Vegas future odds have finally dropped on the 2020 NBA Playoffs and here is what we know. There will be 22 teams, 13 from the West and 9 from the East.
They will play 8 games based off the remaining schedule for seeding purposes and teams that have not been invited will be excluded from the schedule, so basically this is a play-in type tournament for the bottom seeds, which makes sense when obviously they will want the best teams in the Playoff or let me re-phrase that…the tea
ms that will generate the most ratings and money from the general public. Below is the current standings to win the NBA Championship via Vegasinsider.com
The average person looking at these odds will say, “so what?”. Well, there is an issue within these odds that stick out like a sore thumb to sports handicappers. A team on this list…actually two teams are 3.5 games back out of the 8th seed in the Western Conference they are the Portland Trailblazers and New Orleans Pelicans. This is another reason why more teams were invited from the Western Conference as opposed to the East, cause the gap between teams is a lot more competitive. The Memphis Grizzlies are currently the 8th seed in the playoff but they are behind both the Pelicans and Trailblazers based off the current Vegas odds. With no fans in the stands this whole thing is going to be based off TV ratings, advertising, story lines, Vegas odds…and let’s not forget public perceptions. Below is the remaining Portland schedule who are currently sitting at +335 to make the Playoff via espn.com.
They play multiple top 4 seeded teams as well as Memphis twice which is a weird coincidence that we will get into in a bit. This is a hard road to the Playoff as evidenced in the graphic above and why they are 150/1 to win the championship but theoretically could still make the playoffs. The Grizz are clinging to this 8 seed because they have by far the hardest remaining schedule where they play pretty much all playoff teams and play Portland and NOLA, which is pretty good reasoning for them to be behind in the odds. I don’t know how the NBA will filter the games out but on paper this looks dirty, as demonstrated with the graphic below.
Zion Williamson and The Pelicans are 3.5 games back as well but the difference here is that this team is an offensive juggernaut and ranked 4th in the league in scoring offense and 3rd in the league in 3 point field goals with the help of guys like J.J Reddick and Co. The addition of Zion midway through the season and has been a big reason for this push to the playoffs. Depending on what the NBA does they should play Memphis twice in the final games leading to the playoff. NOLA will have the easiest run into the playoff as they will play primarily bottom tier teams only exception being the Clippers. If these guys are wanting to set up the most profitable venture for the future it will be set up for a Lebron vs. Zion round one play off match up. Look at it this way, a small market/young team aren’t a bigger money draw than either Portland or NOLA. So, with NOLA being a team I track and follow and also having tons of money dumped on them across the markets… here is the play.
New Orleans Pelicans to make the 2020 NBA Playoff at +290 odds via bovada.com