Value Teams on the NBA Future Betting Board

There’s been plenty of excitement for NBA fans over the past few weeks with the annual draft of college players followed by the start of the free agent signing season. The result has been a flurry of player movement that in many ways has completely transformed the balance of power in the NBA. The Los Angeles Lakers have been the NBA futures odds favorite for awhile now but they’re now down to a +175 choice following the acquisition of power forward Anthony Davis. There’s now considerable speculation that they could add reigning NBA Finals MVP Kawhi Leonard to the team which would further solidify their status as betting favorites.

The Lakers will no doubt be a formidable side in any case and particularly if Kawhi Leonard ends up in the purple and gold. But what if things *don’t* work out as planned? There’s plenty of things that can go wrong here that could completely change the dynamic of the Western Conference and make the Lakers significantly less competitive. There’s also the simple reality that it takes even the best players time to ‘gel’ and get comfortable playing together. This was evident in LeBron James’ previous free agent moves in Miami and in Cleveland (the second time around). With a complete roster overhaul from 2018-2019 it could happen all over again.

Once you get past the Lakers, the NBA futures market is wide open. The Milwaukee Bucks are a tentative second choice (+800) right ahead of the Philadelphia 76ers (+900). Every other team in the NBA is priced at +1000 or higher. So let’s look down the betting board and find a couple of value positions:

UTAH JAZZ

The Jazz are loaded and yet they’re getting completely overlooked amid the hoopla over LeBron James and his new Lakers playmates. Utah already had Donovan Mitchell and the league’s best defensive player Rudy Gobert. They’ve added veteran pointguard Mike Conley, Jr. from Memphis along with Bojan Bogdanovic, Jeff Green, Emmanuel Mudiay and Ed Davis. Conley is a legit top line pointguard who can facilitate and score and the other additions make the Jazz a deeper and more dangerous team. They might not have any ‘household names’ like LeBron or Kawhi but they have a versatile team that can play nasty defense. In a Western Conference that lacks a proven dominating team they could have a stellar year and their +1800 price is extremely attractive.

PORTLAND TRAILBLAZERS

Lest we forget, the Blazers reached the Western Conference Finals this season. They lost a few components of that team including Enes Kanter and Seth Curry but they signed Damian Lillard to a huge contract extension. Rodney Hood will return and they could have picked up the steal of the draft when rugged Nassir Little dropped to #25. They also added Hassan Whiteside from the Miami Heat–he was Miami’s leading rebounder last year and makes a tough rebounding Portland team (#3 in the NBA last year) even stronger on the boards. Portland has also received some good news about Jusuf Nurkic. Nurkic went down with a gruesome ankle injury late last season and there was concern that he’d miss the entire 2019-2020 season. There’s still not a timetable for his return but the consensus is that his recovery is ahead of schedule. At worst, this Blazers team will be just as good as the one that made the Western Conference Finals last year. Best case scenario, they could get Nurkic back early and there’s been trade talk that they could acquire veteran power forward Kevin Love. And yet they’ve dropped to +3300 in the NBA futures odds? They’re a steal at that price.

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