The 2022-23 season is quickly approaching, and our betting experts have got you covered. Over the next two weeks, we look at how to approach some of the top teams in league and give out some futures best bets ahead of tipoff.
NBA senior writer Andre Snellings breaks down the Brooklyn Nets and their star players as options to bet this season.
Here is the best case, worst case and betting analysis for this year's Nets team.
NBA betting preview schedule
Thursday: The case for the Boston Celtics and Golden State Warriors
Today: The case for the Brooklyn Nets and Milwaukee Bucks
Monday: The case for the Philadelphia 76ers and Los Angeles Lakers
Tuesday: Who to bet for MVP
Wednesday: Betting win totals and awards
Oct. 17: Social media and betting
Oct. 18: NBA title odds and favorites
Best case: The Nets have been among the betting favorites in each of the two seasons leading up to this one, and this season they still have the fifth-lowest odds to win the title at +800. Their best case scenario is that they actually win the chip. Kevin Durant is a former MVP, and both Kyrie Irving and Ben Simmons have been All-NBA performers in their careers. In the 2020-21 season, the last time that both Simmons and Irving played the majority of the season for their respective teams, Simmons helped anchor the 76ers to the No. 2 defensive rating in the NBA, while Irving and Durant led the Nets to the No. 1 offensive rating. If the team meshes and stays healthy, it'll have the potential to repeat as the top offense with a much more competitive defense than it's fielded during the Durant/Irving era.
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Worst case: This is unfortunately easy to imagine. After missing his entire first season with the Nets while recovering from a torn Achilles tendon, Kevin Durant went on to miss 64 games of the 154 Nets games over the next two seasons. During that same three-season span, Irving has missed 133 of the Nets' 226 games for various reasons, including 53 games missed last season alone due to off-court decisions. And Simmons sat out all 82 games last season, first due to mental health concerns and an acrimonious relationship with the 76ers, and later due to a back injury with the Nets. The worst-case scenario, for the Nets, is for their star players to continue missing large chunks of time and for the team, that was in the play-in game last season, to miss the postseason entirely.
The bets: Kevin Durant over 27.5 PPG, Kyrie Irving over 26.5 PPG for season
Betting spin: Because of the high degree of uncertainty in team outcomes, the best bets for the Nets all revolve around individual per-game performances. Kevin Durant's scoring average over/under is set at 27.5 PPG (-115), while Kyrie Irving's is set at 26.5 PPG (+100 over, -130 under). Durant averaged 29.9 PPG last season, and has averaged 28.7 PPG during his entire Nets tenure. Similarly, Irving has averaged 27.1 PPG for the Nets and 27.4 PPG last season. Both achieved those averages while playing quite a bit of minutes next to another high-volume/high-usage scorer in James Harden. This season, with Simmons as the floor general who doesn't need many shots, both Durant and Irving have a good chance to increase their previous averages and go over those lines.