The NBA preseason is in full swing and the regular season is quickly approaching, so bettors can expect to find something More and more futures markets are popping up every day at your favorite sportsbooks.
Among the most absurd are DraftKings’ “Team Specials,” which appear to be designed in a predatory manner to allow fans to place high-stakes bets on their favorite team. However, there are also a few gems in the otherwise mediocre market. Last season I pegged Tyrese Haliburton as averaging 20 points, five rebounds and 10 assists per game at +2800. He ended up cleaning up the first and last games, but ended up with 3.7 rebounds per game. It wasn’t successful, but it was incredibly fun to watch the future unfold throughout the season.
This season I went back through the 100+ offers and found three (and a half) bets that I like.
The essential app for NBA bettors
The best NBA betting scoreboard
Free tips from proven professionals
Live winning probabilities for your bets
Trae Young averages 28+ points per game and Atlanta wins the Southwest Division (+950).
I love so many different parts of this bet. For one thing, I have a high value for the Hawks and a low value for the Heat. Quin Snyder had a full offseason to break into this roster, and John Collins’ move feels like addition through subtraction. I hope Snyder recognizes the value of Onyeka Okongwu and truly realizes the fourth-year forward’s potential. The Hawks also get a full season with Saddiq Bey, who was excellent after being moved at the trade deadline, and AJ Griffin will be a popular breakout pick this year.
Compare that to the Heat, who had a flop of an offseason where they basically steadfastly waited for Damian Lillard and then fell by the wayside. Miami was among the leaders in games lost to injury last season, but most of those games came at the team’s expense. Such injuries can hurt, especially when they occur in clusters, but it seems naive to expect a massive increase in regular season wins.
As for Young, last year was a poor shooting season for the fifth-year guard. His field goal percentage on 2s fell from 51.2% in 2021-22 to 47.6% in 2022-23. His 3-point shooting fell from 38.2% to 33.5%. Young has reached that 28+ points per game total in two of his five seasons in the league (and two of four, not counting his rookie season).
These pieces are also obviously linked to each other. If Snyder can unlock Young for even one extra point (he averaged 27.4 points per game after his rookie season), that will be good news for the Hawks. It’s also the type of bet that can be hedged if the Hawks and Heat are close late in the season and Young looks to score 28.0 points per game.
I mentioned in the intro that I played three and a half pieces. Well, here’s the half-game:
Trae Young leads league in scoring and Hawks win Southwest (+18,000)
These two are even more clearly related because a Young scoring title means Snyder has truly unlocked this offense. This will only be a small splash, but I still like the number. One thing that usually hurts these parlays is the inability to buy the individual pieces, but DraftKings has the second-best price on the market for the Hawks division, so it doesn’t hurt as much here.
Paolo Banchero averages more than 23 points per game and the Magic win more than 40 games (+600).
DraftKings has the magic to win 40+ games alone at +160 (38.5%). So if these plays were independent of each other, you would have to assume that Banchero has a 37% chance of scoring more than 23 points per game. That’s a bit high, but obviously these plays are fairly correlated.
Most projection systems put Banchero at around 21.5 points per game, but I think that’s a bit low. The Magic haven’t added any high-use players to the roster, and with a shooting split of 42.7/29.8/73.8, there’s plenty of room for improvement for Banchero.
The player we talked about in the first section, Trae Young, averaged a similar 19.1 points per game on 41.8/32.4/82.9 shooting splits in his rookie season. In his second season he increased to 29.6 points per game. This is a particularly impressive case, but he is not alone in making this leap.
Of the 15 rookies this century who averaged at least 18.0 ppg in their rookie season, eight saw a points per game increase of over 3.0 in their second season. This isn’t a perfect indicator, but it shows that players who posted impressive ppg totals in their rookie season can often reach a different level.
Anthony Edwards leads the league in scoring and Minnesota makes the playoffs (+10,000)
Here’s our big picture, and we can keep it short. This is essentially a freeroll for Edwards, who leads the league in scoring. The best you can get when it comes to Edwards leading the league in scoring is 50-1, so getting to 100-1 here has great value.
There’s a chance that Edwards’ scoring would be the biggest jump in an injury-riddled season for the Wolves, but if he’s at the point where he’s scoring around 32 points per game, it’s hard to imagine Minnesota not at least in the game. in where bettors would get a nice hedging opportunity.
It will take a big leap for Edwards to lead the league in scoring, as he “only” scored 24.6 points per game last season, but the path isn’t impossible. He actually shot fewer 3s last season. So if he can reverse course and hit about 10 triples per game, he’ll be in the 27 ppg range.
Additionally, he has seen an increase in his field goal percentage each season, and further increase could bring him to around 28.5 ppg. But arguably the biggest area of growth is getting to the finish line. Last season he only reached the finish line 5.3 times per game, but his attempts per game have increased each season. If he learns to make more contact, he could easily get into the eight FTA per game range and score over 30 ppg.
With a 100:1 ratio, this is a fun long shot with decent value.
How would you rate this article?
This website contains commercial content. We may receive compensation for the links provided on this page. The content of this page is for informational purposes only. Action Network makes no representations or warranties as to the accuracy of the information provided or the outcome of any game or event.
Comments are closed.