The NBA Basketball 2022-2023 season is drawing near, and our betting experts have you covered for everything that lies ahead. Over the course of the next two weeks, we will examine how to approach some of the best teams in the league and provide some recommendations for futures bets prior to the opening tip.
Andre Snellings, a senior writer for the NBA, examines the Brooklyn Nets and the star players on that team as potential betting options for the upcoming season.
This article presents the Nets’ 2018-19 season in three different scenarios: the best case, the worst case, and a betting analysis.
Preview of the betting schedule for the NBA
The arguments for the Boston Celtics and the Golden State Warriors were presented on Thursday.
The argument in favor of the Milwaukee Bucks and the Brooklyn Nets today
The argument for the Philadelphia 76ers and the Los Angeles Lakers was presented on Monday.
Tuesday: Betting on the Most Valuable Player
Results of bets and prizes will be announced on Wednesday.
The 17th of October will focus on social media and betting.
18 October: NBA championship odds and favorite teams
In the best case scenario, the Brooklyn Nets have finished among the betting favorites in each of the previous two seasons leading up to this one, and their odds of winning the championship this year remain among the lowest of any team, sitting at +800. The most favorable outcome for them would be to actually take home the chip.
Kyrie Irving and Ben Simmons have both been recognized as All-NBA performers throughout their careers, and Kevin Durant has previously held the title of Most Valuable Player in the NBA. When both Simmons and Irving played the majority of the season for their respective teams in the 2020-21 season, Simmons helped anchor the 76ers to the No. 2 defensive rating in the NBA, while Irving and Durant led the Nets to the No. 1 offensive rating.
This was the last time that both players played the majority of the season for their respective teams. If the team is able to come together and maintain its health, it will have the potential to maintain its status as the best offensive unit while also fielding a defense that is significantly more competitive than the one it has fielded during the Durant/Irving era.
The worst-case scenario is one that is, unfortunately, not hard to imagine. Kevin Durant ended up missing 64 games out of a total of 154 for the Brooklyn Nets over the course of the next two seasons after suffering a ruptured Achilles tendon during his first year with the team and spending the entire season recovering from the injury.
Irving has missed 133 of the Nets’ 226 games over the course of those same three seasons for a variety of reasons, including off-court decisions that led to him missing 53 games just in the most recent season. And Simmons sat out all 82 games during the previous season due, first, to concerns regarding his mental health and an adversarial relationship with the 76ers, and then, after being traded to the Nets, to a back injury.
The worst-case scenario for the Nets would be if their star players continued to miss large chunks of time and the team, which was in the play-in game the previous season, did not make it into the postseason at all.
The wagers are on Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving finishing the season with over 27.5 and 26.5 points per game, respectively.
Betting spin: Because the outcomes of teams are subject to a high degree of uncertainty, the best bets for the Nets revolve entirely around the individual performances of each player in each game. Over/under betting odds for Kevin Durant’s scoring average have been set at 27.5 points per game (-115), while those for Kyrie Irving’s are 26.5 points per game (+100 over, -130 under).
Last year, Durant posted a point per game average of 29.9, and he has scored 28.7 points per game overall during his time with the Nets. In a similar vein, Irving has recorded 27.1 PPG while playing for the Nets and 27.4 PPG during the previous season.
Both of them were able to achieve those averages despite sharing the court with another high-volume and high-usage scorer in James Harden for a significant portion of the game. This season, both Durant and Irving have a good chance to increase their previous averages and go over those lines because Simmons is serving as the floor general for the team and he doesn’t need to take many shots.
Stay tuned for additional gambling updates, strategies, and insights throughout the season!
