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It feels like we’re here every off-season. We place some early futures bets, sit back and wait for one superstar or another to get traded to see how it’ll move the odds. We were here with Russell Westbrook and Donovan Mitchell, we were here with James Harden a few times, with Kevin Durant, and now with Damian Lillard. And he’s finally been traded!
In a three-teamer that sent Lillard to Milwaukee, seven other players are on the move. Portland gets Jrue Holiday, Deandre Ayton and Toumani Camara, while Phoenix gets Jusuf Nurkic, Grayson Allen, Nassir Little, and Keon Johnson. A bunch of picks are going to Portland as well, but picks don’t win bets.
Not to speak ill of some really good players, but this isn’t an up-and-comer like Mitchell, or an aged legend like Westbrook. Dame is both a sure-fire Hall of Famer and a guy coming off arguably the best season of his career. But I think this trade impacts Phoenix more than anyone else. More on that in a bit though, you want the big name.
How this impacts the Milwaukee Bucks
The most drastic shift in odds was in the Bucks’ championship odds, moving from +600 to +350 in some markets. While acquiring Lillard has certainly made Milwaukee better, this feels like a Day 1 overreaction. I don’t think it makes them that much better. Lillard will remedy some their half-court offensive woes, but he could lay bare the deceptively fragile machine that is Milwaukee’s devastating defence.
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Before the trade, the Bucks had an elite defender at every level of the floor. Holiday is as good as it gets at the point of attack, Giannis Antetokounmpo is an all-time defensive Swiss Army knife from the perimeter to the rim, and Brook Lopez has played DPOY-level defence inside for half a decade now.
While having two elite rim protectors is perfect for masking Lillard’s significant defensive flaws, taking Holiday out of that system will increase the workload for Antetokounmpo , Lopez and Khris Middleton. This isn’t to say this trade made the Bucks worse. It didn’t. The Bucks were already a title contender, now they’re a slightly stronger title contender.
This is marginal improvement by a team I had already bet on at +600 to win the title. Why buy in now, when you can wait until their inevitable slow start and buy when their odds drop a little? These guys will figure it out, but for now I’m fading or staying away from Milwaukee.
How this impacts the Phoenix Suns
As of publication, most futures bets for Phoenix are still off the books, with the exception of their title odds, which moved from +650 to +600, if they even moved at all.
So let me just offer my initial thoughts:
What are we doing here, guys?
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I know that Durant, Bradley Beal, and Devin Booker are all high-level individual scorers, but who is playing defence on this team? Are the Suns going to roll those guys with Eric Bledsoe and Nurkic and just hope to win games 145-140? It won’t work in the playoffs, so I’m considering any playoff or title future bet on Phoenix a donation to your sportsbook. Stay away. They’ll probably win a fair amount of regular-season games, but they lacked size and defence before the deal, and this makes it even worse.
How this impacts the Portland Trail Blazers
Well, you probably weren’t betting on Portland’s title odds before, and you definitely shouldn’t now. Despite their numbers probably being off the books for a while as we await secondary moves to turn Holiday (definitely) and Ayton (maybe) into even more picks, I can still offer some advice: I have a feeling their win total over-under will start comically low. I don’t think the Blazers are going to become the Charlotte Bobcats. If that number opens at 28.5 or 29.5, jump on the over. Especially if it looks like they could hang on to Holiday until the trade deadline.
How this impacts the league
Look, if you already like Boston or Denver or the Lakers to win the title, don’t let this change your mind. Maybe cash out the old bet and buy back in at a slightly friendlier number, but this doesn’t shift the balance of power in the league so much that you should run away from other bets you felt confident in before.
The area where I think the Lillard trade produces some opportunities for bettors in the Western Conference’s win totals. If the Suns and Blazers have each gotten worse, that’s eight games this season that just got a little easier for every team in the West. If there was an over you were feeling hesitant to bet on, this could be the time to invest a little. For example, I liked the Golden State Warriors OVER 48.5 wins before. I like that even more now. I wasn’t so sure about taking the Denver Nuggets OVER 52.5 wins, but with Lillard out of their division and Phoenix possibly forced to use KD on Jokic when they play one another, I love that bet.
As always, play safe and don’t chase.
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