Article courtesy OddsShark (@OddsShark)
LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers won 52 of their 71 regular-season games last year en route to an NBA championship. And oddsmakers at sportsbooks monitored by OddsShark.com like their chances of attaining that level of success again this season, making them -125 favorites to go OVER 47.5 wins on the NBA win totals for the 72-game campaign.
The Lakers have one of the highest win totals on the board at sportsbooks, after their 52-win campaign a year ago ranked them third in the entire league behind the Milwaukee Bucks (56 wins) and Toronto Raptors (53 wins). Those were the only three teams to surpass 50 wins.
And the Bucks are the only team at online betting sites to have a posted win total over 50 for the upcoming campaign, with Giannis Antetokounmpo and company listed at 51 wins with the OVER at +120 and the UNDER at -160. But while the Bucks posted a strong winning percentage of .767 last year, that failed to make a difference in another early playoff ouster.
The Raptors, meanwhile, have a win total OVER/UNDER of just 42.5 for the season ahead after they lost veterans Serge Ibaka and Marc Gasol as free agents, with the OVER at -165 and the UNDER at +125. That has them down the pecking order in the Eastern Conference, behind the Bucks plus the Celtics, Nets, Heat, and Sixers as well. Boston and Brooklyn have listed win totals of 45.5, with Miami and Philadelphia getting an OVER/UNDER of 44.5
Back in the Western Conference, the Lakers’ closest competitor on the win totals list are the Los Angeles Clippers, who sit with an OVER/UNDER of 46.5 on those NBA odds. The Clippers were fourth in the NBA with 49 victories during the regular season last year. The Clippers’ win total of 46.5 has -120 odds for the OVER with -110 odds set for the UNDER.
Other Western teams with win totals over 40 for the upcoming campaign include the Nuggets (44.5), Mavericks (42.5), Jazz (41.5), and Trail Blazers (40.5). And with the uncertainty surrounding star player James Harden the Houston Rockets’ win total is listed at just 33.5.
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