With the NBA cozying up to sports betting at unprecedented levels in recent months, it should come as no surprise there’s also never been more ways to bet on sports and the NBA in particular.
Starting in 2018 with the NBA officially partnering with MGM Resorts to become the first sports booking organization and continuing on up to the present day proliferation of official league partnerships with DraftKings, Fanduel and the Stars Group (among others), the ubiquity of sports betting has become impossible to miss for even casual fans of the sport.
Through that expansion of a key projected source of league revenue has come some surprisingly diverse proposition bets — more commonly called “prop” bets — which allow fans to place wagers on whether certain events unrelated to the game’s outcome will occur.
Sure enough, there’s been a few gems which relate to the Boston Celtics circulating through the NBA media sphere as what would have been a night of twin returns for two players linked by their lack of future with the Massachusetts franchises (at least for the foreseeable future, anyway).
The Boston Globe’s Adam Himmelsbach relates how sports book reviewer Sports Betting Dime has been following bookmakers taking bets on the two focal points of what it refers to as the twin “Unwelcome Homecomings” of both Brooklyn Nets point guard Kyrie Irving and Los Angeles Lakers big man Anthony Davis as they were poised to play in Boston and at the New Orleans Pelicans on Nov. 27, respectively.
The prop bets relate to just how long it will take for both to be subjected to chants disparaging each for their decision to depart from their former franchises, with Irving’s over/under at just 14.5 seconds and AD’s a generous 32.5 seconds.
While it’s unclear what actually constitutes a “chant” given — as Himmelsbach notes — motivated individuals could take matters into their own hands fairly easily given the likely disposition of those fanbases, attendees will have a shot at more than just those two prop bets should they be so disposed.
Bookmakers are also taking bets on how many such chants are directed at Kyrie (the over/under is set at 2.5) and is offering odds of 4-to-1 there’s at least one instance of people chanting a pro-Kemba Walker taunt such as “We Like Kemba Better” or “Kemba is Better.”
No word at present what either point guard from the 2011 NBA Draft, nor Davis, thinks about these unusual wagering options at present. However, it’s a safe bet that only those dealing with the Lakers star will have a chance to be put to the test anytime soon.
Irving is already officially a scratch for Wednesday night’s game and, still healing from a scary injury sustained in last week’s loss to the Denver Nuggets, Walker is questionable as well.
In the meantime, odds are the tension will still be thick when the perplexing playmaker does make a return to TD Garden; which won’t be until Mar. 3.
Plenty of time left to get those bets in.
If that’s your sort of thing.
