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Morning Coffee: Chiefs trade for Hopkins to bolster offence amidst injury concerns
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The Kansas City Chiefs entered the NFL season as the favourite to win the Super Bowl at +550.
After a 6-0 start, the Chiefs are down to +430 to win it all at FanDuel as the NFL’s last remaining undefeated team.
Still, most of us who played them to win the Super Bowl went to bed last night with concerns with the sheer number of injuries piling up on the Kansas City offence.
This morning, we woke up to a welcome surprise.
The Chiefs acquired veteran wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins in a trade with the Tennessee Titans.
The five-time Pro Bowl receiver will provide an instant injection of talent in an offence that desperately needs it following the losses of Rashee Rice, Marquise Brown, Isiah Pacheco, and now JuJu Smith-Schuster.
Hopefully, Kansas City will continue to add before the trade deadline in an effort to bolster a roster that appears primed to challenge for an unprecedented third straight Super Bowl ring.
Meanwhile, the only person that has it better than all of us with a bet on the Chiefs to win it all is Hopkins, who went to bed 1-5 with Will Levis and Mason Rudolph as his quarterbacks and woke up 6-0 with Patrick Mahomes.
Kansas City was already an obvious Super Bowl favourite.
If they can just stay healthy the rest of the way, the Chiefs will have an excellent opportunity to live up to that billing with a Super Bowl three-peat in February.
This is the Morning Coffee for Wednesday October 23rd, 2024.
A FanDuel Best Bet For Wednesday’s NBA Slate
Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall!
It’s certainly one of my favourite times of the year.
Hopefully, the warm weather we have experienced here in Ontario continues as October winds down.
Regardless, we’ll look to stay hot with the FanDuel Best Bets in this column whether it’s the NFL, NHL, NBA or MLB this week.
Tuesday’s FanDuel Best Bet was never a sweat as the New York Rangers beat the Montreal Canadiens 7-2 and Derrick White scored 24 points in a Boston Celtics win over the New York Knicks after raising a championship banner at TD Garden.
They aren’t all that easy and as always, if you’re tailing my recommended plays in this column, I ask that you check out the Responsible Gaming tools available at FanDuel and please play responsibly.
Turning the page this morning, I have my eye on a couple of NFL plays that I may circle @Domenic_Padula on X later this afternoon.
In the meantime, we have a loaded basketball slate as the NBA season ramps up tonight, including the Toronto Raptors beginning their season at home against the Cleveland Cavaliers.
The Cavaliers have already been bet up from -4.5 to -6.5 at FanDuel over the past few days.
Meanwhile, the total is up from 219.5 to 224.5.
In case you missed it, I’m already on the Raptors under 30.5 wins at FanDuel.
I also played the Washington Wizards under 22.5 wins – my favourite NBA futures play for the NBA season.
As for tonight’s slate, I’m going with another bankroll builder SGP+ as we settle into another NBA season.
The FanDuel Best Bet is Kevin Durant 15+ points, Ivica Zubac 10+ points, and Andrew Wiggins 10+ points as an SGP+ at -106 odds.
Durant averaged 26.8 points per game last season and 25.0 points in three games against the Clippers.
15 or more points in his season debut seems like a reasonable floor to start this SGP+ tonight.
Next up, I have Zubac scoring 10 points or more against the Suns.
Zubac hit this mark in each of his final nine games last season and averaged 14.0 points in three games against Phoenix.
Hopefully, the unorthodox shooting practice techniques will pay off for him this season.
With Paul George gone and Kawhi Leonard sidelined with an injury, James Harden will lean on Zubac at the rim for some easy baskets in this one.
Finally, I have Wiggins 10 or more points for the Golden State Warriors in their game against the Portland Trail Blazers as the final leg of this SGP+.
Wiggins averaged 13.2 points per game last season, but that averaged jumped to 16.3 points in three games against the Trail Blazers.
Klay Thompson is gone and Steve Kerr has talked openly about his desire for Wiggins to take on a bigger role filling the No. 2 role behind Stephen Curry.
10 points feels like a reasonable expectation for his season opener tonight in Portland.
The NBA SGP+ with Durant 15+ points, Zubac 10+ points, and Wiggins 10+ points at -106 odds is locked in as my FanDuel Best Bet for Wednesday’s NBA slate.
Hopefully, we can make it back-to-back NBA winners in this column and start of the season on a high note.
Have a great day, everyone!