The case for Nets, Durant and Irving

The 2022-23 season is shortly approaching, and our betting consultants have gotten you coated. Over the following two weeks, we take a look at the way to strategy among the prime groups in league and provides out some futures finest bets forward of tipoff.

NBA senior author Andre Snellings breaks down the Brooklyn Nets and their star gamers as choices to guess this season.

Right here is the very best case, worst case and betting evaluation for this 12 months’s Nets crew.

NBA betting preview schedule

Thursday: The case for the Boston Celtics and Golden State Warriors
Right this moment: The case for the Brooklyn Nets and Milwaukee Bucks
Monday: The case for the Philadelphia 76ers and Los Angeles Lakers
Tuesday: Who to guess for MVP
Wednesday: Betting win totals and awards
Oct. 17: Social media and betting
Oct. 18: NBA title odds and favorites

---

Finest case: The Nets have been among the many betting favorites in every of the 2 seasons main as much as this one, and this season they nonetheless have the fifth-lowest odds to win the title at +800. Their finest case situation is that they really win the chip. Kevin Durant is a former MVP, and each Kyrie Irving and Ben Simmons have been All-NBA performers of their careers. Within the 2020-21 season, the final time that each Simmons and Irving performed nearly all of the season for his or her respective groups, Simmons helped anchor the 76ers to the No. 2 defensive score within the NBA, whereas Irving and Durant led the Nets to the No. 1 offensive score. If the crew meshes and stays wholesome, it’s going to have the potential to repeat as the highest offense with a way more aggressive protection than it is fielded through the Durant/Irving period.

---

The NBA season is sort of right here. Join ESPN Fantasy Basketball at the moment. Play without spending a dime

---

Worst case: That is sadly straightforward to think about. After lacking his whole first season with the Nets whereas recovering from a torn Achilles tendon, Kevin Durant went on to overlook 64 video games of the 154 Nets video games over the following two seasons. Throughout that very same three-season span, Irving has missed 133 of the Nets’ 226 video games for numerous causes, together with 53 video games missed final season alone as a result of off-court selections. And Simmons sat out all 82 video games final season, first as a result of psychological well being issues and an acrimonious relationship with the 76ers, and later as a result of a again harm with the Nets. The worst-case situation, for the Nets, is for his or her star gamers to proceed lacking giant chunks of time and for the crew, that was within the play-in recreation final season, to overlook the postseason solely.

The bets: Kevin Durant over 27.5 PPG, Kyrie Irving over 26.5 PPG for season

Betting spin: Due to the excessive diploma of uncertainty in crew outcomes, the very best bets for the Nets all revolve round particular person per-game performances. Kevin Durant’s scoring common over/below is ready at 27.5 PPG (-115), whereas Kyrie Irving’s is ready at 26.5 PPG (+100 over, -130 below). Durant averaged 29.9 PPG final season, and has averaged 28.7 PPG throughout his whole Nets tenure. Equally, Irving has averaged 27.1 PPG for the Nets and 27.4 PPG final season. Each achieved these averages whereas enjoying fairly a little bit of minutes subsequent to a different high-volume/high-usage scorer in James Harden. This season, with Simmons as the ground basic who would not want many pictures, each Durant and Irving have probability to extend their earlier averages and go over these strains.