The Live Bets Direct advice on betting the 2009-10 NBA champion? All righty then, first we’ll look at the viable contenders. The list is the following.
Los Angeles Lakers: 11/5
Cleveland Cavaliers: 10/3
San Antonio Spurs: 10/1
And that’s about it. That’s who’s really worth putting money on for 2009-10. In fact, that 10/1 on the Spurs is damn near insane if you consider a .660 team is essentially adding Manu Ginobili, only one of the world’s top 10 players, plus Richard Jefferson for a song: Clearly this is the best bet up here.
All right, if you insist, for the sake of tradition, I’ll throw in these guys:
Boston Celtics: 9/2
But come on! Rasheed Wallace hasn’t had superstar-level stats since the ABA days (OK, since Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal were playing on the same team) and is nearing 67 years old. Kevin Garnett is the same in basketball years. And who’s gonna play Shaq in a playoff meeting? It ain’t the Cs this year and here’s to thinking it won’t be again for some time, whether or not you believe Rajon Rondo is a metahuman. (Live Bets Direct does, incidentally.)
Who else you like? The Orlando Magic Jumpshooters? You wish: Those guys rode hot shooting and little else through the playoffs to surprise everyone last year – a bolt of lightning that won’t be caught twice.
Denver? Isn’t George Karl still coaching over there? Next!
Utah? Whether the Mormons are right or not, God doesn’t want basketball in Utah and thus the Jazz will never win a title.
Okay, you want dark horses? Here’re a couple of dark horses for ya:
Portland Trailblazers: 25/1
Dallas Mavericks: 33/1
Portland has a scintillating, exciting, effervescent, wonderful, however-you-want-to-spin-it young nucleus of LaMarcus Aldridge, Nicolas Batum, Jerryd Bayless, Rudy Fernandez and Brandon Roy. And Greg “Fred Sanford” Oden by all accounts ripped it up in NBA Summer League action. A couple of injuries to Lakers and/or Spurs and you could see these future champions crash the finals dance early.
If you like superlongshots, there’s Dallas, but you couldn’t convince me that a fantastic offseason counterbalances the inevitable late-season emergence of Irk (with no ‘D’) Nowitski and another playoff collapse.
Be smart with your money. Cover the big three and be done with it. No one else has a chance.