NBA Futures: Notable Win Totals As 2023-24 Season Approaches
The 2023-24 NBA season is fast approaching. James Harden was the last to report to camp, and others told the media the seemingly annual narrative of gaining 10 pounds of muscle in the offseason. Every coach sees big things coming as the team plans to get out and run more often. Bettors, meanwhile, have begun browsing NBA futures, including NBA win totals, and placing their bets, especially after the blockbuster Damian Lillard trade.
Before the season, I’ve typically put together a complete list of NBA win totals and compared them to notable publicly available projection systems. At this juncture, we don’t have those available. Some, like FiveThirtyEight, may have disappeared from the interwebs for good. Instead, we’ll look briefly at some notable NBA totals from the best sports betting sites and numbers on interesting teams for one reason or another.
NBA Win Totals For Each Team
Click the dropdown menu in the top left to see the win total number for each team’s NBA futures.
Notable Teams In NBA Futures
Boston Celtics
2022-23 wins: 57
2023-24 win total: Over /Under
The Jrue Holiday trade is the headliner here. But add in the Kristaps Porzingis for Marcus Smart swap, and the Celtics have significantly remade a team that was a huge favorite to advance to the NBA Finals prior to facing Miami.
The Celtics might have the most formidable top six in the NBA. The problem with Boston remains the same, however: their two primary ball handler, Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum, do not have any synergy. They don’t make each other better, and they frankly don’t really make the other players on the team much better either, particularly in the case of Brown.
Holiday and Porzingis seem unlikely to solve that problem, given that Holiday is not a particularly great pick-and-roll artist, and Porzingis prefers to do a lot of his damage 1-on-1 in the post.
But that’s a problem for the playoffs. For the regular season, Boston should win a lot of games. Sitting at the top of the market, though, do they present any value to bettors?
Milwaukee Bucks
2022-23 wins: 58
2023-24 win total: Over /Under
Another team that made waves with a big trade. The Celtics have more talent from top to bottom, but Milwaukee has a more obvious fit between their top two guys. Damian Lillard excels at handling the ball and shooting but is weak defensively. Giannis Antetokounmpo is outstanding, rolling to the rim and operating as a help defender, but is weak in handling the ball against playoff defenses.
The Bucks do have an older team, but at the same time, they will rely on some unproven younger guys to round out the rotation. They also have a new coach in Adrian Griffin, and we don’t know what he brings to the table yet.
Overall, there’s probably more uncertainty and injury risk here when compared with Boston.
Phoenix Suns
2022-23 wins: 45
2023-24 win total: Over /Under
Phoenix made a huge add as well with Brad Beal. However, they also notably added multiple useful pieces on very cheap salaries. Guys like Keita Bates-Diop, Yuta Watanabe, Drew Eubanks, and Chimezie Metu should provide real value by soaking up regular season minutes to keep the superstars fresh for April and May.
The concerns here revolve around defense and what sort of impact swapping Deandre Ayton out for Jusuf Nurkic has. Nurkic is aging quickly and has had his fair share of injuries. Age and injuries rate as concerns for Kevin Durant as well.
Suns optimists should probably look to diversify their portfolios with some Devin Booker MVP odds (). Taking on a new point guard role that will round out his stats with more assists, Booker will probably need to lead the way if the Suns have a big season.
Philadelphia 76ers
2022-23 wins: 54
2023-24 win total: Over /Under
The last of the East’s “big three” last season (even if none of the three made the NBA Finals!), Philadelphia finds itself in a very awkward position. Boston and Milwaukee look to have left the Sixers in the dust. Unless or until a resolution with James Harden, the Sixers have zero hope of catching those two.
And even if they find a deal for Harden, it doesn’t seem easy to fathom how they could equal value back. Say what you want about his postseason ups and downs, but 21/10.7/6.1 with 38.5% from deep is not easy to replace.
Particularly when the team’s other star is coming off a grueling chase for MVP and has been injured frequently in his career. This Philly team has a real downside should Joel Embiid find himself missing more than his usual 15 to 20 games.
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Dallas Mavericks
2022-23 wins: 38
2023-24 win total: Over /Under
Last year represented a shocking fall for the Mavs and Luka Doncic. Dallas had been a regular season wins machine with Doncic the prior three seasons, chugging along at nearly a 50-win pace. Injuries, a defensive fall, and a disastrous trade for Kyrie Irving sent the Mavericks spiraling into a shocking (and shameless) late-season tank that netted a high draft pick, Dereck Lively II.
The new-look Mavs will feature Lively, along with Celtics pickup Grant Williams. But, the elephant in the room remains the fit between Doncic and Irving. Both players have continued to say all the right things. But lineups featuring those two had a 31st-percentile defense per Cleaning The Glass.
Still, the offense should perform at an elite level. A more engaged and urgent Doncic and Irving should stand a good chance of driving this NBA futures number back over.
Sacramento Kings
2022-23 wins: 48
2023-24 win total: Over /Under
Perhaps the most surprising team of last season, the Kings rode tremendous health and an elite offense to a top seed in a down West. The conference has gotten stronger around the Kings, and Sacramento opted not to make any major additions, essentially bringing back the band while moving a couple of supporting pieces around.
Will that keep them in the hunt for home court in the first round?
Given that every team in the West is probably trying to win, with the possible exceptions of Portland and San Antonio, it looks like a tall order to return to near-50 win heights. They don’t quite need that to exceed this win total, but the Kings probably need internal improvement or more injury luck to avoid a sophomore slump here. Still, De’Aaron Fox and Domantas Sabonis should remain tickets to many regular season wins.
San Antonio Spurs
2022-23 wins: 22
2023-24 win total: Over /Under
Winners of the Victor Wembanyama sweepstakes, one of the primary questions driving San Antonio’s possible win total for this season is how much the team will deploy the new superweapon. Keep in mind a few things:
- The Spurs don’t look particularly close to competing for anything meaningful.
- The history of 7-footers in terms of health is not all that encouraging.
- San Antonio was on the forefront of the resting programs that have become commonplace.
It’s probably fair to expect the Spurs to manage Wembanyama’s workload carefully. While bettors may get excited about Wembanyama and the return of Devin Vassell, the cold reality is that this is an excellent season to tank and get another top pick the team can pair with the Frenchman. That expectation looks baked into this number.
Washington Wizards
2022-23 wins: 35
2023-24 win total: Over /Under
After dealing away franchise centerpieces in the offseason, the Wizards look headed for a major reset. That’s obvious, and there’s nothing inherently interesting about this win total aside from the fact it’s the lowest on the board. That makes it worth a look just to get a frame of reference for the league.
Basically every year, some sad sack teams win around 20 games. Over the past ten 82-game seasons, the average wins of the league’s worst team sits at 17.3. The median is also at 17, so even the outlier 10-win season by Philly doesn’t skew the number.
Even last season, which saw a more condensed league than almost any in recent memory, produced a 17-win team (Detroit) and two 22-win teams (San Antonio and Houston).
Maybe Jordan Poole and Kyle Kuzma can lead this team to 24 wins or more. But, even if they do, someone will probably take Washington’s place south of this number.
Best of luck betting on these win totals and any other NBA futures you may consider.
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