Fresh off of one the most successful and most watched NBA seasons and NBA Playoffs of all time, on Thursday June 23rd, the NBA will hold its entry draft. It’s being heralded as one of the weaker drafts in recent history and many of the players aren’t expected to be stars in the NBA right away.
With a possible July 1st NBA lockout looming, the NBA Draft may represent one of the last opportunities for bettors to make NBA related wagers. Some Sportsbooks are making sure they take advantage of this opportunity by supplementing their sports offerings with NBA Draft props.
Some of the more popular general NBA Draft prop bets include:
Total number of International Players selected in the 1st round?
Who will be the 3rd Player selected in the NBA Draft?
Number of college players drafted?
And of course, who will be the first player taken in the draft Kyrie Irving of Duke or Derrick Williams of Arizona?
It’s pretty much consensus that Irving and Williams will be the first two picks, but – Who will be the 3rd Player selected in the NBA Draft? Will it be Brandon Knight 1/3, Enes Kanter 5/2, Jimmer Fredette 17/2 or Kemba Walker 15/1?
Some sportsbooks like Bodog, The Greek and BetPhoenix for example, have widened their NBA Draft offerings to include player specific props.
Some of the NBA Draft player specific props wagers include:
Will Marcus Morris and Markieff Morris the (twins playing for the Kansas Jayhawks) both be drafted by the same team?
Other props focus on where high profile players will be drafted. For example, Will Jeremy Tyler be selected in the First Round? Or Will Jimmer Fredette (BYU) be a Lottery Pick?
Some offerings allow bettors to bet on the order of key draft picks with offerings like: Will Kemba Walker be taken before or after the 6th spot in the first round? Who gets drafted first Alec Burcs or Jan Vesley, Brandon Knight or Enes Cantor?
Other offerings allow bettors to pick the number of players taken by position in the first round choosing from guards, power forwards, small forwards, point guards, shooting guards and centers.
Bettors can even bet on which school will produce more No. 1 draft picks, Kansas, Duke, Texas or UCLA?
The NBA Draft will also be a time when teams may be looking to shuffle their roster and make trades.
Prop wagers on possible trades include:
Will Andre Iguodala be traded before the end of the 2011 draft? Will the Lakers trade Pau Gasol to the Timberwolves for the second overall draft pick and Kevin Love? How many first round draft trades will we see?
The last thing the gaming industry needs is another major professional sport to enter into a player lockout like the NFL Lockout, but the reality is the NBA may be heading down that dark road. We can take comfort in the fact that David Stern and the NBA owners haven’t been as underhanded and as the NFL, but a lockout is still very likely. It’s always hard to estimate how long a lockout will last, as such, sportsbooks really should capitalize on the NBA Draft and strike up offerings for NBA bettors while the iron is still hot.
