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David Purdum, ESPN staff essayist
The NBA season begins Tuesday with a usual favorite, a group of hyped contenders and a father-son saga with an absurd betting twist.
This is what the betting world expects heading into the season:
Celtics lead ID odds; confidence within the Knicks
For 0.33 consecutive years, the Boston Celtics enter the season as favorites to win the title and are attracting solid support from bettors. More bets were placed and bets were placed on Boston winning the championship than any other group at most sportsbooks. The Celtics have attracted more than twice as much money as any other team on ESPN BET.
The championship odds, on the other hand, suggest there are a host of contenders in the running. Seven teams have identified odds of 10-1 or less at sportsbooks, the most in a season since 1999-2000, according to ESPN Research.
The intact York Knicks made the biggest splash of the offseason, with the additions of Karl-Anthony Cities and Mikal Bridges, but the roster moves resulted in small changes to their odds. Still, the Knicks’ over/under win total is 53.5, the highest in 30 years, and they have the third-best title odds (+750) behind the Celtics (+300) and Oklahoma Town Thunder (+675), the favorites within the Western Convention.
Teams at 10-1 NBA identify odds or less (as of Thursday, via ESPN BET)
Celts +300
Thunder +675
Knicks +750
Denver Nuggets +825
Philadelphia 76ers +825
Dallas Mavericks +1000
Minnesota Wolves +1000
Simple betting game on Bronny James
Memphis Grizzlies’ impeccable center Zach Edey emerged as the consensus favorite to win Rookie of the Month after an outstanding summer and preseason league. Edey, who opened 10-1 to win the award later in the draft, is now the ROY favorite at 3-1 on ESPN BET. But it is no longer necessarily the most common choice for bettors.
There were more bets on Bronny James of the Los Angeles Lakers to win Rookie of the Month than any alternative candidate at a couple of sportsbooks. At BetMGM, Bronny, son of all-time great LeBron James, accounts for just over 20% of all bets placed on odds to win Rookie of the Month. Bronny has attracted seven times more bets to win Rookie of the Month than his father had interested in winning MVP.
Bronny James is indexed around 300-1 in rookie of the year betting markets, but can also be found as high 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” if James won Rookie of the Month.
“[Lakers coach] “JJ Reddick said the other night that he would use a nine-man rotation,” Sherman said. “Bronny won’t be one of them.”
The hobby in Bronny James is clear, however. Sportsbooks have posted a slew of season-long prop bets on Bronny, including “Will he score more than 20 points in a regular-season game?” at 12-1 in the SuperBook.
“Nice handle on that,” Sherman said.
Luka, Wemby and SGA lead MVP odds
Mavericks superstar Luka Doncic is the consensus favorite to win the MVP with the sportsbooks, but other contenders have come out earlier with a betting hobby. More money has been bet on Celtics forward Jayson Tatum than any other participant in ESPN BET’s MVP odds. San Antonio Spurs heavyweight Victor Wembanyama and Oklahoma Town’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander also earned early support from oddsmakers within the MVP odds.
Awards Favorites (as of Thursday; via ESPN BET)
Most Valuable Player: Luka Doncic +350
Rookie of the month: Zach Edey +300
Defensive Participant of the Month: Victor Wembanyama -160
Maximum advanced participant: Victor Wembanyama +750
Sixth boy of the month: Monk Malik +600
Educator of the month: Tom Thibodeau
Load control continues to influence betting tension
Philadelphia 76ers shortstop Joel Embiid recently told ESPN’s Tim Bontemps that he would “probably never play back-to-backs” for the remainder of his career. For the 2023 MVP, the reasoning is modest.
“I have achieved everything [individually]”said Embiid. “But one thing is missing, which is winning a championship.”
For bettors, on the other hand, Embiid’s observation complicates betting hourly and day by day, and not just for Embiid or the 76ers. Many famous players used automatic sitting for part of a consecutive tournament or even a tournament against an inferior opponent as a load control method.
“Teams are going to position themselves to be healthy and in the best shape possible to win an NBA championship, at least [teams with] older guys,” DraftKings director of sports betting operations Johnny Avello told ESPN. “For us on the betting side, we have to be very aware of the win totals and everything else that’s going on to the year.”
Avello says that after load control became commonplace a few decades ago, books had trouble keeping up with unexpected absence information and were frantically generating huge changes at the distribution level. Now, he says his NBA team is much more aware of the phenomenon and is trying to wait for superstars to take the nights off.
It also has strong ramifications down the road, especially on win totals and individual awards. This has become very true at the time of the 65-game rule, which dictates that a player must play at least 65 games in order to be eligible for All-NBA awards or teams.
Because of this, of the top eight players on the ESPN BET odds board (not including Embiid), the average generation is 25.75 and each contestant has less than 30 years of use.
“The younger guys who are in the league for the first time and maybe after a couple of years, they have a different mentality about what they’re trying to accomplish,” Avello said. “Young people will want to play all the time.”
SuperBook’s Sherman says tier spreads are typically adjusted between 1.5 and 2 points when a tournament includes a team participating in its second consecutive tournament rather than a team at least one age younger. The fit seems correct. For one hour of three years, the teams in the second consecutive tournament are very even 446-464-16 in the distribution.
Odds and ends
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• Wembanyama is 12-1 for a quadruple-double in the regular season and +130 for 50+ tournament points on FanDuel.
• The SuperBook reported accepting bets from prominent NBA bettors on the season’s win totals:
Atlanta Hawks over 35.5
Knicks below 54.5 and 53.5
76ers below 53.5
Utah Jazz under 30.5
Orlando Witchcraft about 46.5
• Doncic has the highest individual tournament over/under this season (33.5) of any player indexed on ESPN BET. Embiid (31.5), Gilgeous-Alexander (30.5) and Giannis Antetokounmpo (30.5) are the only alternate players indexed in more than 30 numbers.
• In BetMGM’s make or miss playoff odds, more money has been bet on the Lakers making the postseason than any other group.
• Regular season scoring increased every hour for two seasons. Games averaged 229.4 points in 2022-23 and 228.4 in the final season, up from 221.2 in 2021-22. Both are the highest moderate ratings for the tournament since 1990, according to ESPN Analysis. However, the betting market has remained with a higher score. The average over/under for the season’s overall high was 228.2, just 0.2 points off the average overall score.
• Scoring typically starts and will increase throughout the season. Throughout the three seasons, October and November video games have averaged 221.6 and 223.0 broadcasts respectively. Regular season games in the other months of the season, December through mid-April, have averaged about 227.5 numbers.
• The Thunder have the most productive record when it comes to home development over the past three seasons, topping the number in 59.7% of games at Oklahoma Town. The Brooklyn Nets have the worst home spread record, covering only 39.3% of games in Brooklyn.
• The Lakers focused on more games that took place over three seasons than any other team. The Untouched Orleans Pelicans focused on the most unders over the past three seasons.
• The Nets, with 19.5, have the last season win total in the league. They are the first team to have an overall win of less than 20 since the 2014-15 “trust the process” 76ers.
• The team that has attracted the least 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.
