism after virtually not being in the market just days earlier, but you would have been wise to avoid him at that point. If the Heat big man did keep playing at that level he probably would have gone close to winning, but it was three games, and unsurprisingly he couldn’t maintain that level. Since then Ware has been decent enough, remaining in the starting lineup and putting together some decent rebounding numbers and a few okay scoring games here and there, but for the season he is still averaging just 8.5 points and 6.5 rebounds. As far as big men go he is second in the running to Edey at the moment, and while he should continue to get decent minutes in the run home, he likely gave himself too much ground to make up in the first part of the season.

Bet on Kel’el Ware to win the Rookie of the Year Award at $41.00 with Unibet

Alexandre Sarr (Washington Wizards)

Alexandre Sarr came into the league as the second long-limbed, uniquely talented Frenchman, being picked by the Wizards with the second selection after a season in the NBL. He was a raw prospect and few expected him to make an imprint from the outset, but he has been relatively consistent in his rookie season and has been given ample opportunity on a very bad Wizards team. In fact, Sarr’s numbers stack up pretty well against his fellow contenders in the Rookie of the Year race; he’s putting up 11.7 points, 6.7 rebounds, 2.3 assists and 1.5 blocks per game, numbers which are probably superior to every other rookie but Castle.

Based on that alone he is perhaps the best value outside pick here, though it is worth mentioning that he has scored at a paltry 38.6% from the floor. Rookies are not generally particularly efficient, but that is a very low number. Sarr has also benefited from being on such a bad team; unlike somebody such as Wells, who has had to legitimately earn his minutes, the Wizards want to develop their youngsters and ideally give themselves as good a chance as possible for another high pick, so Sarr was always likely to remain in the starting line-up regardless of performance. But still, his numbers stack up reasonably well considering he is at such long odds. If he can put together a couple of productive games in the next few weeks he may get a little more attention, and his stats don’t need to jump nearly as much as a couple of names above him to get himself right in the mix. As far as the rank outsiders go, Sarr might be the best of them.

Bet on Alexandre Sarr to win the Rookie of the Year Award at $41.00 with Unibet

We’ve pushed Castle as a candidate for most of the season in this market, and with his odds having ballooned out a fair bit at times there has been some pretty good value available for those who jumped on at the right time. Those who did are looking likely to be on the receiving end of a solid payday come season’s end, but unfortunately the Spurs’ rookie is now too short to really bother betting on, even if he will most likely win. At this point this looks like a market to avoid, but if you wanted to chuck a few bucks on a long outsider just in case, Sarr wouldn’t be the worst pick. He hasn’t had a great season but in a weak rookie class has some of the best numbers of the group, and probably deserves to be a little more involved in the conversation than what he is.

• 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: