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David Purdum, ESPN Staff Writer
The NBA season tips off Tuesday with a familiar favorite, a bevy of hyped contenders and a father-son saga with an absurd betting twist.
Here’s what the betting world is watching heading into the season:
Celtics top crowded title odds; belief in the Knicks
For the third consecutive year, the Boston Celtics enter the season as the favorites to win the title and are attracting steady support from bettors. More bets have been placed and more wagered on Boston to win the championship than any other team at most sportsbooks. The Celtics have attracted more than twice as much money than any other team at ESPN BET.
The championship odds, however, suggest there are plenty of quality contenders. Seven teams have title odds of 10-1 or shorter at sportsbooks, the most entering the season since 1999-2000, according to ESPN Research.
The New York Knicks made the biggest splash of the offseason, with the additions of Karl-Anthony Towns and Mikal Bridges, but the roster moves resulted in only small adjustments to their odds. Still, the Knicks’ over/under win total is 53.5, their highest in 30 years, and they have the third-best title odds (+750) behind only the Celtics (+300) and Oklahoma City Thunder (+675), the favorites in the Western Conference.
Teams with NBA 10-1 title odds or shorter (as of Thursday, via ESPN BET)
Celtics +300
Thunder +675
Knicks +750
Denver Nuggets +825
Philadelphia 76ers +825
Dallas Mavericks +1000
Minnesota Timberwolves +1000
Undeniable betting interest on Bronny James
Zach Edey, the Memphis Grizzlies‘ new center, emerged as the consensus favorite to win Rookie of Year after an impressive summer league and preseason. Edey, who opened 10-1 to win the award after the draft, is now the ROY favorite at 3-1 at ESPN BET. But he’s not the most popular pick for bettors.
There have been more bets on the Los Angeles Lakers‘ Bronny James to win Rookie of the Year than any other candidate at multiple sportsbooks. At BetMGM, Bronny, son of all-time great LeBron James, accounts for just over 20% of all bets placed on the book’s odds to win Rookie of the Year. Bronny has attracted seven times more bets to win Rookie of the Year than his dad has drawn to win MVP.
Bronny James is listed around 300-1 in rookie-of-the-year betting markets but can be found as long as 1,000-1 at the Westgate SuperBook in Las Vegas. Jeff Sherman, who oversees NBA odds for the SuperBook, said they had a “six-figure liability” on James winning Rookie of the Year.
“[Lakers coach] JJ Reddick said the other night that he’s going to use a nine-man rotation,” Sherman said. “Bronny isn’t going to be one of them.”
The interest in Bronny James is undeniable, though. Sportsbooks have posted a slew of season-long prop bets on Bronny, including “Will he score 20-plus points in a regular-season game?” at 12-1 at the SuperBook.
“Good handle on that one,” Sherman said.
Luka, Wemby, SGA top MVP odds
Mavericks superstar Luka Doncic is the consensus favorite to win MVP at sportsbooks, but other contenders have drawn more early betting interest. More money has been bet Celtics’ forward Jayson Tatum than any other player ESPN BET’s MVP odds. San Antonio Spurs big man Victor Wembanyama and Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander also garnered early support from bettors in the MVP odds.
Awards favorites (as of Thursday; via ESPN BET)
MVP: Luka Doncic +350
Rookie of the Year: Zach Edey +300
Defensive Player of the Year: Victor Wembanyama -160
Most Improved Player: Victor Wembanyama +750
Sixth Man of the Year: Malik Monk +600
Coach of the Year: Tom Thibodeau
Load management continues to affect betting lines
Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid recently told ESPN’s Tim Bontemps that he would “probably never play back-to-backs” for the rest of his career. For the 2023 MVP, the reasoning is simple.
“I’ve accomplished everything [individually],” Embiid said. “But there’s one thing missing, which is to win a championship.”
For bettors, however, Embiid’s statement complicates future and day-to-day wagering, and not just for Embiid or the 76ers. Many older star players routinely sit out half of a back-to-back set or even a game against an inferior opponent as a means of load management.
“Teams are going to position themselves to be healthy and in the best possible shape to win an NBA championship, at least [teams with] older guys,” DraftKings director of sportsbook operations Johnny Avello told ESPN. “For us on the bookmaking side, we have to be very cognizant of the win totals and everything else that is up for the year.”
Avello says that when load management first became mainstream about a decade ago, the books had difficulty keeping up with news of sudden absences and would frantically make massive swings on the point spread. Now, he says his NBA team is much more aware of the phenomenon and is trying to anticipate superstars taking nights off.
It also has big ramifications on futures, namely win totals and individual awards. This has become especially true in the 65-game-rule era, which dictates that a player must play a minimum of 65 games in order to be eligible for awards or All-NBA teams.
As a result, of the top eight players on ESPN BET’s odds board (not including Embiid), the average age is 25.75 and every contestant is under 30 years old.
“The younger guys who are in the league for the first time and maybe only a couple of years in, they have a different mindset on what they’re trying to accomplish,” Avello said. “The young guys are going to want to play all the time.”
Sherman of the SuperBook says point spreads are typically adjusted 1.5 to 2 points when a game features a team playing the second game of a back-to-back versus a team with at least one day off. The adjustment appears to be accurate. Over the past three years, teams on the second game of a back-to-back are a very even 446-464-16 against the spread.
Odds & Ends
• Wembanyama is 12-1 to record a quadruple double in the regular season and +130 to score 50-plus points in a game at FanDuel.
• The SuperBook reported taking bets from sharp NBA bettors on the following season-win totals:
Atlanta Hawks over 35.5
Knicks under 54.5 and 53.5
76ers under 53.5
Utah Jazz under 30.5
Orlando Magic over 46.5
• Doncic has the highest over/under on individual points per game this season (33.5) of any player listed at ESPN BET. Embiid (31.5), Gilgeous-Alexander (30.5) and Giannis Antetokounmpo (30.5) are only other players listed at more than 30 points.
• In BetMGM’s odds to make or miss playoffs, more money has been bet on the Lakers to miss the postseason than any other team.
• Scoring in the regular season spiked the past two seasons. Games averaged 229.4 points in 2022-23 and 228.4 last season, up from 221.2 in 2021-22. Both are the highest average scores per game since 1990, according to ESPN Research. The betting market has kept up with the increased scoring, though. The average over/under total last season was 228.2, just 0.2 points short of the average total score.
• Scoring typically is lower to start and increases throughout the season. Over the past three seasons, October and November games have averaged 221.6 and 223.0 points respectively. Regular-season games in the other months of the season, December through mid-April, have averaged around 227.5 points.
• The Thunder have the best record against the spread at home over the past three seasons, covering the number in 59.7% of games in Oklahoma City. The Brooklyn Nets have the worst record against the spread at home, covering just 39.3% of games in Brooklyn.
• The Lakers have been involved in more games that went over the total than any other team the past three seasons. The New Orleans Pelicans have been involved in the most unders over the last three season.
• The Nets, at 19.5, have the lowest season-win total in the league. They are the first team to have a win total of less than 20 since the 2014-15 “trust the process” 76ers.
• The team that has attracted the fewest bets to win the NBA title? The Washington Wizards, who are 1,000-1 to win the championship at BetMGM.
ESPN staff writer Doug Greenberg and ESPN researcher Mackenzie Kraemer contributed to this article.