Taking a look at the upcoming Basketball Betting season is hard to do without sifting through the incredibly active off-season we’ve seen so far. Forget about the draft, the stories have been the big players changing teams and those who haven’t. Let’s hit on some of the highlights and see how it may affect your gambling plan for the upcoming season.
The Celtics: Injuries doomed what could’ve been – a Lakers/Celts rematch and possible repeat as champs. So has the window closed on a healthy Celtics team? No, but the competition is certainly stiffer this year. A healthy Rondo and Garnett should catapult them back to the East’s best record. If last year’s postseason showed us one thing it’s that Perkins and Davis, who are playing with bolstered confidence, are star big men in the making – at least against an undersized team like Chicago. I’d comfortably bet them taking up one of the Eastern Conference finals spots this year – they’re ridiculously talented, still relatively young and hungry to prove they’re still the best.
What about the rest of the east, though? Detroit made a big splash with Ben Gordon, but with Hamilton and Prince already on the roster, I’m not sure what this team needed was another undisciplined shooter who isn’t known for his defense. And who’s at center here, Kwame Brown? Detroit may find by the all-star break they put all their free-agent eggs in the wrong basket. They might squeak through to the second round, but this team has no chance up against Orlando, Boston or Cleveland.
How about my Bulls? Gordon’s out, but there’s still incoming talent between Jannero Pargo and a healthy Luol Deng (if there is such a thing). Where’s Boozer? That’s the big question. Odds are it was a huge tease that’ll never materialize and the Bulls will be again left without a formidable paint presence and another first-round exit. The NBA Odds suggest you bet on 45-47 wins, and more nail-biters than Chicago has the heart to handle.
The heavy hitters in the NBA odds camp this year are Cleveland and Orlando, who each napped a big name, even if the guys are old now. Shaq joins LeBron and Vince joins Dwight. It can be argued Orlando lost more than they gained, as well. Orlando couldn’t stand with the Lakers last year, and I don’t see that changing this year, either. I also think they’d fall in an early round matchup to Boston, so they better hope it’s not until the conference finals that those teams meet. Cleveland was so great last year you just knew they were going to fall flat at some point. Is LeBron the postseason driving force that Jordan was? Still too early to tell, but a man on his last leg in Shaq isn’t going to push them over the hump. They need LeBron and Mo Williams to do what they did last year and clamp down on the defensive end. Another year of experience will prove to be more valuable than Shaq. Bet on these guys coming out of the East this year. The NBA finally gets their biggest star on the biggest stage.
How about out West? No point in really even talking about anyone but the Lakers. Odom/Kobe/Artest is more of an all-around offensive threat than Jordan/Pippen/Rodman was, and almost as interesting a defensive trio. Wouldn’t that have been a great three-on-three matchup? We can talk about that, because there’s no contenders in the current Western Conference that pose any realistic threat to the champs. And there really isn’t in the East, either. Bet on the Lakers repeating. And if Kobe does it over Shaq, there might even be another rap song in our future. One can hope.