Since bball-ref started tracking sports betting odds in 1988, roughly 28% of the time the betting underdog in the NBA finals has won the series.
These underdogs:
2019 Toronto Raptors (+230) vs Golden State Warriors
2016 Cleveland Cavaliers (+180) vs Golden State Warriors
2012 Miami Heat (+155) vs Oklahoma City Thunder
2011 Dallas Mavericks (+155) vs Miami Heat
2008 Boston Celtics (+160) vs Los Angeles Lakers
2006 Miami Heat (+130) vs Dallas Mavericks
2004 Detroit Pistons (+500) vs Los Angeles Lakers
1995 Houston Rockets (+130) vs Orlando Magic
1989 Detroit Pistons (+100) vs Los Angeles Lakers
Just found it interesting, 28% seems larger than I would have guess. About one out of every four champion is an underdog, even if the term "underdog" is used loosely (i.e. the 2012 Heat being "underdogs" vs an inexperienced Thunder team).
New the sport betting, how many days do u bet before nba final game?
Hello, in 3 days the warriors are playing against the raptors. And we can already bet. Is there a better time to place your bet? im very new to this and i cant seem to find food source to that help beginner.. thanks
NBA Breaks New Ground as "NBA Last 90" Set to Drop Next Season - Virtual Sports betting Game That "will put players into the final 90 seconds of a simulated game between two teams"
Used to bet sports every day, I’ve been watching the NBA Finals just fine.
Is it just me or do you all feel the weight off your shoulders and the pressure and anxiety of betting on sports. It’s so nice to just watch a game for the beauty of it rather than constantly checking my bookies lines between timeouts and having my head buried in the phone during the game. It’s just very nice to not have that worry or pressure anymore.
Offseason Blueprint: the Los Angeles Lakers may win the title tonight, but their ambition won't end there
The NBA season is nearly over: be it 1, 2, or 3 more games left. With the offseason looming around the corner, we've been looking ahead with our OFFSEASON BLUEPRINT series. In each entry, we preview some big decisions and make some recommendations for plans of attack along the way. Like the NBA, we've officially come to the end of the road and to our final team, the Los Angeles Lakers. step one: know it will never be All Quiet on the Western Front The Los Angeles Lakers have plenty of fans, but also plenty of people who enjoy watching them struggle (some even run their own sports websites.) It feels like they've been a punching bag for almost a decade now. Even when the team landed a coup and signed LeBron James, there were plenty of skeptics and haters picking at the roster and fanning the flames of front office tension. Even when the team followed that up with a trade for Anthony Davis, there were STILL doubters and haters camped at the gates. At the end of the day, LeBron James and company only had one way to shut them up: win. Now, no one can criticize them anymore. Whatever they did to get here -- it worked. LeBron James deserves a huge amount of credit for this presumptive title (no offense, Miami) but there's plenty to go around. Anthony Davis reminded the world that he's a friggin' beast. Frank Vogel did a great job getting the defense to play on a string, especially on the perimeter. The maligned bench with Rajon Rondo, Markieff Morris, and Kyle Kuzma even stepped up in a major way on the road to the Finals. While the team may be drenched with champagne by the time you read this, they still won't be satisfied. LeBron James went back to Cleveland to win a title. He didn't go to L.A. and recruit Anthony Davis to win a title. He wants to win multiple titles. He may get his 4th ring after this year, which means he'll only be 2 away from catching Michael Jordan. If he can do that, then there won't be any doubt about his GOAT status. And honestly, it's possible. James still looks like a top 5 player (if not 1 overall), and Anthony Davis is in the heart of his prime. With a decent supporting cast around them, they're going to be in title contention for the next two or three years. However, the Lakers can't get complacent. They deserved this title, but they didn't exactly beat Murderers' Row to get here. In fact, their playoff opponents had the weakest seed value and weakest W-L percentage of any title team since 2000. Next season may be tougher sledding. The L.A. Clippers could be a real threat with better coaching and better rotations. The Milwaukee Bucks could be a real threat with better health. Health permitting, the Brooklyn Nets have the star power and the depth to be a force themselves. It's going to be a dogfight next season. The Lakers still may be the top dogs in that fight, but they're going to have to scrape and claw to get that bone again. step two: convince your free agents that It's a Wonderful Life LeBron James is a champion for player empowerment, but that concept is going to put his L.A. Lakers in a precarious position this offseason. Some decisions with be out of their hands. The team has an inordinate amount of player options for next season, with 5 separate players having the right to opt "in" or "out" of their contracts. Let's take a look at each of those one individually. The most important, of course, will be Anthony Davis. He has the choice whether to opt in to his $28.7M salary. It's weird to say, but $28.7M is a bargain. Davis is a 27-year-old superstar. He deserves the new max and then some. From the Lakers' perspective, the only question will be timing the extension in the best interest of Davis and the team as a whole. If they wait until next offseason to give him a full max, they may have some more wiggle room in salary to bring in extra free agents (in Offseason 2021, not Offseason 2020.) Perhaps they can convince AD to wait until then to accrue more years. At the same time, uncertainty isn't their friend. If the Lakers disappoint next season and LeBron James hits a wall (unlikely, but theoretically possible) then perhaps Davis doesn't want to stay tethered to this older roster for the long haul. Perhaps his relationship with James -- great now -- bleeds into resentment over time. Who the heck knows. Superstar pairings don't always end with "happily ever after." Even that remote concern would make me push for a max extension for AD ASAP. The second most important player option will be Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. When the Lakers first signed them, it raised some eyebrows and potential tampering conspiracy theories. These days, his $8.5M player option looks like a good value. KCP shot well this year and played hard on defense. Effectively, he looked like the player that Danny Green was supposed to be. Your hope here is that the Lakers have built enough goodwill with KCP and his representatives to make this a friendly negotiation. Whether that means he opts in, or whether that means he signs a long-term deal, it's a relationship that needs to continue. step three: but convince others to ride off like Shane Conversely, there are a few player options that the team may try to talk players out of taking. Avery Bradley missed the bubble for personal reasons, but the Lakers' backcourt did just fine without him. At this stage in their careers, Alex Caruso is probably better at the 3+D guard role. Still, it's going to be up to Bradley whether to return or not. He can opt in to his $5.0M player option. The value is OK in the broadest sense, but perhaps the Lakers are rooting for him to test the market elsewhere. The Lakers should take a hard line here and not offer him extra years; if Bradley leaves to chase a long-term deal, so be it. If he opts in, he may be used as a potential trade chip. Meanwhile, JaVale McGee has a $4.2M player option himself. McGee started 68/68 games in the regular season, but he didn't always look like their best option in the playoffs. As he ages (now 32), he'll continue to struggle with certain matchups. I don't think McGee can match that $4M anywhere else, so trying to convince him to opt out may be a losing proposition. Again, if McGee opts in, then the Lakers need to consider utilizing his salary as a potential trade piece. Some of those decisions -- whether they want to keep Avery Bradley and JaVale McGee -- may hinge on some other free agents on the team. Backup PG Rajon Rondo has his own player option of $2.7M. All season long, I'd been talking about Rondo as a potential liability for the team. Instead, he justified some of that "Playoff Rondo" talk. Between Rondo and Caruso, you'd prefer Caruso getting extended minutes. Between Rondo and Bradley, it's more of a debate. Rondo deserves more than $2.7M, so I expect him to opt out. Presumably, he appreciates the role and limelight here in L.A. and wouldn't play hardball. If he's amenable to a short-term, reasonable deal, then you'd want to keep him in house. If his playoff hype spirals into outsized offers (anything over $6M or so) then you should thank him for his service and wish him well. The Lakers should treat backup C Dwight Howard (an unrestricted free agent) in a similar way. Now 34, he's become a role player. Moreover, his role -- as the more traditional center -- is no longer a valuable one either. Still, he's pretty good at that role -- arguably better than JaVale McGee. The team shouldn't over-invest in this one-two punch though. If Howard wants to re-sign for a bargain basement deal, great. If he expects a mid-sized contract or an extra year, then he may be on the move again. For both Rondo and Howard, I'd stand firm on 1 year deals. However, the team can potentially add in "team option" years on top of that. The purpose would be less to entice them into staying and more to make them potential trade chips (in terms of salary matching) later on down the road. The Lakers will have more free agents to discuss. Markieff Morris is an interesting one; he looked like a shell of himself after some injuries, but he showed signs of life in the postseason. If that's legit, then he could potentially be a good rotational player for the team (when they go "small" with AD at the 5.) The verdict from team doctors will be crucial to determining his value. Alternatively, vets like J.R. Smith and Dion Waiters don't appear to have any value at all. Fortunately, they don't have player options either. step four: solve the mystery of The Third Man All season long, we heard that the Lakers would need a third star to emerge if they were going to win the title. Kyle Kuzma never got there, but it didn't matter. Perhaps we've just defaulted into a more familiar era of the NBA. Shaq and Kobe won without another "star." Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen won without another "star" (Dennis Rodman was more of an ultra role player.) With Kevin Durant removed from Golden State, perhaps the bar has been lowered back to reasonable heights for NBA title teams. Still, the Lakers need to figure out who Kyle Kuzma is, and what his role should be. He averaged 16-6 as a rookie, but showed some signs of a "good stats / bad team" kind of player. That fear hasn't gone away. Since then, Kuzma's shot 30% and 32% from three over the following two years, and played poor defense overall. ESPN real plus/minus metric graded him as a -0.4 and -0.7 defensive impact, while box plus/minus had him at -1.2 and -1.0. That same BPM metric graded him below replacement level overall (-0.2 VORP). Kuzma has played OK in these playoffs, but he hasn't had a major role. In fact, his minutes per game is down to 23.2 in the postseason so far, with 0 starts drawn. It's clear that Frank Vogel and the team don't believe he's the 3rd best player on the team. He may not even be the 4th or 5th best player. You may ask: who cares? Kuzma isn't a world beater, but the Lakers beat the world anyway. Still, it's an important question hanging over their heads. Kuzma is under contract for one more year, and then will enter restricted free agency (at a time when they will be a lot of cap space out there.) Based on name value, he's going to get a decent contract. If the Lakers don't believe he's worth decent money, it may be time to trade him now. (Realistically, the time to trade him was last offseason, but what can ya do.) Kuzma's $3.5M salary is easy to move, and the team can attach other contracts like McGee, Bradley, and Quinn Cook ($3M) to match a deal anywhere from the $3M-$15M range if need be. What can the Lakers get for Kuzma on the open market? It's hard to tell. He's a polarizing name, so it may depend on whether their trade partner reads reddit or not. I'd call up Detroit and ask about Luke Kennard. If Houston's blowing it up, I'd ask about Robert Covington. If Minnesota's locked into Anthony Edwards at # 1, maybe they'd be open to trading Malik Beasley in a sign and trade. If you want to play dirty, you can tell Portland that Gary Trent Jr. (newest client of Klutch) is going to sign with the Lakers next season no matter what, so they may as well recoup something for him now. Fair? Ethical? Ehh. But hey, it's proven to be effective before. step five: encourage others to hunt for the Treasure of the Sierra Madre The Lakers don't have much cap space this offseason, but that's not a major problem. They're not going to have to list job openings on monster.com -- available players are going to flock to them. The most obvious reason to join the Lakers would be to chase rings. However, it goes deeper than that. There's not a lot of teams with cap space this offseason, but there are plenty with space next season. If you're a free agent who's not getting a lot of attention, there's one great way to get attention: play with LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers. You can inflate your stock for next offseason, when hopefully you cash in. If I ran the Lakers, my first call would be to a veteran like Darren Collison. Collison took the season off to pursue his faith, but reportedly he may return next year. If so, he'd be a dream fit for this Lakers' rotation. Collison can run the point when LeBron James rests, but he can also serve as a complementary spacer. The former UCLA standout has become a very reliable shooter -- hitting over 40% from deep in his last four seasons. He's undersized and sometimes outmatched on D, but the team has Alex Caruso ready to match up with bigger guards. Collison's skill set would merit $10+ million in a good market, but perhaps NBA teams are going to want to see him "prove it" after his extended absence. If that's the case, the Lakers can thank their lucky stars and Jehovah for delivering him into their laps. Other veterans who may be drawn to the Lakers like a moth to the flame would include: the underrated E'Twaun Moore (NO) and likable vet Courtney Lee (DAL). Moe Harkless (NYK) could probably get more elsewhere, but he may decide to bet on himself and inflate his price for next season. Since Anthony Davis still prefers playing PF, depth at center will be more important for the Lakers than other teams. As mentioned, JaVale McGee will probably be back (barring a trade) and Dwight Howard may be as well. If not, the team could try to recruit a player who wants to boost their stock. Nerlens Noel (OKC) could benefit from the spotlight like that; better yet, his agent happens to be some dude named Rich Paul. Overall, the Lakers need to keep pushing and trying to improve, be it through free agency, through trades, or through the draft (where they have the # 28 pick.) This team may have been good enough to win the title, but as mentioned, one title isn't going to satisfy this star, this team, and this fan base. Hollywood's all about excess, and the goal will be to overindulge over the next few years. other offseason blueprints ATL, BKN, BOS, CHA, CHI, CLE, DAL, DEN, DET, HOU, IND, GS, LAC, MEM, MIA, MIL, MIN, NO, NYK, OKC, ORL, PHI, PHX, POR, SA, SAC, TOR, UTA, WAS
The NBA Finals is the biggest basketball event in the world. Two teams will battle to see who takes home the NBA’s biggest prize. This is the most popular time for betting on the NBA online for fans of the league. You can find the best NBA betting sites for the 2020 NBA Finals on Safest Betting Sites review hub. Read how our staff is betting Tuesday's Game 4 NBA Finals matchup, featuring the Miami Heat and Los Angeles Lakers (9 p.m. ET on ABC). Many betting sites launch exclusive deals for the NBA Finals that can make the difference between winning and losing. Simply put, you get more value if you use multiple betting sites. One of my colleagues has a blog post on where to bet on the NBA Finals in 2020 , so that’s a great starting point if you want to join another bookie or two. Best NBA Finals betting apps. The legal sports betting industry is growing exponentially. Several reputable sportsbook apps are serving the legal states, and a handful of them have emerged as the top choices.. DraftKings ($25 free): The daily fantasy sports (DFS) giant is also one of the top sports betting operators.NBA is a top market so you’ll find plenty of ways to bet on the Finals. Jimmy Butler has been nothing short of amazing in this series and he has now moved past Anthony Davis in terms of NBA Finals MVP odds. Butler is averaging 29 points and 10.2 assists per game while shooting 55% from the field and 92% from the free throw line.
Floyd mayweather Post his big win on instagram In Game 1 of the #NBA Finals, I bet $70,000 on the #Warriors for the first half and picked up a light $63,636.36 in 24 minutes. Category Sports VICE "Red Cards" revisits the 2007 NBA betting scandal. We follow the character of Jimmy "the sheep" Battista, the mastermind behind the scandal and the one ... In this episode, we are talking sports betting. I go over my NFL power rankings, and what picks I like for the NFL, CFB, NBA, and my bet on the 2020 presiden... The "Sports Betting Whale" who won tens of millions of dollars betting on sports talks about how to look for patterns and win by betting on the NBA Playoffs. He also gives his free sports picks ... Donnie & Jeff take Tuesday evening head on with 'Late Night On Campus' LIVE sports betting show. MLB games are on & they guys also touch on NBA Playoffs & MO...
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