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The NBA playoffs are moving closer to the start of the second round. Seven of the eight first-round series are now over. As mentioned in our previous NBA futures article, the Lakers chalk was a bad play. Thursday night, the Lakers and Trail Blazers joined the other five teams already eliminated from the playoffs, leaving only the loser of the Clippers/Mavericks series to round out the teams bounced in the first round.
With half as many teams and one of the biggest favorites off the board, the odds on every remaining team have dropped. The question now becomes, do any of them still offer value?
Can the 76ers win without Joel Embiid?
The good news here is that we have seen a large enough sample of the 76ers without Embiid this year. The bad news is the results are not positive. With Embiid on the floor, the 76ers went 39-12, scoring an average of 115.4 points per game and giving up only 107.4. Without Embiid, the 76ers were 10-11, scoring 109.3 points per game and giving up 109.6. So how important is Embiid? The 76ers had a point differential of +8 points with him playing and -0.3 without him. Without Embiid they are a .500 team with a negative point differential. In comparison, Atlanta’s point differential is +2.31, Brooklyn is +4.5, and Milwaukee was +5.88 on the season. This means if Embiid doesn’t play, the 76ers should be a pick ‘em on their home floor and an underdog of 4 to 5 points when at Atlanta in this series. The Hawks are currently +1200 to win the East and should be favored in this series if Embiid is not healthy. Can the Hawks beat the Nets or the Bucks? Probably not, but I will guarantee you will not get a +1200 price on them after this round, so the time to make that play is now.
Can the Brooklyn Nets win the Eastern Conference?
Books and bettors seem to think they will. The Nets are currently -160 on Tipico Sportsbook to win the East. That gives them a 61% chance. The second-shortest price is the Bucks at +220, which gives them implied odds of 31% to win the conference. In the overall scheme of things, both of those numbers are too short to bet on. What they do tell us though is that whoever wins that series should be the team to come out of the Eastern Conference. If you want to bet on either of them, it makes more sense to pull the trigger on the conference winner price rather than bet a series price here. You can lay -200 or worse to get the Nets in this series, but that -160 number at Tipico for the conference is the better value. The Same can be said of the Bucks. It makes more sense to just take the +220 for the conference over the +150 or +160 you can get for the series.
Who will win the NBA Western Conference Championship?
Before the first round started, I mentioned that I liked the Nets to win the East, but I wanted to bet against the Lakers. You can read why in the first NBA futures article linked above. The gist of the argument is that the Lakers were about to fall into the 7 spot, which meant a play-in game followed by a gauntlet of the No. 2 Suns, No. 3 Nuggets and then either the No. 4 Clippers, No. 5 Mavericks or No. 1 Jazz just to get to the championship. Once there they would have to knock off one of the Nets, Bucks or 76ers to win it. That is a daunting task for a team that had its best player out with injury until a week before the play-in game and a second-best player carrying a long list of injuries. Even at full strength, it was not a slam dunk, but as mentioned without either of those guys it would be nearly impossible. The fact the Lakers were +300 at that time meant every other team in the West was underpriced. Now that the Lakers are out, the value has really dropped on those that remain. This is true of their price to win the whole championship and also the price to win the West. The time to get that value was before the +300 favorite was knocked out. The Jazz went from +700 down to +280 to win the championship. With Mike Conley going down, I’m not a huge fan of playing that number. The Suns number was one we liked last time out and now after knocking off the defending champs it’s a little too low at +650. The Clippers are up to +950, but they also have their back to the wall down 3-2 to even survive round one. If you think the Mavs can finish the job Friday, they are somewhere in the +3000 range. I have a hard time thinking they can knock off the Clippers, Jazz, Suns/Nuggets and Nets/Bucks to get it done though. If I was going to make any bet here, it would be the Nuggets at +1500. I do not see the Suns and Jazz as that much better than Denver. I do think the Suns deserve to be favored in that series though and any Nuggets bet would be a small wager, not a back-up-the-truck one. I will stick with the original premise here that the time to bet a Western Conference team has come and gone. At this point, the value is sapped.
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