Why Bettors NEED to Take the Phoenix Suns NBA Playoffs Odds

No NBA future bet is more valuable than the Phoenix Suns to make the playoffs (+1000 future odds at DraftKings sportsbook).

Why? Because the Suns stink. But fortunately, that works in our favor.

Sports betting can be made out to be anything under the sun—an amalgamation of hopes and dreams, a product of hours of intense research, parlay picks on a whim—all result in the same action of finding and placing a wager at a legal sportsbook.

What is often forgotten is that sports betting has very little to do with proper analysis and everything to do with the word mentioned in our opening statement: value.

So allow us to explain why the Phoenix Suns to make the playoffs might not be the best, but it is the most valuable bet according to bookmakers’ odds.

Thank us later.

Understanding the basics

Let’s return to the difference between the two key terms best and most valuable.

Pretend that the Los Angeles Lakers are taking on the Brooklyn Nets. The Lakers are -350 moneyline favorites, and the Nets are +300 moneyline underdogs.

The best bet would obviously be the Lakers, who are one of the hottest teams in basketball and have an implied 77.8 percent chance to win the game based on the NBA betting odds. However, if we posit that the Lakers only have a 70 percent chance to win, that means their odds aren’t valuable since the bettor has to pay more than the bet is worth.

Think of this like buying store-brand instead of name-brand items. Fruity O’s might not have the same ring as Froot Loops, but who cares if you save $1.50 per box for essentially the same product?

The understanding of value is crucial to sports betting. It’s why line shopping, or comparing betting odds across multiple sportsbooks, is one of the simplest yet most effective strategies for maximizing long-term returns. 

Suns odds to make the NBA playoffs 

Getting into the nitty gritty here, the Suns’ +1000 odds imply that they only have a 9.1 percent chance to make the playoffs, which requires them to make the eight-team bracket either as a top-six seed or by winning a spot in the Play-In Tournament.

The Suns sit 2.5 games behind the 10th-place Dallas Mavericks in the Western Conference. Dallas will be without Kyrie Irving and potentially Anthony Davis for the remainder of the season, Daniel Gafford and Dereck Lively II are out with long-term injuries, and several other players such as P.J. Washington and Caleb Martin are dealing with short-term ailments.

In the Mavs’ first game without Irving on Wednesday, March 5, they gave up 137 points and lost by 30 to the Milwaukee Bucks. They are now -1400 (93.3 percent implied chance) to miss the playoffs, which theoretically means the Suns are in a position to overtake them. 

Our future analysis operates under the assumption that the Suns will make the Play-In Tournament, although that is far from guaranteed. They are just 29-33 at the time of writing and have the toughest upcoming slate of games in the entire league based on strength of schedule.

Even still, it’s reasonable to envision a team with Kevin Durant and Devin Booker making up a 2.5-game gap on a team that has lost six of its best seven players and no longer employs Luka Doncic.

That would mean the Suns would need to win back-to-back Play-In games likely against the Sacramento Kings, Los Angeles Clippers, Minnesota Timberwolves, or Golden State Warriors, assuming they manage to rise to the 10th seed.

Learning from the past to predict the future 

The current standings in the Western Conference would pit a 10th-seed Suns team against the Kings and the loser of the Timberwolves-Clippers matchup. 

The Suns have not played the Kings since Nov. 13 when they were 9-2 and 8.5-point favorites. That makes it impossible to refer to past odds to get a proper indication of what the Play-In odds would be, but for what it’s worth, the Kings won that game by 23 points and are 2-0 against the Suns.

More conveniently, the Suns faced the Clippers as two-point underdogs and Timberwolves as 1.5-point favorites in their most recent outings. Both games were at home, and they would be on the road in the Play-In in the event they finish as the 10th seed. 

Assuming home-court advantage is worth three points in NBA betting, that would make the Suns +4.5 against the T’Wolves and +8 against the Clippers if both games occurred on the road. 

Those odds averaged together yield a projected spread of +6.25 for the Suns’ second-round Play-In opponent. Sportsbook Review’s conversion calculator believes that equals about +230 moneyline odds, or a 30.3 percent implied chance. 

Why the Suns playoffs odds are a hit 

Since we don’t have recent odds for the Kings to convert, well revert to advanced NBA metrics.

The Kings have a net rating of +2.0, which is below the Clippers (+2.2) and Timberwolves (+3.4) and means it could be implied they would be lesser favorites than either of those teams.

We will set the hypothetical spread for a Suns-Kings game at four points, which is just below the T’Wolves’ +4.5 line and equates to +150 estimated odds, or a 40 percent implied chance.

That means the Suns would need to come out on top of two straight games they have 40 and 30.3 percent chances of winning.

• .4 * .303 = 12.1%

The 12.1 percent yielded from that equation greatly exceeds the 9.09 implied chance of the Suns’ +1000 odds to make the playoffs and carries implied +726 odds, making it a valuable future bet.

That’s significant since futures odds have more juice than those in any other betting market.

All of this is assuming the Suns find a way to make up the 2.5-game deficit on the Mavericks, but if that plays out, then this is a +EV bet in a futures market. That’s nearly underheard of. 

Here are the playoff odds and implied probabilities for every other team we mentioned.

• Mavericks (+750) – 11.8 percent
• Timberwolves (-1400) – 93.3 percent
• Kings (+135) – 42.6 percent
• Clippers (-230) – 69.7 percent

That’s a total of 217.4 percent for two possible Play-In spots, which have 200 percent total actual probability. It also doesn’t include the sixth-place Warriors, who are only ahead of the Timberwolves via a tiebreaker, the Suns, and the other teams below the 11th seed. 

None of the other options we presented are anywhere near as enticing as Phoenix. Most importantly, they have nowhere the same values as their 10-to-1 odds.

So are the Suns disappointing, embarrassing, and a tough watch? Absolutely. 

Do the Suns also have the most valuable NBA playoffs odds? You bet your butt they do.