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The NBA preseason is in full swing and the regular season is rapidly approaching, so bettors can expect to find more and more futures markets appearing every day at their favorite sportsbooks.
One of the most absurd is the DraftKings “Team Specials”, which are seemingly designed in a predatory way for fans to bet on high-ceiling parlays for their favorite team. However, there are a few gems mixed in with what is otherwise a very meh market. Last season, I gave out Tyrese Haliburton to average 20 points, five rebounds and 10 assists per game at +2800. He ended up clearing the first and last, but finished at 3.7 rebounds per game. It didn't cash, but it was an incredibly fun long-shot future to follow throughout the season.
This season, I once again sifted through the 100+ offerings and found three (and a half) bets I like.
Trae Young to average 28+ points per game and Atlanta to win the Southwest Division (+950)
I love so many different parts of this bet. For one, I'm high on the Hawks and low on the Heat. Quin Snyder has had a full offseason to dive into this roster, and moving John Collins feels a lot like addition by subtraction. I’m hoping Snyder sees the value in Onyeka Okongwu and really unlocks the fourth-year forward's potential. The Hawks also get a full season of Saddiq Bey, who was excellent after coming over at the trade deadline, and A.J. Griffin is going to be a popular breakout pick this year.
Compare this to the Heat, who had a flop of an offseason in which they basically held steady waiting for Damian Lillard and were then left stranded. Miami was among the leaders in games lost to injury last season, but the majority of those games were to depth pieces. Those types of injuries can hurt, especially when stacked up, but expecting a massive bump up in regular season win total seems naive.
As for Young, last year was a poor shooting season for the fifth-year guard. His field goal percentage on 2s dropped from 51.2% in 2021-22 to 47.6% in 2022-23. His 3-point shooting dropped from 38.2% to 33.5%. Young has reached this 28+ points per game total in two of his five seasons in the league (and two of four not counting his rookie season).
These plays are also obviously correlated. If Snyder is able to unlock Young for even just an extra point (he has averaged 27.4 points per game after his rookie season), it’s going to be good news for the Hawks. It’s also the type of bet that can be hedged if the Hawks and Heat and running close toward the end of the season with Young tracking to clear 28.0 points per game.
I mentioned in the intro that I had three-and-a-half plays. Well, here is the half play:
Trae Young to lead the league in scoring and the Hawks to win the Southwest (+18000)
These two are even more obviously correlated, as a Young scoring title is going to mean that Snyder has really unlocked this offense. This will just be a tiny sprinkle, but I still like the number. One thing that typically hurts these parlays is the inability to shop around for the individual parts, but DraftKings has the second-best price in the market on Hawks division, so it doesn’t hurt as much here.
Paolo Banchero to average 23+ points per game and the Magic to win 40+ games (+600)
DraftKings has the Magic to win 40+ games at +160 on its own (38.5%), so if these plays were independent of each other, you'd need to think Banchero has a 37% chance to score 23+ points per game. That’s a bit high, but clearly these plays are quite correlated.
Most projection systems have Banchero at around 21.5 points per game, but I think that’s a bit low. The Magic didn’t add any high usage players to the roster, and with 42.7/29.8/73.8 shooting splits, there is a ton of room for improvement for Banchero.
The player we talked about in the first segment, Trae Young, averaged a similar 19.1 points per game in his rookie season on 41.8/32.4/82.9 shooting splits. In his second season, he jumped to 29.6 points per game. That’s an especially impressive case, but he’s not alone in that jump.
Of the 15 rookies this century to average at least 18.0 ppg in their rookie season, eight saw their points per game jump by over 3.0 in their second season. That’s not a perfect proxy, but it does show that guys who put up impressive ppg totals in their rookie season can often find another level.
Anthony Edwards to lead the league in scoring and Minnesota to make the playoffs (+10000)
Here’s our long shot, and we can keep this short. This is basically a free roll on Edwards to lead the league in scoring. The best number you can get on Edwards to lead the league in scoring is 50:1, so getting 100:1 here is great value.
There is the possibility that Edward's scoring would make the biggest leap in an injury-heavy season for the Wolves, but if he’s at the point that he’s scoring 32 or so a game, it’s hard to imagine Minnesota not being at least in the play-in, where bettors would get a nice hedge opportunity.
It'll take a big leap for Edwards to lead the league in scoring as he averaged “just” 24.6 points per game last season, but the path isn’t impossible. He actually took fewer 3s last season, so if he can reverse course and get up to around 10 triples a game, that gets him into the 27 ppg range.
Additionall, he's seen his field goal percentage rise each season and another increase could get him to around 28.5 ppg. But arguably the biggest area for growth is getting to the line. He only got to the line 5.3 times per game last season, but his attempts per game have risen every season. If he learns to draw more contact, he could easily get into the eight FTA per game range, and get to over 30 ppg.
At 100:1, this is a fun long shot with decent value.
