The NBA season is fast approaching, so bettors looking to take advantage of inefficient perceptions of teams heading into the year don’t have much time remaining. Let’s dive into our Houston Rockets 2023-24 season preview. We’ll examine the Houston Rockets’ futures odds, including their win total, for 2023-24 to pick the best bets and make our predictions. Make sure to check out OddsShopper’s tools for all the most up-to-date NBA odds!
Houston Rockets Season Preview: Futures Odds, Picks & Predictions for 2023-24
Houston Rockets Futures Odds: Championship, Conference, Division & Win Total
Odds via FanDuel Sportsbook
NBA Championship: +50000
Western Conference: +18000
Southwest Division: +4000
Win Total: 31.5 -110/-110
Houston Rockets Season Preview
The Houston Rockets have had a terrible three seasons since the departure of James Harden. However, the team has finally made enough progress that excitement about their upcoming campaign is justified. Houston brings in head coach Ime Udoka, who, the last time we saw him, engineered a wildly successful second-half rally with the Boston Celtics. Fred VanVleet takes over at point guard, and Dillon Brooks gets the small forward spot. Rookie Amen Thompson provides some youth off the bench at guard. Ball-dominant Kevin Porter Jr. is also gone, leaving Houston with a starting lineup of VanVleet-Jalen Green-Brooks-Jabari Smith Jr–Alperen Sengun.
Green, Smith and Sengun were always supposed to be project prospects, and, no offense to Eric Gordon, they’ll finally have some veteran leadership from a lead scoring option. Smith looks noticeably bigger heading into the season, Sengun has been encouraged to get more aggressive with his shooting, and Green finally has a mentor capable of helping him as a ball-handler. Replacing Stephen Silas with Udoka is an opportunity for the new head coach to make significant team culture changes as he looks to lead the Rockets to their best record since the 2019-20 season. It won’t be easy, but Houston’s prospects have the ceiling for 32 wins to be well within the team’s range of outcomes.
The Rockets’ season will come down to more than just their young stars meeting high expectations. VanVleet must continue to perform at a high level. Brooks must find a way to not let his personality clash with the new culture Udoka is looking to instill. The bench, which features Thompson and several journeyman veterans like Reggie Bullock, Jock Landale and Aaron Holiday, must perform at or above replacement level when called upon. There is relatively little margin for error with this team, especially in such a competitive Western Conference, but the Rockets avoid most of the worst the conference has to offer.
NBA Futures Picks for 2023-24
The books are asking us a simple question with this line: do the offseason changes in Houston make the Rockets a 10-win better team? To me, the answer is an obvious yes. It’s also worth noting that Houston had already shown signs of progress down the stretch last year. The Rockets went a disastrous 13-45 (22.4%) before the All-Star Break and ranked 29th in net rating (-8.6). Afterward, they rallied to 9-15 (37.5%) while ranked 27th in net rating (-7). The Rockets improved their true shooting percentage from 29th (55.1%) to 26th (55.9%) and their turnover rate from 30th (16.9%) to 24th (14.4%). These may not seem like especially meaningful trends, but remember, we’re not betting on a 22-win team to win next year’s title — we’re just betting on them to go no worse than 32-50 (39%).
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Houston’s schedule isn’t all that bad. The Rockets play in the Southwest Division, which means four games against the Grizzlies, Pelicans, Mavericks and Spurs. The Rockets will benefit from banging out three of their games against the Grizzlies during Ja Morant’s 25-game suspension. None of Houston’s division rivals own win totals higher than 45.5. Further, of the non-division teams they’ll face four times — Los Angeles, Phoenix, Utah and Portland — two are actively tanking, and two are top-heavy teams that could prove vulnerable to injuries.
The Rockets will also get to build some early momentum this season. Their schedule opens with a series of winnable games, with Orlando Magic, San Antonio Spurs, Golden State Warriors and Charlotte Hornets listed as their first four opponents. Houston also has seven games against teams likely to be tanking, the Utah Jazz, Washington Wizards and Portland Trail Blazers, scheduled for after the trade deadline. Buying the over on the Rockets’ win total may feel like asking a lot from a team that is 59-177 (33.3%) over the last three seasons, but again, we only need them to improve their winning percentage by six percent to cash the over.
Houston Rockets Win Total Pick: Over 31.5 Wins -110 at FanDuel
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