The Toronto Raptors launch their 2023-24 NBA regular season on Oct. 25 against the Minnesota Timberwolves. Toronto is a slight favorite at various Ontario sports betting sites, giving anywhere between 0.5 points and 1.5 points as of Monday afternoon.
Can we learn anything from Toronto’s October form in recent years to inform wagers for this game and the other early games on this season’s slate? OntarioBets.com dug into the numbers to find out. Here’s what we found:
Top 10 October NBA Team Records Since 2017-18
Raptors Score High For October Success
OntarioBets.com, the home of Ontario online casinos news as well as sports coverage, wondered which teams are accustomed to getting off to fast starts.
The first calendar month of the NBA season is short, but it contains a few important games in October. We consulted the website Champs or Chumps to find the October records of every NBA team since the 2017-18 season. Note that all teams didn’t play the same number of games, so our ranking is based on win percentage.
Since 2017-18, Toronto is tied for the second-best record in the league in October games at 23-10, for a .697 winning percentage. That matches the Utah Jazz in October games over a five-season span (there have been six seasons since 2017-18, but there were no October games in 2020-21, when the season’s start was delayed because of COVID-19 restrictions). The only team that has been better in October during that span is the Milwaukee Bucks, who are 22-9 for a .710 winning percentage.
Legal Ontario sports betting apps have the Raptors at odds between +10000 and +15000 to win the NBA championship in this upcoming season.
Toronto Raptors 2023-24 Outlook
This season the Raptors, under new coach Darko Rajakovic, have four games in October.
On Oct. 27, two days after playing Minnesota, Toronto goes on the road for the first time in this regular season by visiting Chicago to take on the Bulls. That’s a rematch of last season’s play-in game, which the Bulls won. That result ended Toronto’s playoff hopes, as well as the coaching tenure of Nick Nurse, who led the Raptors to their first NBA championship in 2019. Then on Oct. 28, the Raptors will be back home to host the Philadelphia 76ers. Canada’s team closes out the month by welcoming the Portland Trail Blazers to Toronto on Oct. 30.
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