5 smartest bets to place for 2019-20 NBA championship

4. Denver Nuggets (Odds: +1895)

This is the dark horse pick. The pick might be a surprise to some of you, but this team, with these odds, seems to be a great value pick and in turn, for the right amount of money, a smart bet.

The Denver Nuggets shocked a lot of people last year, and ended up overachieving all the way up to the second seed in the loaded Western Conference. However the young team showed their inexperience and bowed out in the second round of the playoffs to the Portland Trail Blazers.

With a couple playoff series now under their belts, their young core of Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray, Gary Harris and others have that much more playoff experience that can really help them get over the hump.

Speaking of Murray, he has so far shown in the league that he can score with the best of them, but not on a consistent enough basis. If he can figure that aspect of his game out and be a reliable option alongside MVP candidate Jokic, then that is when this team can really explode.

The wild card here is Michael Porter Jr. Just a few years ago he was the consensus No. 1 pick coming out of high school, but nasty injuries caused him to miss his freshman season at the University of Missouri, drop in the NBA Draft and miss his first year in the league.

It shouldn’t be a question if the talent is still there, but if he can get back healthy enough to showcase all of his talent. If he can somehow regain his form (he looked that way during the preseason) and be any bit of what a lot of the experts thought he would be when they scouted him, then he could add even more depth to this already fairly deep roster.

This Denver team has a good mix of young talent and veteran leadership. If Jokic takes MVP form and the deep supporting cast around him does their job on a consistent basis, then the sky is the limit. There most certainly is a chance they become NBA champs and at those odds, whoever placed a bet on them would suddenly have a very nice profit on their hands.