The NBA season is an absolute beast. Over the course of a regular season, 1,230 games are played from October to April — and that leads to ebbs and flows for every team. It also leads to a fluctuating futures market with those highs and lows, and gives bettors opportunities to pounce on buy-low opportunities when the market overreacts.
Just look at the last three seasons in the Eastern Conference. We had Boston in the NBA Finals after reaching a low of 66-1 to win a title, Atlanta making the conference finals after bottoming out at 65-1 to win the East and Miami reaching the NBA Finals after getting as low as 80-1 to win the title.
During the season is when I make most of my NBA Finals or conference finals wagers. I enjoy finding buy-low opportunities throughout the season, and that process led to a fantastic scenario in 2020-21 when I had Dallas to win the Western Conference at 14-1 and Boston to win the NBA Finals at that 66-1 price. It’s a great way to approach futures betting and also reduces the amount of time your investment is hanging in the balance, something many bettors dislike about playing futures.
There is a benefit to investing in futures in the long term. Data is your friend in sports with long regular seasons such as basketball, and investing in futures is betting that the numbers and data we see for a certain team will play out over the long term. It’s why I regularly bet baseball win totals but not many single games. I believe the data will play out the way I expect over the span of a 162-game regular season, and the same can be said for the 82-game schedule in the NBA.