Jayson Tatum (Photo by Matthew Stockman/Getty Images)
There’s little standing in the way between the basketball calendar and the 2023-24 NBA season. In the next few weeks, there are going to be a myriad of ways to analyze the league for the coming campaign. Today, we look at the NBA through a simple framing device: will teams boom or bust?
Here’s the exercise: we go division by division, taking a very brief glance at each team. Then, we determine whether the team will boom and exceed expectations this season, or whether their expectations were too high and they’re destined to be a bust.
Since expectations can be subjective, the most objective measure is the odds each team is facing entering the season. For this, we’ll pull the odds from BetMGM (current as of September 17).
Will the 2023-24 season prove to be a boom year for your favorite team, or a bust? We look at every team in the NBA and decide.
Unsurprisingly, the defending champion Denver Nuggets sport the best odds to win the title in 2023-24, but they aren’t alone at the top. The Boston Celtics are knotted with the Nuggets with the same odds to walk away from the season as champions.
Oddsmakers have the lowest expectations for three Eastern Conference teams that have struggled in recent years or are in various stages of a rebuild. The Charlotte Hornets, Washington Wizards, and Detroit Pistons are tied for the worst odds to win a championship next year.
With BetMGM’s odds serving as a north star for expectations, let’s predict whether each team will boom or bust in 2023-24.
