There’s no such thing as an easy bet, but the Eastern Conference undeniably occupies the junior varsity slot in the 2024-25 over/under market. Everyone is trying to win in the West. In the East? Nope. We have four well-defined tiers within the conference that at least offer us a baseline:

Of course, the fact that we know this means that the market knows it as well. We probably aren’t going to see as many teams wildly mispriced here, for example, but we can at least use this knowledge to give ourselves a bit of a head start. We can guess, for example, that Eastern Conference playoff teams will have slightly better records than their Western Conference counterparts because they have more games against the lightweights at the bottom of the standings.

So let’s dive into these Eastern Conference over-unders using these tiers as a starting point. We’ll be using the lines at Caesars Sportsbook, and teams will be listed in order of their projection.

*Pythagorean Wins represent the number of games a team would be expected to win based on their point-differential

Boston Celtics

The pick: Under 58.5

This is immediately the under with the greatest chance of making me look bad. Boston won 64 games a year ago, but in truth the Celtics were far better. Their point-differential suggests that they played at the quality of a 69-win team, and remember, they had the No. 1 seed seweed up months before the playoffs began. They weren’t even going full-throttle all season.

But repeating that degree of success is just so unlikely. Only two teams have ever repeated 64-win seasons. One of them had Michael Jordan. The other had Stephen Curry. The Celtics posted the fourth-best net rating in NBA history last season, but only Jordan’s Bulls and Curry’s Warriors have ever had top-25 net ratings in consecutive seasons. Even reaching the 59 wins needed to hit this over in consecutive seasons is a rarity. Technically nobody has done it since Curry’s Warriors did so from 2015-17, but the Milwaukee Bucks hit the necessary winning percentage in the 2018-19 and 2019-20 seasons before the latter was shut down due to COVID. That team had Giannis Antetokounmpo, who won MVP in both of those seasons. This is obviously a trend even within our small sample. Curry and Jordan were also multiple-time MVPs. The Celtics don’t have someone like that.

So many things need to go right for a team to win 59 games. It’s not just a matter of quality. Everyone needs to stay healthy. Everyone needs to shoot at or near career-best levels. Everyone needs to want to win that many regular-season games instead of simply coasting to the postseason. It takes a degree of luck. Boston is already starting this season without Kristaps Porzingis. That’s fairly significant when you remember that Al Horford is 38. There are valid front-court questions here, though Xavier Tillman is sorely underrated. The Celtics might still be the best team in the NBA. They are certainly the Eastern Conference favorite. But that’s not what we’re measuring here. As a regular-season team, I’m expecting a bit of regression.

New York Knicks

The pick: Over 53.5

Tom Thibodeau’s Knicks teams have gone over their projected total in three out of his four seasons in New York. For his New York tenure overall, they have won 28 games more than their preseason projections. Thibodeau’s Bulls teams went under in his last three seasons, but remember, those were the Derrick Rose injury years. Without Rose in those seasons, Chicago went 105-80, which would obviously qualify as exceeding expectations. You can certainly argue that Thibodeau’s tactics wear on teams when the postseason arrives. There is no denying how effective his approach is in the regular season. He plays his best players more than any other coach in basketball. Nobody out-efforts his teams. They don’t leave wins on the table.

The question here is primarily depth-related. In theory, there is redundancy here. Mikal Bridges and OG Anunoby do similar things. If one goes down, the other mitigates the loss. Precious Achiuwa is obviously inferior to Karl-Anthony Towns, but he’s a big man that can shoot well enough to keep defenses honest, so losing Towns for a meaningful period wouldn’t necessarily force the Knicks to drastically change their playing style. But after the Towns and Bridges trades, this roster is fairly thin. Until Mitchell Robinson returns mid-season, they have six reliable rotation players: Towns, Bridges, Anunoby, Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart and Deuce McBride. Lose two of them and suddenly things start to look iffy. But so long as they’re healthy, the Knicks are going to be a regular-season monster. Thibodeau’s style meshed with a roster that will likely compete for the No. 1 offensive ranking equals a juggernaut.

Philadelphia 76ers

The pick: Over 53.5

You’re afraid to take a Joel Embiid over. I get it. Consider the following: Embiid’s teams have won 62.5% of their regular-season games since the beginning of the 2017-18 season. That includes the games he’s missed, and it translates to over 51 wins in an 82-game season. If typical Embiid health patterns hold, you’re going to wind up in this range. So it comes down to this: do you think this team has enough of an advantage over a typical Embiid roster to bridge that three-win gap?

I believe the answer to that question is yes. The raw roster quality speaks for itself. This is a true three-star outfit, and Embiid fits flawlessly with Tyrese Maxey and Paul George. The three are simultaneously distinct and compatible. None of them do the same things. None of them interfere with what the others do. Maxey and Embiid mastered their pick-and-roll craft last season, and the speed contrast between the two is a nightmare for defenses to deal with. If you take this over, it’s a bet on Maxey as much as Embiid. He’s the youngest of the three and the likeliest to stay healthy, and his shot-creation is going to be stabilizing for Philadelphia when Embiid is out.

The rest of the roster also has a remarkable degree of redundancy and upside given how expensive the top of it is. They’re flush with usable wings between Kelly Oubre, Caleb Martin, Eric Gordon and French Olympic hero Guerschon Yabusele. If first-round pick Jared McCain pans out then all the better. Andre Drummond is far from a perfect player, but he is uniquely suited to serving as Embiid’s backup because of all of his experience as a starter. He’s perfectly capable, even now, of serving as a spot starter. It’s a tiny sample, but he just averaged roughly 11 points and 11 rebounds as a starter in 10 games for the lowly Bulls a year ago. They went 6-4 in those games. The K.J. Martin contract was designed to be traded for a mid-season upgrade. I’d endorse virtually any upside bet on this team aside from the best overall record (Oklahoma City is the only team you should consider on that front). If you want to take division or No. 1 seed swings here, go for it. The best version of this team can win 60 games. The median version is still going to hover in the low 50’s.

Milwaukee Bucks

The pick: Under 50.5

I’m out on the Bucks for the simplest of reasons: they’re old. Old teams regress due to age. They tend not to stay healthy. They can perhaps summon their old selves in the postseason, but they are not suited to regular-season over bets.

Brook Lopez is 36. Only 16 centers have ever started 60 or more games at that age. Playing a brute force position at that age takes a toll. Lopez is only three years removed from serious back surgery. Khris Middleton has played only 88 games over the past two seasons, and that has been with the Bucks carefully limiting his minutes. He had surgery on both ankles this offseason. There has been plenty of talk of Damian Lillard returning to his old form this season now that he is settled in Milwaukee. He’s 34. Only eight point guards have ever made All-Star games in their age-34 season or later. Lower that age threshold to 32 and the number more than doubles to 17. This is right around the age range in which smaller star point guards tend to decline. Even if greater comfort and a full season under Doc Rivers helps Lillard, we can’t just pretend it’s a certainty that he’s the same player physically that he was in Portland.

The Bucks have now gone under in three of their past four seasons, and remember, Mike Budenholzer was their coach for three of those seasons. Budenholzer teams tend to be stellar in the regular season. There’s very little to suggest that the Bucks think of the first 82 games as a priority. They did quite well with their minimum-salary signings, but they are still minimum-salary signings. Gary Trent Jr. is a capable starting shooting guard. Malik Beasley was too a year ago. Trent is not the defensive ace Milwaukee needs on the perimeter. Delon Wright might be, but in a much smaller bench role. Taurean Prince is a playable forward. Great for the price. Not great under any other circumstances. Giannis Antetokounmpo isn’t even a spring chicken anymore. He’s about to turn 30. If you’re going to fear the Bucks, do it in the postseason, when Antetokounmpo should still inspire more fear than any other Eastern Conference player. Until then? I’m expecting a rocky regular season. 

Cleveland Cavaliers

The pick: Over 48.5

This is my favorite bet on the board. It’s not close. If Cleveland hadn’t tanked the season finale, it would have hit this total a year ago with its three best players all missing at least 25 games. They’ve upgraded at coach by hiring Kenny Atkinson. He’s well-suited to this roster and has already thrived with Jarrett Allen in Brooklyn. They have astounding continuity outside of the coaching change. Their 12 most-used players last season are all back.

Cleveland has had three consecutive top-seven defenses including a No. 1 finish in 2023. It’s very hard not to be great on defense with two elite rim-protectors in Allen and Evan Mobley. They ranked eighth in offense in 2023, when Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland were generally healthy. This is, again, intuitive. If you have two All-Star-level creators, your baseline on offense is going to be very high, and the Cavaliers have improved their surrounding shooting considerably since then. The road map here is simple. Hover around the top 10, but stay in the top five on defense as this team nearly always does and it is going to win a bunch of games.

It’s entirely reasonable to have misgivings about this roster in a playoff format. Garland and Mitchell don’t enhance one another on offense. Mobley and Allen actively hinder one another on that end of the floor, and justifying a major role for Garland defensively when he isn’t the primary ball-handler on offense is difficult. But we’re not talking about the playoffs here. The playoffs are about weaknesses, of which this team has several. The regular season is about strengths, of which this team has even more. Short them in April. Bet them today. In fact, I like them plenty at +200 to win the Central as well. 

Orlando Magic

The pick: Under 48.5

If Orlando has a top-three defense again, it’s probably going to finish reasonably close to this number. The problem here is that Orlando’s top-three defense relied so heavily on Jonathan Isaac, and history tells us pretty emphatically not to rely on Jonathan Isaac. The Magic were more than 10 points per 100 possessions better defensively with him on the floor last season than without him, but before last season, he had played in only 147 regular season games across six seasons. By all means, maintain plenty of “if Isaac stays healthy” optimism. Just don’t put your money on him staying healthy.

The Magic are only winning this bet on defense. They ranked 22nd in offense a year ago. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope might help a bit, but he doesn’t solve their ball-handling problem. This is still a team leaning on two forwards still on rookie contracts to create the bulk of their shots. Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner are very good players, but they would benefit tremendously from the presence of even, say, an average-starter level of dribble penetrator and shooter at point guard. Maybe Jalen Suggs turns into that player. It looked like he could in college. I’m not betting an Orlando over until I’m confident that they have that player.

Indiana Pacers

The pick: Over 47.5

I’ll confess I’m a tad confused by this line. Tyrese Haliburton played the second half of last season injured and Pascal Siakam played the first half of last season in Toronto… and the Pacers still came within half of a win of this total. This is still a relatively young roster. Only four players on the entire roster have more than four years of NBA experience. Even if there is a bit of regression of Siakam or Myles Turner, it should be offset by growth from the youngsters.

The Pacers laid out the formula last season. They had the No. 1 offense by a mile on the day Haliburton got hurt. They weren’t exactly good on defense down the stretch, but they ranked 22nd from the day Siakam arrived until the end of the season. That’s acceptable if you’re going to be as good as Indiana was offensively. They don’t need a full season of healthy Haliburton and healthy Siakam to hit this over. But they only got a half-season of each last season. Let’s say they get 65 full-strength games from both this season. That should be more than enough to bang out that last win they need for this total.

Miami Heat

The pick: Under 45.5

Jimmy Butler is so serious about this regular season that he didn’t even show up to media day with a fun hairstyle. That’s all well and good, but the idea that Butler isn’t going to miss games this season seems a tad far-fetched. It’s not as though he was just skipping games outright over the past few years. He was hurt. He’s 35. Sure, he might play through some of the smaller injuries that inevitably pop up throughout a season, but at his age, that makes it a bit likelier he suffers through one of the bigger ones that can derail a season. Pat Riley might not like the games he misses, but they serve a function. Managing players at his age is typically the wiser course of action.

There’s plenty of “over” logic here if you’re looking for it. Tyler Herro missed half of last season. Terry Rozier spent half of last season in Charlotte. Nikola Jovic and Jaime Jaquez are relatively promising young players. Duncan Robinson has developed his overall offense quite a bit. He can do more than shoot 3’s now.

But no version of this team has sustained offensive success. They haven’t had a top-10 offense since 2020, and that includes their 2022 No. 1 seed season. They were 17th a year ago, and despite the relative limited availability of Herro and Rozier a year ago, the Heat didn’t set the world on fire during either of their minutes. The version of the Heat that succeed on offense is, as it has more or less always been over the past five years, the one that has Butler on the floor. They’re good when he plays and bad when he sits. He’s 35. No hairstyle is convincing enough to assume he’s playing 75 games, and this roster has quietly shed defensive talent in recent years. Bam Adebayo is a Defensive Player of the Year-caliber defender. He’s also one player, and asking him to keep pulling top-five defenses out of thin air given the players around him feels a tad unrealistic. 

Atlanta Hawks

The pick: Under 36.5

I have a hard time imagining the Hawks improving after the Dejounte Murray trade. Atlanta had three reliable shot-creators last season. One of them now plays for the Pelicans. Another, Bogdan Bogdanovic, is a relatively injury-prone 32-year-old. Trae Young is probably underrated as a generator of team offense. Lineups featuring Young as the primary creator next to shooters and athletes almost universally thrive.

Where are the shooters this season? Atlanta is going to have to devote most of its forward minutes to unproven shooters. Dyson Daniels is a ball-handler, not a shooter. Who knows what Zaccharie Risacher turns out to be. Today, he’s a rookie from a bad draft class, and most rookies, regardless of the quality of their draft class, are bad. Jalen Johnson is an emerging overall player. It remains to be seen how much spacing he’ll provide. The one reliable shooting forward they have, De’Andre Hunter, might get traded for financial purposes.

Without shooting, defenses are going to make Young’s life miserable, and without a strong, Young-led offense, this team is going to be bad. Forget about making up any offensive losses on defense. The Hawks have never even been league-average on that end of the floor during Young’s career. Given their youth movement, they’re likely to be a good deal worse than league-average on defense this season. They ranked 27th a year ago. That seems about right. Atlanta was better a year ago when Young was out, but Murray’s shot-creation made that possible. Without him, they’re not going to be able to score whenever Young sits, and they’re not going to be able to get stops no matter who is on the floor.

Toronto Raptors

The pick: Over 29.5

Ignore most of last season’s negativity. They were tanking to try to preserve a protected pick. They lost it anyway. That obligation has now extinguished and they are free to tank if they so choose, but considering their talent relative to the bottom of the East, that likely isn’t feasible. The path here is to let things play out organically, and if that’s what the Raptors do, they’re going to be decent.

The Knicks imports were great as Raptors. RJ Barrett shot 55-39-63 in 32 games as a Raptor. If he maintains those numbers while improving at the line he could make a fringe All-Star case. Immanuel Quickley’s two-point efficiency dipped when he transitioned from reserve to starter, but he counterbalanced that by increasing his 3-point volume without impacting his efficiency there. If you assume that he’ll do better in his second season as a starter, which seems reasonable given his age and how much better the Raptors will likely be when they aren’t actively trying to lose, you’ve got another good starter here.

Yes, the last remnants of the 2019 championship team are gone. So too are the problems that stuck with that core. There are real centers here now. There are real shooters as well. You’re not going to compete for championships with Jakob Poeltl, Gradey Dick and Kelly Olynyk in major roles, but those are legitimate NBA players serving needed functions. They’re more than enough to keep this team in the Play-In hunt, and remember, the Raptors still have a draft surplus thanks to the Siakam trade as well as $40 million in expiring, non-essential salary in Bruce Brown, Chris Boucher and Davion Mitchell. If the young core of Barrett, Quickley and Scottie Barnes impresses, Masai Ujiri has the tools to make another win-now trade, or at least add a younger player to that main group. 

Charlotte Hornets

The pick: Over 29.5

LaMelo Ball is more of a carnival act than a winning player in the eyes of many critics. He’s also won 44.5% of his games in the NBA. That’s well above this line if he stays healthy, and there is a ton of young talent in the building here. Brandon Miller would have won Rookie of the Year in many more normal classes. Mark Williams has All-Defense upside at center. Grant Williams actually looked like the reasonably viable rotation forward he was in Boston once he escaped a Mavericks team that really didn’t seem to like him.

Concerns here are legitimate. They have a first-year coach in Charles Lee. Ball and Williams are far from health certainties, and as promising as Miller looked a year ago, he’s still a 20-year-old second-year player. These things take time. But don’t underestimate the value of changing ownership here. The Hornets under Michael Jordan were among the NBA’s cheapest teams in most respects. Obviously this new ownership group hasn’t overhauled Jordan’s roster yet, but just getting even average owners in the building is going to result in organizational improvements that can’t be easily measured. The Hornets might be a real franchise now, and considering the talent in place, 30 wins seems like a fair benchmark. 

Chicago Bulls

The pick: Under 28.5

I’m torn here between the team’s obvious incentive and its illogical history. The Bulls never tank properly. Even in the disastrous post-Jimmy Butler, they never had a bottom-three record and were in the bottom five only once. This ownership group does not like fielding rosters that are outright bad. To hell with long-term vision. There are tickets to be sold.

Their two best players from last season’s sub-.500 team are gone. DeMar DeRozan is the more famous of the two, but the return of Zach LaVine offsets much of what is lost there. Alex Caruso’s absence will be felt more acutely. He wasn’t just the best defender on the Bulls. He was the only reliably good one. Patrick Williams has flashed upside in that respect, but he’s still a work in progress. Having Caruso is what made their defense viable over the past few seasons. Having a single player who could guard essentially anyone not named Joel Embiid or Nikola Jokic allowed everyone to more easily slide into place. The Bulls will have a reasonable chance at being the NBA’s worst defense this season without Caruso.

Josh Giddey will put up numbers in his new role as a starting point guard. Will that translate to much winning? Probably not. He doesn’t really create advantages for himself. He does so for teammates, but primarily in transition. He has to make 3’s to evolve into anything more than the decent regular-season starter he was in Oklahoma City. If he doesn’t? There are quietly quite a few mouths to feed here. Can LaVine be LaVine if nobody is guarding Giddey off the ball? How about Coby White? This isn’t just the Giddey show. If he can’t shoot, all of the same problems from Oklahoma City persist. 

Detroit Pistons

The pick: Under 25.5

If you can’t shoot you can’t score. That’s the rule in the modern NBA. Of last year’s top 10 offenses, seven ranked in the top 10 in 3-point percentage. The Pistons emphatically cannot shoot. Like, not even a little. It shouldn’t be possible to put together a young core with this much talent and so little shooting. Ausar Thompson shot 18.6% on 3’s as a rookie. Ron Holland was at 23.9% in the G-League. Jaden Ivey and Cade Cunningham are the primary ball-handlers here and ostensibly the best shooters in the core. They combined to make 34.5% of their looks on decent volume a season ago. These are the players Detroit is building around, the ones who have to get a lot of minutes.

Brought in to help on this front? Tobias Harris, roughly a league-average shooter who much prefers trying to create his own looks than spacing the floor for others, and Tim Hardaway Jr., who suffers from a more extreme version of that playing style. These are not the sort of low-maintenance spacers young ball-handlers need to grow. They’re looking for their own buckets.

Maybe the Pistons will be good on defense one day. Thompson is a potential star on that end. They ranked 25th a year ago and are still one of the NBA’s youngest teams. Nobody they added this offseason is going to make a major difference on this front. The collection of talent here is still interesting. These are all good prospects. They make no sense together. The veterans they added to complement them hardly do. Talk to me in a year or two when major roster changes have been made.

Washington Wizards

The pick: Under 20.5

This season is going to do wonders for Tyus Jones‘ reputation. Not only does he get to start at point guard in a loaded Phoenix offense, but we’re going to see just how low the Wizards can sink without him. Jones is no superstar, of course, but he was a real NBA point guard. Malcolm Brogdon is too, but his health is such a question mark every year. Meanwhile, the Wizards are working in a lottery pick at guard, Bub Carrington, and after a brief foray into bench work, the Wizards have confirmed that Jordan Poole will once again start this season.

Deni Avdija was probably the best player on the team last year. He is now a Portland Trail Blazer. Alex Sarr went scoreless on 15 shots in a Summer League game. He’s going to play a meaningful role due to draft position alone. The second-biggest contract they gave out this offseason went to Saddiq Bey, who will presumably miss all or most of the season as he recovers from a torn ACL.

There’s nothing to like here. The Wizards are an early-stage rebuilder throwing stuff against the wall and seeing what sticks. Not much did last year, aside from a relatively promising rookie season out of Bilal Coulibaly. Buckle up for another losing season, Washington.

Brooklyn Nets

The pick: Under 19.5

When a team tells you who it wants to be, believe it. The Nets aren’t just bad. They made the active decision to be bad. They traded a mountain of draft capital to get control of their own first-round picks back in 2025 and 2026. In that deal, they gave up picks that I ranked No. 2 and No. 5 among all traded draft picks in the NBA earlier this summer. That is not a trade you make if you plan to pick seventh.

No, that’s a trade you make when you expect to be awful. Worst record in the NBA awful. I’m not worried about the offense in that respect. Their primary shot-creators are Cam Thomas, who had more minutes played last season (1,984) than total passes made (1,916), and Ben Simmons, who has the opposite problem, having passed the ball 10 times as often (749 times in total) than he shot it (74). If they did the fusion dance they’d be the perfect player. Well, if they could stay on the floor.

The defense is going to be a tougher nut to crack, though moving Mikal Bridges helps in that respect. Nic Claxton is still good. So is Dorian Finney-Smith. Cam Johnson is useful on both ends of the floor. But no team has more of an incentive to be bad than Brooklyn. I trust them to brush anyone helpful aside, whether it’s through lengthy injury recoveries or in-season trades. The Nets didn’t pay the Rockets a premium to win 30 games. They telegraphed their desire to be terrible, so if you’re betting on them, you might as well lean into that.