Before the season began, I advised my clients to bet on a future bet.

Fortunately and with still 17 games remaining in the regular season, we have already won the play with Atlanta.

Here's the writeup:

What the line given to Atlanta asks is if the Hawks will do better than last season or not. And in order to have a response, not only we need to see what the team will be capable to do this season, but also figure it out what their division opponents will do. Atlanta is part of the weakest division of the East this season, no doubt about it. Just Orlando will be in the Playoffs for sure and then Washington, Miami and Charlotte will start the season with some question marks above their heads. I believe Atlanta will occupy the position that Washington had last season and be the second best team on the Southwest division. The Wizards will start the season without Arenas, Haywood is out of the season, Jamison has already got injured too during the preseason and it will be hard for the Wizards to repeat the 43-39 record they had last season. Miami and Charlotte are unpredictable teams, but they both have structural problems in their rosters and they will need time to get better. The same doesn't happen with Atlanta. The Hawks almost caused one of the biggest upsets ever in last season's Playoffs by taking Boston to a Game 7 and the team's structure for this season is basically the same which finished last season. The Hawks were a young and inconsistent team, without a true PG until Mike Bibby came from Sacramento. If the Hawks began with a 4-10 record with Bibby, the truth is that when he got used to play with his new team mates, the Hawks finished te season with a 11-6 run. The only problem the team had to solve during the offseason was Childress leaving for Europe, but the Hawks solved that issue very well by adding Flip Murray and Maurice Evans to their bench. Al Horford is now a sophomore and he will become a more consistent player. And obviously, players like Joe Johnson, Marvin Williams and Josh Smith have everything to improve what they've done last season. The team entered some games showing some fear, but after their great performance in the Playoffs against the Celtics, they have now the necessary confidence for this season. Unlike most teams, Atlanta has already the rotations defined and I think repeating their last season's record won't be hard at all for them. We are talking about 37 wins and I think Atlanta should hit the 40 wins mark or at least, getting extremely close from that number. They had 26 wins in 2005, 30 wins in 2006 and 37 wins in 2007. I predict the Hawks to get a record similar to 40-42 this season. Take the over in here.

Atlanta Over 36.5 Wins

NBA PREVIEW: Lakers @ Spurs

This game features the best two teams of the Western Conference and with today's game being the close out series, it will be interesting to know which team will win the regular season series, as they are currently tied 1-1.

The Lakers made a huge comeback last night in Houston, as Kobe Bryant showed why he is the MVP and the Lakers won by 102-96. Note that Lamar Odom didn?t play last night and Josh Powell was an unexpected huge factor by scoring 17 points (8-14 from the field) and grabbing 9 rebounds. Today, Odom will return and the Lakers don?t have a good spot in here, as this will be their third consecutive game against a powerhouse team and all of them were on the road. Playing in Portland, Houston and San Antonio in 4 days is terrible even for the best team of the league.

Meanwhile the Spurs are doing their job by taking care at home of some winnable teams like the Bobcats and the Wizards. Since the All star break, they have already faced some top teams at home and the result is positive, as their only loss was against the Cavs. I think that they have a great chance to win tonight, but I can?t deny that the Lakers are money in the bank in the underdog role! They are 6-0 ATS as an underdog this season and 4 of the 6 wins were in matches where they were playing in a back to back spot!

For today I have one play in the Cavs/Suns game...good luck!

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