As we head down the stretch in this year’s NBA season, now is the perfect time to engage in online sports betting. The Miami Heat are currently 6/5 odds to win the NBA Championship, while the Oklahoma City Thunder and the San Antonio Spurs are not too far behind at 11/2. Unfortunately, the Portland Trail Blazers are at 1,000/1, 400/1 just to win the Western Conference Championship.
So what do the Blazers need to do to increase their odds? For starters, their bench. The Blazers average a league worse 16.5 PPG. The number that alarms me the most, though, is that the Blazers’ bench play a league-low average of 13.2 minutes per game. That means, yes do the math, the Blazers’ starters average 35.4 minutes, good for number one in the NBA.. As we have seen with the injuries to Wesley Matthews and Nicolas Batum, their starters cannot be playing that many minutes a night. No wonder they struggle to score points in the 4th quarter lately … they are getting tired and worn down.
The bench clearly needs to step up. General Manager Neil Olshey is going to have to work some magic to attract some quality players to ride the pine. If the Blazers can solidify a bench that can actually score points and, you know, help the starters, they can increase those odds and have a more realistic shot to win the NBA Championship!
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