Why The Grizzlies Are An Underrated NBA Championship Value Bet

• The Boston Celtics have +350 odds to win the NBA Championship.
• The Memphis Grizzlies are far behind, at +1600 odds to do so.
• FiveThirtyEight gives Boston a 25% chance and Memphis a 21% chance, so there’s real value for Memphis backers.

LAS VEGAS - The Boston Celtics lead the NBA odds boards, but it’s the Memphis Grizzlies who might give bettors the most value.

Using FiveThirtyEight’s NBA predictions, NBA betting fans can hunt for overvalued and undervalued futures bets.

2022-2023 NBA Championship Odds

• Boston Celtics +350
• Milwaukee Bucks +500
• Golden State Warriors +750
• Los Angeles Clippers +800
• Phoenix Suns +1000
• Brooklyn Nets +1100

These are what the NBA Championship odds look like at Bovada, as of 12/19/22.

2022-2023 NBA Championship Chances At FiveThirtyEight (RAPTOR)

• Boston Celtics 25%
• Milwaukee Bucks 10%
• Golden State Warriors 6%
• Los Angeles Clippers 2%
• Phoenix Suns 7%
• Brooklyn Nets 2%

Here’s what FiveThirtyEight’s RAPTOR model gives those teams in terms of odds to win the NBA Championship.

Notably, these six teams – the top six teams in the NBA – only account for 52% of the total championship possibilities according to FiveThirtyEight.

The biggest omission that FiveThirtyEight picked up on but the online sportsbooks have not is the Memphis Grizzlies.

FiveThirtyEight’s RAPTOR model gives them a 21% chance to win the NBA Championship, while their Elo-based model gives them a 13% chance to win the NBA Championship.

The Grizzlies are currently +1600 to win the NBA Championship, which would mean they have effectively 1/16 odds to do so – about a 6.25% chance.

Both models suggest that the Grizzlies have a far better chance than 6.25%, and are thus a very solid wager at +1600 odds.

The Celtics, meanwhile, are the only major team that even approaches being a value bet – they aren’t one yet, but if they drop to +400 odds while retaining their current chances to win the finals in the RAPTOR model, they could be a good bet.

The entire rest of the top six seems to be not just bad bets, but awful ones. The Bucks pay out +500 when they only have a 10% chance, and it mostly gets worse from there.