NBA Futures Portfolio 23-24

As soon as the Nuggets were crowned, I started hitting numbers for the following season. Here are the bets thus far!

NBA Title Futures:

Indiana Pacers 500:1 NBA Title (1u)

The Pacers hovered around 5th/6th place in the Eastern Conference last season while Haliburton was healthy. Then he missed a stretch, they lost 10 straight, and the wheels fell off. Now we come back with a healthy team that even added more pieces. Bruce Brown is a proven winner who is going to help them play fast. The young guards in Haliburton/Mathurin/Nembhard are set to take a big leap under Rick Carlisle who is an offensive genius. Offensive wins basketball games in the regular season, and the Pacers are going to be playing so fast and scoring so much, they will rack up wins. At 500:1 odds, this was a bet knowing I can work off of it the other direction come playoff/play in time. The odds for win totals/division/seed were not posted yet when I placed this bet, and I figured the Pacers market would catch up and not give me the opportunity/value when those bets were on the board.

Houston Rockets 500:1 NBA Title (0.5u)

Im very in on the Houston Rockets this season. New coach in Ime Udoka should be a driver of winning basketball culture and defensive toughness. They brought in veteran leaders in FVV and Brooks. Their young talent is absolutely ready to take the next step, especially Jalen Green and Jabari Smith. The role players they added in Jeff Green and Jock Landale are just surefire consistent minutes. But what really sets the alarm bells to buy the Rockets is their pick/tank situation. This team can no longer tank. They dont own their pick/are forced to swap for the next few years! They have absolutely no reason to lose because it likely just gives another team a great pick.

Oklahoma City Thunder 120:1 NBA Title (3u)

I think we all knew the OKC Thunder were going to be the darlings coming into this NBA season. The young core looks ready to compete, the Presti tank process seems complete, and we are likely going into a season where the thunder are full foot on the gas trying to make the playoffs. At 120:1 odds before odds to make playoffs or win totals were posted, i knew this presented massive value. The odds have already dipped to 100:1, and all I really need is for these long shot teams to make the playin to start working the other direction and having profitable wagers.

Memphis Grizzlies 25:1 NBA Title (1u)

This team has a cap situation that does not get talked about enough in NBA discourse. Lets go through it. Ja Morant is locked into a max contract, but it was not bumped up to a supermax because he did not make All NBA last season. In missing this award, and because the looming suspension, Ja’s contract is nearly 50 million less than expected upon signing. This gives the Griz serious wiggle room. Lets bring in the rest... Jaren Jackson Jr is locked into a 4 year max extension, which is DECLINING each season!! So while JJJ has two years left, they are both are 21 mil. Marcus Smart is in the same boat where he is locked into an incredibly team friendly extension from his time with Boston, having 3 more seasons all under 20 mil annually. Lastly, the final member of the memphis core is Desmond Bane who just inked his 5 year/207 million dollar extension. The key word there, extension! Bane will play with a $4 million contract this season and be one of the best values in the NBA.

So what does all of this mean?!

It means the Memphis Grizzlies have wiggle room to add one more max or near max calibur player, and it has to be this season because if they wait, the bane extension kicks in, and then they are over the cap and cant take on salary. But this year they can, and go into futures years with a core in the tax. They have been linked to Siakem, Annunoby, Bridges before the Nets trade. The Griz are going fishing, and if they catch a big fish we dont see 25:1 on this team again for a few years.

Cleveland Cavaliers 25:1 NBA Title (1u)

This team was so frustrating to watch against the Knicks in that 4/5 series last season. The Cavs were basically a top 10 offensive and defensive team all season. Typically teams that carry top 10 in both sides of the ball prove to be very dangerous playoff teams. Im taking that Knicks series as a one off moment where it was bad matchup, poor shooting, and some lack of depth. The additions of Niang and Strus, plus the retention of Levert, should finally give the Cavs the wing depth they needed. I also think Garland and Mobley are actually both better than Donovan Mitchell, so if they take the next step, this team is incredibly dangerous.

NBA Win Totals:

Spurs Under 30.5 Wins (1u)

Read the tea leaves on this one, the Spurs are going into this season with absolutely zero urgency to win. Its a development year in San Antonio. They only played Vic for 2 games of Summer League, and announced he would be on some load management schedule this season. They had tons of cap space, but instead used it to absorb offloading contracts and acquire picks and swaps in future years (see Cam Payne and Reggie Bullock). Pop just signed a 5 year deal, so the winning urgency is incredibly low throughout all the main components of this organization. Give me the under with ease. Also, DK posted this at 30.5 while FD posted the line at 28.5 and juiced it to the under.

Hawks Under 42.5 Wins (1u)

This is a classic line movement and line shopping moment. Nearly every other line for the hawks sat around 41.5 or 40.5, with more juice paid towards the under. Then I found a 42.5 at +money on draftkings, and grabbed it showing clear value in comparison to the rest of the market. I dont have totally formed opinion on the Hawks, we’ll see what Snyder does, if Collins is addition by substraction, if Okongwu and Jalen Johnson take the next step or this is a team around Trae and Dejounte and not much else.

Houston Rockets ov 30.5 Wins (2u)

See above for my Rockets thoughts. This team has absolutely no incentive to lose and nothing can change that this season, so they will compete and culture set for 82 games this year.

Toronto Raptors Un 38.5 Wins (1u)

We see the rumors of Pascal and/or OG being shopped in trade talks. We know the Raptors just lost FVV for nothing, only to replace him with MLE Dennis Shroedder. While this team represents, “We the North” they seem to be going south very quickly. They also lost Nick Nurse this offseason after he spent 10 years with the franchise, and brought in a former Grizzlies young assistant focused on youth development. This win total was absurdly high to start, has since climbed down to 36.5, where it gets tricky but still feels like an under play to me.

NBA Rookie of the Year:
Victor Wembanyama (-165, 2u)
Chet Holmgren (+550 FD 1u)
Scoot Henderson (+350 DK 0.5u)

Building a portfolio here. I have Wemby combined -225 which was a bad bet considering where the odds are now, but i added boosted odds +120 during the draft, so im in for 3.25u risk to win 2u, which correlates to a -165 odds and that ends up being totally fine because the current odds are -200 on DK and -135 on FD.

Now im adding Chet Holmgren and Scoot Henderson. Chet is the dark house candidate here and is the position i want to tilt my odds. He has a few things going for him. For one, hes in the most winnigest situation amongst likely candidates, the other top guys come from Spurs/Portland/Charlotte/Houston/Detroit. Now i know winning is generally irrelevant to NBA ROY, but it is a tie breaker when stats are similar, and the stat projections between wemby and chet are awfully close in like every category. We know he is going to be a focal point of what they do on both ends of the court. We know he has a huge personality and will get tons of narrative love. Chet has a lot going with the one incredibly obvious downside, that hes coming off a year long foot injury as a big man entering year 1 of the 65 games clause for awards races. However, chet will start the year healthy, and we wont see +550 as long as hes playing, so lets grab it now.

Scoot Henderson grab is a small tid bit because of the 65 games clause. Investing heavily in wemby and chet with their bodies in the NBA is risky, so a small bit of it is worth taking the other way. Considering its +320 at FD, and portland likely trading dame soon, i dont think we see +350 anytime again either.

Locked in for ROY. Miss me with everyone else.


Late Adds:
GS Warriors Under 48.5 (0.5u)
76ers Over 47.5 (1u)
Bojan Bogdonovic Un 19.9 Pts (3u)
Lebron James Under 27.5 Pts (1u)
Celtics Mid season Title: 9:1
Phoenix Mid Season Title: 11:1

All discussed on podcasts!