2026 NBA Finals MVP odds, predictions: Wemby? Jalen Brunson? Or a darkhorse?

Is NBA Finals MVP mostly just “the best player on the team that wins the series?” Yes, at least generally speaking. But there are a handful of exceptions. Andre Iguodala winning Finals MVP over Stephen Curry in 2015 was held over Curry’s head for years, but there are plenty of Finals MVP outliers. Cedric Maxwell won in 1981 without ever having made an All-Star Game.

We’ve seen one Finals MVP come from the losing team. That would be Jerry West in 1969. Ironically enough, since that was the first Finals MVP ever handed out, for the first year of the award’s existence, we’d only ever seen a losing player win that award. No one has matched West since, though LeBron James came close with four out of 11 votes in 2015.

But for the most part, yes, Finals MVP tends to be predictable. James and Michel Jordan won it in all 10 of their combined championships, and superteams typically defaulted to one of the players you’d suspect. Maxwell is only winner who is currently eligible but has not yet been inducted into the Hall of Fame.

So the as the Spurs and Knicks square off in the 2026 NBA Finals, the series MVP will probably be Victor Wembanyama or Jalen Brunson (they are the two biggest favorites by a considerable margin), but what’s the fun in treating that as a given? Below, the CBS Sports NBA staff went through the exercise of predicting a winner.

2026 NBA Finals MVP odds

(As of June 3 via FanDuel)

2026 NBA Finals MVP picks

Botkin: This could be a tough series for Wembanyama, relatively speaking. OG Anunoby guards him better than anyone in the league, to whatever extent you trust NBA matchup data, and Towns is strong as hell too and should be able to at least make Wemby work for solid positioning. I don’t expect him to have an incredible scoring series. But in the end, his impact is all over the court, particualrly on the defensive end, which is where he wins this award and the Spurs win the championship.

Gonzalez: While I’m interested to see who galaxy-brains this thing and picks someone else, it couldn’t be me. I just don’t see how the Knicks slow him down. That’s not a Knicks problem it’s an entire NBA issue. No one in the league can do it.

I’ve read all the really smart takes about all the different looks the Knicks can throw at him. KAT is playing better defense these days. OG will get some cracks at him. Mitchell Robinson will pitch in even though he broke the pinky finger on his shooting hand and he would be a hack-a-Mitch liability at the other end even without the injury. Mike Brown will try it all. And he should. And it won’t work. Because he’s Wemby. He’s the best player in the series by a lot. I picked the Spurs in 6 for a very tall, talented reason.

Maloney: I picked the Spurs to win the Finals, so I have to pick Wembanyama to win Finals MVP. Being your team’s best player doesn’t guarantee you’ll win Finals MVP, but in this case, it does. Wembanyama is leading the Spurs in scoring, rebounding and blocks in the playoffs, and he is third in assists. When he’s on the court, the Spurs have a +16.7 net rating, and when he’s off, they have a plus-0.4 net rating. All of their success flows from him, and he’s by far the best defensive player in the world.

Quinn: I know, I know, Jalen Brunson is the best player on the team. He’s going to have superheroic moments, especially at the end of games. He’s probably the smart pick. But hear me out. We do get Finals MVPs who aren’t the best player on the team every now and then: Jaylen Brown, Andre Iguodala, Tony Parker most recently. Ask the advanced metrics, and they’ll tell you, at least throughout this playoff run, Towns has been the best Knick. He currently has the 11th-best Box Plus-Minus in playoff history among players who started at least 10 games. Only 2009 LeBron James has thus far generated more Win Shares per 48 minutes.

He might be the single most important player on the team when it comes to combatting Victor Wembanyama specifically. Not only will he guard him for stretches of the series, but his elite shooting unlocks five-out lineups for the Knicks that might actually be able to drag him away from the basket and make San Antonio’s defense mortal. New York’s playoff offense exploded when the Knicks gave Towns the ball and let him play point center. If he keeps up his absurd 57-49-89 shooting with six assists and almost 11 rebounds per game while contributing to the effort to slow down Wembanyama, it’s going to be pretty hard to deny him the Bill Russell trophy.

Salerno: I debated going with an outside-the-box pick, such as Stephon Castle. But let’s be honest, if the Spurs win the NBA Finals, Victor Wembanyama is going to win Finals MVP. It feels like a cop-out picking the best player on the team that’s favored to win the series, but Wemby is having an incredible playoff run that has already vaulted him into “best player in the sport” territory. Mike Brown has a tall task (literally) to slow him down. I picked the Spurs to win in 7, so it’s only right to pick Wemby for Finals MVP.