By Scott Kacsmar
With the recent schedule release, we know the NBA’s 2022-23 regular season will tip off with a doubleheader on Tuesday, October 18th. The 76ers will be in Boston to take on the Celtics, the defending Eastern Conference champions and the team many sportsbooks are giving the best odds to win it all this season.
The Golden State Warriors will also get their championship rings before they take on LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers, who need a rebound season after missing the playoffs.
What if I told you none of these four teams are among the best bets for regular season win totals? Let’s look at five teams to target for over/under win totals in 2022-23.
Chicago Bulls: Over 44.5 Wins (-115 at bet365)
Last season, the Bulls ended a four-year playoff drought by going 46-36 in head coach Billy Donovan’s second season. But it was no surprise to see the team lose in the first round in five games to Milwaukee. In the regular season, the Bulls were 1-14 against the top four seeds in the Eastern Conference, including an 0-12 record against the Bucks, Heat, and 76ers. The Bulls were even 1-7 against the four 50-win teams in the West last year.
Unfortunately, Chicago has likely not done enough to jump to the elite tier of the NBA this season as the biggest additions are backup center Andre Drummond and backup guard Goran Dragic.
But can the Bulls essentially repeat last season’s record and finish fifth or sixth in the conference? Yes, they certainly can. While DeMar DeRozan will likely not improve on a career season where he was an MVP candidate and had an eight-game streak with 35 points and 50% shooting each game, he should still be All-Star quality in 2022-23.
Zach LaVine and Nikola Vucevic return to form a solid trio with DeRozan. The wild card is guard Lonzo Ball, who could miss early portions of the season after suffering a meniscus tear in January. Ball’s first season in Chicago saw him play a career-low 35 games. But he was shooting over 42% from three for the first time in his career, and the Bulls were 22-13 (.629) when he played.
Fade the Bulls doing any damage in the playoffs, but the over 44.5 wins should be safe.
Brooklyn Nets: Over 51.5 Wins (+100 at FanDuel)
After months of drama over where the stars will end up, it looks like we are going to get another season of Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving together with Steve Nash as the head coach.
Let’s bank on this one being the most successful by betting the over 51.5 wins, because if it is another disappointment, then major changes will come next season. But this is a star pairing to like if it can ever stay healthy on the court together.
- Durant missed 27 games last season and the Nets were 8-19 (.296) without him and 36-19 (.655) with him.
- A .655 winning percentage would translate to 53.7 wins in a full season, and prior to these last three injury-plagued years for Durant, he only missed more than 20 games one time (2014-15).
- Durant was the only Brooklyn player to start at least 50 games last season.
- Irving played in just 29 games last season after infamously refusing the COVID vaccine and being barred from home games until a rule change late in the year.
- The Nets were only 14-15 when Irving played, not including a playoff sweep by Boston, but some of those games coordinated with Durant’s missed time for injury.
Throw in the attempts at fitting James Harden into this trio, and his share of injuries also prevented this Big Three from ever taking shape. If Irving and Durant are indeed coming back to play together, then let’s just hope the injury bugs stay away and we can see them at full strength.
The Nets also missed the three-point shooting of Joe Harris for much of last season as he was limited to 14 games. The Nets acquired Utah forward Royce O’Neale in a trade, and he should help the defense that again struggled, finishing No. 19 in Defensive Rating.
Charlotte Hornets: Under 37.5 Wins (-132 at FanDuel)
Despite improving by 10 wins to 43-39, the Hornets missed the playoffs for the fourth season in a row. Head coach James Borrego was replaced by Steve Clifford, who last coached the Orlando Magic to a 21-51 record two years ago. Clifford also led this Charlotte franchise twice to the playoffs earlier this decade, but he never got past the first round and won 47.8% of his games in six Charlotte seasons.
This team feels a bit misguided right now as its top three money players – Gordon Hayward, Terry Rozier, and Kelly Oubre – have one All-Star selection between them. That belongs to Hayward when he was in Utah in 2016-17, and he has struggled to stay healthy and has not approach 20 points per game since. Charlotte’s Net Rating was only 1.2 points worse with him off the court last season.
Of course, the elephant in the room is 24-year-old forward Miles Bridges. He was the team’s most improved player last year and led them with 20.2 points per game while setting a slew of other career highs.
The Hornets extended him a qualifying offer as his future looked bright, but Bridges has been charged with child abuse and felony domestic violence against his wife. The Hornets did not pull the offer, and Bridges could still make nearly $8 million this season. But if found guilty of these charges, his NBA career would likely be over, or at least his time in Charlotte would end immediately. Either way, it does not look like the Hornets can count on him for anything this year, which is likely the main reason the projected win total is so low.
But without Bridges and with a couple of rookie centers, it is hard to see this team doing any damage in an Eastern Conference it was already near the bottom of last season. I would take the under 37.5 wins.
Oklahoma City Thunder: Under 23.5 Wins (-122 at FanDuel)
You have to feel bad for Thunder fans. After seasons with 22 and 24 wins, the team needed a major spark. Enter Chet Holmgren, the No. 2 pick in the draft out of Gonzaga. The lanky seven-footer was having a great NBA summer camp and was a favorite for the Rookie of the Year award. He would have been the reason to make the Thunder a great bet for hitting the over in their win total this year.
But the worst news broke the other day when we found out that Holmgren will miss the entire 2022-23 season due to a Lisfranc injury in his right foot. Hopefully this will not derail his career potential, but it does wipe out his rookie season.
The Thunder really needed a consistent scorer as the only rostered player close to that is Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who was under 50% in eFG% for the first time in his career last year. His scoring also just does not move the needle for this team. The Thunder were 4-16 when he scored at least 30 points last year after going 9-1 in the same split in 2020-21.
The Thunder came away with two other first-round picks, but Holmgren was the key to this class and rebuild. Now the Thunder are threatening to become the 24th team in NBA history to go three straight seasons with fewer than 25 wins. It has happened seven times in the last decade, including in Detroit the past three seasons.
Detroit Pistons: Over 28.5 Wins (-115 at BetMGM)
Hope springs eternal after the Pistons have spent three years in the NBA abyss. But devoted NBA bettors know this young team was a lot of fun to follow down the stretch last season.
From February 16 to April 3, the Pistons were 18-2-2 ATS, including a 14-game streak where the Pistons did not fail to cover or push.
While Detroit traded away one of its best players in Jerami Grant, the draft selection of Purdue’s Jaden Ivey with the No. 5 pick should make for a strong backcourt with Cade Cunningham, the No. 1 pick in the 2021 draft.
Cunningham showed solid improvement in his rookie season if you look at his season before and after that cover streak started in mid-February:
- Cunningham’s first 43 games: .395 FG%, 15.6 PPG, 5.1 APG
- Cunningham’s last 21 games: .452 FG%, 21.0 PPG, 6.4 APG
The Pistons also upgraded their depth with some instant offense players such as Alec Burks and Kemba Walker. It is still not a roster that screams playoffs in 2023, but the Pistons should be much closer to 30 wins than 20 this time around.
