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Welcome to the latest edition of the Newsweek Sports Betting newsletter, which you can start receiving in your inbox by subscribing here. Right now, here’s what your free subscription entails: Weekly look at the NBA (every Tuesday evening) College football weekend preview (every Thursday evening) NFL weekend preview (every Friday morning) College Football ATS picks (every Saturday morning at 10 a.m. ET) NFL ATS picks (every Sunday morning at 10 a.m. ET) This morning’s edition is available below, to subscribers only. Subscribe to Newsweek Sports Betting 📩 It’s hard to overstate how eventful this young NBA season has already been. Starting with a memorable opening night reunion with NBC, the league has had everyone’s attention at a time when the NFL and MLB typically dominate the news cycle. Case in point: last Tuesday’s opening night doubleheader on NBC/Peacock drew an average TV audience of 5.6 million, according to Sports Business Journal’s Austin Karp. Unfortunately, the biggest story of the week was last Thursday’s news that Heat guard Terry Rozier and Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups were arrested amid federal investigations into illegal sports betting and rigged poker games. We won’t dive into that in depth here, but it’s impossible to write a sports betting email without a mention of the beginning of a probe that could shake up how the NBA approaches its association with betting. For tonight, though, let’s talk about … A) Victor Wembanyama B) Knicks (-2.5) at Bucks C) Clippers (-2.5) at Warriors It’s Victor Wembanyama’s 🌍 I started to phrase the headline above as a question — something like, “Has the Wemby takeover arrived?” But after four dominant performances, I’m not so sure it’s really a question. Obviously, the season is still (extremely) young. It’s hard to shake the feeling that this league already belongs to the 7-foot-3, 21-year-old French superstar for San Antonio, though. His 40-point, 15-rebound eruption in the season opener last Wednesday against Anthony Davis and the Mavericks is still hard to fathom. He’s since enjoyed three more games with at least 24 points and 10 rebounds. Wembanyama entered this season as the runaway DPOY favorite, and his odds for that award are now as short as -225 at DraftKings. If he maintains anywhere close to this level of offensive dominance (stats below), he could very well also take home his first NBA MVP trophy at the age of 22. Victor Wembanyama Stats (through four games): Counting (per game): 31.0 pts, 13.8 rebs, 4.8 blks, 2.8 asts, 1.5 steals Shooting: 60.3% FG, 36.4% 3P, 63% effective FG, 68.4% true shooting Advanced: 41.2 PER, 54.8 free-throw rate, 39.4 def. reb. rate, 13.8 blk rate Words and stats hardly do his early-season dominance justice, though. You really have to see what Wembanyama has done so far this season to believe it: Victor Wembanyama MVP Odds — Can Wembanyama Win MVP?? The betting-related question here is whether a player on a team that won 22 games two years ago and 34 last year can win enough to sustain a legit MVP candidacy for its star. The Spurs are 4-0, albeit against a favorable early schedule. Regardless of the level of competition to date, the hot start without DeAaron Fox bodes well for this team’s chances of staying in the mix in the loaded West. Oddsmakers immediately took note of what Wemby did on opening night. After just one game, his odds quickly dropped from 10-to-1 or longer to as short as +275 at DK, just behind Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (+200) as of Tuesday, October 28. FanDuel also currently lists reigning MVP SGA (+170) as the only player with shorter MVP odds than Wembanyama (+310). Meanwhile, the Spurs have quickly established themselves as heavy favorites to make the playoffs (San Antonio’s odds in this market are -300 or shorter across the board) for the first time in the Wembanyama era. The competition for MVP will be stiff, to say the least, but if I have a hot take after one week, it’s that now is the time to hop on the Wembanyama for MVP bandwagon. Knicks (-130) at Bucks (+110) Betting Odds, Best Bets Spread (DK): Knicks -2.5 (-105); Bucks +2.5 (-115) Total (DK): 228.5 (over -115; under -105) Tipoff: 8 p.m. ET (NBC/Peacock) The Knicks (2-1) opened their first season under head coach Mike Brown with wins over the Cavs and Celtics before losing to Miami on the road on Sunday. Milwaukee (2-1) boasts wins over the Wizards and Raptors and a loss to the Cavaliers. Through three games, it appears that no matter how lacking Giannis Antetokounmpo’s supporting cast may be, Milwaukee is still going to be a tough out. The Greek Freak has already turned in three ...
