The San Antonio Spurs open their season against the Orlando Magic at the AT&T Center on Wednesday night.
The Orlando Magic will be looking to turn the page and welcome a new era after shipping off Nikola Vucevic and Aaron Gordon, while hiring Jamahl Mosley as their new head coach. The Magic signed Wendell Carter to a four-year extension on his rookie deal while picking up Jalen Suggs with the fifth overall pick, but I’m looking forward to seeing Jonathan Isaac back on the court after he sat out all of last season due to injuries.
Meanwhile, the San Antonio Spurs will be hoping for a fresh start after making plenty of moves in the offseason. DeMar DeRozan was traded away along with Patty Mills, Rudy Gay and LaMarcus Aldridge. In terms of additions, the Spurs now have Doug McDermott, Thaddeus Young, Zach Collins, Bryn Forbes and Al-Farouq Aminu. The expectations are very low for a Spurs team who just traded away all their veteran talent, but there are plenty of young pieces for coach Popovich to make some noise.
Looking at the betting trends, the Magic are 1-4 ATS in their last five road games and 1-6 ATS in their last seven games as an underdog. The Spurs are 3-1-1 ATS in their last five home games and 16-7 ATS in their last 23 games playing on three or more days rest.
Head to head, the over is 5-1 in the last six meetings overall, the Magic are 1-4 ATS in the last five meetings overall and the Magic are 6-2 ATS in the last eight meetings in San Antonio.
The Magic look to have gone into a full rebuild mode after shipping off two of their best players while hiring a new head coach for player development. The Spurs went through a similar process by shipping off all of their best veteran players, but they still have plenty of quality role players which is all coach Popovich needs to win games in the regular season. I’m not expecting much from either team this season, but I do like the Spurs to start their campaign with a win in this one.