NBA Futures: Best Bets For the Rest of the Season After All-Star Break
Photo by Joe Murphy/NBAE via Getty Images. Pictured: Julius Randle (left), Ja Morant (right), as the Knicks and Grizzlies are two of our best bets for NBA futures after the All-Star break.
The NBA playoff push is upon us, now that the All-Star break is over. Most teams have just over 20 games remaining in their 2022-23 seasons, which means we have a clearer picture of win totals, championship futures and which teams will make the playoffs with every passing day.
And if you have watched Green Dot Daily the last few days, you know that our experts are already delivering post-All Star break NBA futures to get you ready for the NBA's stretch run to the postseason.
Here are our experts' favorite NBA futures bets for the rest of the 2022-23 season after the All-Star break.
NBA Futures: Best Bets For Rest of the Season After the All-Star Break
Toronto Raptors to Make Playoffs (+175)
Pick from Chris Raybon
The Toronto Raptors will likely be vying for a potential playoff berth with the likes of the Miami Heat, Atlanta Hawks, Washington Wizards and Chicago Bulls.
Well, the Raptors have a better net rating than all four teams. Toronto’s players should also be ecstatic to begin the second half after buying, rather than selling, at the trade deadline, as Toronto acquired Jakob Poeltl from San Antonio.
And as Raybon points out, the Raptors have one of the best coaches in the league in Nick Nurse.
We will learn a lot about this Raptors team in the first week of March, as Toronto will face the Bulls at home before traveling to DC to face the Wizards in two consecutive games, in two days, on the road.
At +175, though, you only need the Raptors to make the playoffs roughly 37% of the time just to break even on this bet.
Pick: Raptors to Make the Playoffs |
What is QuickSlip?
QuickSlip is an Action Network feature that allows users to automatically pre-load their bet slip at FanDuel Sportsbook.
Knicks Over 43.5 Wins (-115)
Pick from Chris Raybon
The Knicks started out the season 18-18. Jalen Brunson struggled in those games, averaging approximately 19.8 points per game.
Recently, however, Brunson has feasted, averaging 28.7 points per game in the month of January and 31.9 points per game in February. The Knicks have won 15 of the team’s last 24 games, a 63% winning percentage. The team has been unlucky in overtime as well, losing six of nine games in OT.
Raybon expects the Knicks to finish the season with at least 44 wins.
Pick: Knicks Over 43.5 Wins |
Raybon's fellow expert, Brandon Anderson, also has Knicks to win over 43.5 games as his favorite future.
But since Raybon already took that pick, Anderson has three more NBA futures best bets to give out.
Spurs Under 20.5 Wins
Pick from Brandon Anderson
It is tanking season. The Spurs, Rockets, Hornets, and a flurry of other teams are chasing Victor Wembanyama and, to a lesser extent, Scoot Henderson (for whichever team lands the second overall pick).
The Spurs started the season 5-2. Since then, the team has gone 9-43 (14-45 overall) and ranks 30th in net ranking and 30th on defense. And even then, the Spurs’ nine wins included a three-game winning streak.
As previously mentioned, the team just traded Jakob Poeltl to Toronto. Additionally, the Spurs play at a very fast pace, meaning the Spurs allow their opponents — which are generally far better than San Antonio — to have far more possessions to showcase the disparity in talent between the two teams and ultimately win the game.
San Antonio had lost 14 games in a row entering the All-Star break, and the Spurs need to finish 7-16 to hit this total. The Spurs still play the Houston Rockets twice on consecutive days in early March, and assuming the two teams split, this bet will be in good shape.
This win total can be a little hard to find, as many books have taken it off the board for now given how bad the Spurs have been. We were able to find it still live at a couple of books, the most widely available being BetRivers at the time of this writing.
On that note, one can instead bet the Spurs to finish with the worst record in the NBA at +162; the team is currently a half-game better than the league's worst team, the Rockets.
Grizzlies to Be No. 2 Seed (-150)
Pick from Brandon Anderson
Anderson’s second pick is the Memphis Grizzlies to finish the regular season as the No. 2 seed at -150, implying a 60% chance of the bet hitting.
The Grizzlies have just 25 games left this season. Memphis is six wins behind the Nuggets, the Western Conference’s first seed, and that's a daunting margin for Memphis to make up with Denver having just 23 games remaining.
The Grizzlies have six fewer losses than the Suns and Clippers, the fourth and fifth seeds in the conference. The Kings are in third place in the West and trail Memphis by three games.
So in essence, the Grizzlies have a 12-game margin on either side, minus the Kings, with 25 games left. If Memphis can stave off Sacramento, this bet could be a winner soon.
This bet is most widely available at DraftKings, by navigating to "Conference Seeding" and then "#2 Seed" in the sub-navigation menu.
Oklahoma City Thunder to Make Play-In Game (+240)
Pick from Brandon Anderson
The Oklahoma City Thunder are 28-29 and have been far better than anyone anticipated this season. The Jazz, meanwhile, are in a similar position in outperforming preseason expectations, as the team trails OKC in the standings by a half-game.
The books, however, give the Jazz +150 odds to make the play-in game compared to the Thunder’s odds of +240. Many think the Thunder are tanking, but Anderson is adamant that ship has sailed, as the Thunder are .500 with 20 games left in the season.
OKC still has to play Utah four times this season. If these games happened earlier in the year, when the Jazz were far hotter, the Thunder would be in trouble. Instead, the team plays each other in three of their next seven games — matchups the Thunder will enter having ranked third in net rating over the team's last 15 games.
This bet is available fairly widely, with DraftKings having the best odds at +240 at the time of this writing.
If you're a FanDuel bettor, you can click on the QuickSlip below to have the bet automatically added to your bet slip instantly at FanDuel. Although, we should note the Thunder are +195 to make the play-in at FanDuel Sportsbook.
Pick: Thunder to Make the Play-In |
Los Angeles Clippers Futures
Commentary from Matt Moore and Evan Abrams
Without any NBA games being played over the last few days, the NBA media has been relegated to discussing the impact of Russell Westbrook's signing with the Clippers. Oddsmakers have answered the question for us: LA's odds of winning the title prior to Westbrook's signing were +900 and remain the same.
The Clippers rank 24th in pace and 22nd in fast break points within the NBA. Evan Abrams, Action Network's Director of Research, believes Westbrook will receive too much playing time, per his negotiations with the Clippers, and will command the ball too much in the half-court, which negates the positives he brings running the fast break.
While Abrams does not have a lean on the Clippers title odds or win total, he believes LA's first half spreads may be inflated going forward. As such, Abrams does not mind fading the Clippers in the first half in future contests as the team is 23-38 against the spread in the first half this season, second worst in the NBA, and 61-82 over the last two seasons.
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