LOS ANGELES — The Toronto Blue Jays are one win away from their first World Series championship since 1993 and a chance to celebrate in front of their home fans, with Game 6 scheduled for 8 p.m. ET Friday at Rogers Centre.

After falling short to the Los Angeles Dodgers in an 18-inning classic in Game 3, the Blue Jays demonstrated remarkable resilience the next two nights, securing two comfortable victories and retaking the series lead behind stellar starting pitchingand the formidable offense that has headlined Toronto’s success all season.

The Dodgers, meanwhile, have fallen into a collective funk that finds them facing elimination as the action returns to Toronto. 

Here are the six biggest questions looming ahead of World Series Game 6.

1. Can Yoshinobu Yamamoto play the hero again?

It was Yamamoto who almost single-handedly secured Los Angeles’ first win of the World Series with his spectacular complete game in Game 2, his second consecutive nine-inning effort this postseason. Yamamoto retired the final 20 Blue Jays he faced and needed just 72 pitches to get through his final seven innings of work, leaning heavily on his splendid splitter and dynamite curveball to keep Toronto’s bats off-balance. It was a masterful performance, one he’ll now have the challenge of replicating against a deep and dangerous Blue Jays lineup that will have had days to conjure an improved game plan against him.

Expecting Yamamoto to go the distance again feels overly optimistic, but it’s not like the Dodgers have a multitude of trustworthy relievers to handle the later innings. If Yamamoto cruises again and the L.A. offense provides a comfortable lead, it would be entirely reasonable for manager Dave Roberts to let Yamamoto try to keep the bullpen door closed for the duration of Game 6 as well.

There’s also an intriguing historic parallel: The last pitcher to deliver multiple complete-game victories in a World Series was Dodgers legend Orel Hershiser in 1988. However, both times Hershiser took the mound in that Fall Classic, his Dodgers had a lead in the series, with his Game 2 win putting them up 2-0 and his Game 5 gem clinching the championship. Yamamoto’s second trip to the mound will come under far more daunting circumstances, as the Dodgers’ season is on the line as they head north of the border.

A 1-0 series deficit hardly fazed Yamamoto in Game 2 — and he has pitched in plenty of big games throughout his career, from the Japan Series to the World Baseball Classic to last year’s World Series — but how he fares with the Dodgers facing elimination will have an enormous impact on whether this series extends to Game 7.

2. Will we see George Springer again in this World Series?

As Yamamoto prepares to take on Toronto for a second time, one crucial unknown looms in the lineup he’ll be facing. George Springer accounted for two of the five baserunners against Yamamoto in Game 2, with a leadoff double in the first inning and a hit-by-pitch in the third. But after he departed Game 3 early when he experienced pain in his right side on a swing, Springer was not in the lineup for the next two games and did not come off the bench in either. That Toronto managed to win both contests without its impact leadoff man and venerable October performer is an enormous credit to the rest of the roster, but Springer’s availability remains a crucial storyline as this series shifts back to Toronto.

Manager John Schneider said ahead of Game 5 that Springer was progressing well and could be available off the bench, but the game was never close enough to warrant a potential Springer appearance, so it’s unclear how prepared he really was to enter the game. It would not seem wise to keep Springer on the roster if he’s completely unable to contribute — just last round, the Blue Jays replaced Anthony Santander mid-series due to injury — but it’s also hard to imagine the ultra-tough Springer won’t at least talk his way into bench availability for the remainder of this series, even if he isn’t well enough to slot into the starting lineup. As was the case ahead of Game 5, and based on Schneider’s description of Springer’s condition as “hour-to-hour,” it’s likely we won’t know how Springer is doing until Toronto announces its lineup on Friday.

Update: Schneider told reporters Thursday that Springer is expected to be in Toronto’s starting lineup for Game 6.

3. Can Kevin Gausman improve upon his Game 2 performance?

Although Gausman’s Game 2 outing ended on a sour note, with two game-changing home runs surrendered to Will Smith and Max Muncy, it’s fair to say Gausman pitched well, based on how smoothly and efficiently he navigated the middle innings en route to his longest start this postseason, an admirable 6 ⅔ innings of work. Gausman leaned heavily on his four-seam fastball in Game 2 — 49 of his 82 pitches were heaters, a 59.8% usage rate that ranked seventh among his 37 starts this year (regular season and postseason) — so perhaps we see a more substantial dose of splitters and sliders on Friday. 

While he ended up on the losing side in their first showdown thanks to Yamamoto’s epic effort, Gausman’s largely successful first World Series start should give him considerable confidence entering the potential clincher in Game 6, especially given how feeble the non-Ohtani Dodgers hitters have looked for much of this series. And speaking of the L.A. lineup …

4. Will the Dodgers’ offense wake up in time to save their season?

Roberts had seen enough. After far too many innings of unpleasant and unproductive offensive output outside of Shohei Ohtani’s superhuman swings and a handful of other homers, Roberts decided to shake up the starting lineup for Game 5 after using an exceptionally consistent alignment throughout October. The alterations included sliding Mookie Betts from second to third, where he hadn’t started a game since 2021, moving catcher Will Smith up to the 2-hole and replacing No. 9 hitter Andy Pages — stuck in a historically horrid skid — with Alex Call in left field, which moved Kiké Hernández to center.

The result of Roberts’ remixed lineup? One of the worst offensive games this team has had all year, matching a season high with 15 strikeouts — two more than they had across 18 innings two nights earlier — and mustering six baserunners total, with Hernández’s solo homer the team’s only run scored. Much of this miserable showing can be attributed to the dynamite form of Toronto rookie righty Trey Yesavage, who turned in a truly historic performance, but there are too many accomplished hitters in this L.A. lineup to simply shrug and defer to what was happening on the mound.

Roberts said as much postgame: “It doesn’t feel great. You clearly see those guys finding ways to get hits, move the baseball forward, and we’re not doing a good job of it. I thought Yesavage was good tonight, mixing his fastball, slider and the split. But, yeah, you still have to use the whole field and take what they give you, and if they’re not going to allow for slug, then you’ve got to be able to kind of redirect … to take competitive at-bats. We have that ability. We’ve got to make some adjustments.”

However Roberts chooses to deploy his lineup in Game 6, the offense will have to figure things out quickly or risk heading home dethroned.

5. Which bullpen arms can be trusted — on both sides?

Maybe Yamamoto and Gausman come out firing again and pitch deep enough to lessen the burden on both managers to task their bullpens with a heavy workload. But what if they don’t? What if things go off the rails for one or both starters in the early going, and Roberts and Schneider must recreate their roadmap to 27 outs on the fly in the highest-stakes game of the season? Regardless of how the starters perform, it’s safe to say we’ll be hearing “all-hands-on-deck” sentiments from Los Angeles facing elimination — and perhaps from Toronto with a championship within reach — but what that actually means is tough to decipher.

At this point, the Dodgers seem to be down to roughly one reliever they feel good about in Roki Sasaki, who has appeared in only Dodgers wins this postseason and has yet to come in to try to keep a game close while L.A. is down. Would that change if L.A. is facing a small deficit late in Game 6? Sasaki could be the Dodgers’ key to nailing down a season-saving win, but if getting to him requires anyone not named Yamamoto, buckle up. Because outside unlikely Game 3 hero Will Klein, this unit has been untrustworthy for a while. Alex Vesia’s unexpected absence has certainly contributed, but Vesia alone could not fix the issues Los Angeles has had in the later innings.

Meanwhile, the Blue Jays have found a few more reliable relief arms as the postseason has progressed — Chris Bassitt chief among them — but along the way, they’ve lost some confidence in two key regular-season contributors, Brendon Little and Seranthony Dominguez. That leaves Jeff Hoffman and Louis Varland as the most likely high-leverage arms to be called upon to nail down a title-clinching victory, with perhaps a cameo from Mason Fluharty to handle one of Los Angeles’ lefty sluggers in a big spot.

Of course, hovering over all bullpen-related ponderings at this point is the possibility of starting pitchers making themselves available in relief. We saw Gausman out of the bullpen in ALCS Game 7; could Shane Bieber make a similar appearance in Game 6 or 7 this weekend? What about Yesavage? Tyler Glasnow would be lined up to start Game 7 for L.A. as things stand, but could we see Ohtani on the mound again? Or Snell, as he openly hinted at after Game 5? Everything is on the table as this series nears its conclusion.

6. How will the Dodgers handle facing elimination?

“We’ve been in elimination games, a core group of these guys, and we’ve got to find a way to win a game,” Roberts said following Game 5. He’s right that several key members of the L.A. roster have been in this pressure-packed scenario before; that’s to be expected when you make the playoffs 13 seasons in a row.

But it’s also true that this year’s championship pursuit and the majority of last year’s World Series run featured Los Angeles playing with the upper hand. The Dodgers steamrollered all three of their opponents on the National League side of the bracket this October, dropping just one game against the Phillies in the NLDS. The 2024 Dodgers handled the Yankees in the World Series in five games and never faced a series deficit in the NLCS against the Mets, which means that L.A.’s most recent elimination game came in last year’s NLDS showdown with the Padres, in which the Dodgers surged back from a 2-1 deficit to shut out San Diego in Games 4 and 5 to advance. 

That precedent is something the Dodgers were quick to refer to after Wednesday’s uninspiring defeat, but winning two in a row in Southern California against a familiar rival is very different than doing it on the road against an opposite-coast powerhouse that has thoroughly outplayed them for the bulk of this series.

Whatever happens Friday, we’re certain to be treated to something significant: the first Blue Jays title in 32 years or the gift of a Game 7, which would be a fitting finale to what has been a tremendous World Series.

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LOS ANGELES — The 2025 Los Angeles Dodgers have always had the benefit of time being on their side. When their starting rotation was in flux earlier this season, they just needed time to get healthy. When their bullpen was frustratingly inconsistent, they just needed time to figure things out. When their offense wasn’t performing coming into the postseason, they just needed time to get rolling.

Now, as they trail the Toronto Blue Jays 3-2 in the World Series following their 6-1 loss on Wednesday in Game 5 and face elimination in Toronto on Friday in Game 6, time is no longer on the Dodgers’ side.

“They’ve just played better baseball the last two days,” first baseman Freddie Freeman said of the Blue Jays after his team’s second straight loss. “It’s just plain and simple: They played better than us today.”

The Dodgers looked lifeless in their Game 4 loss, as Toronto clearly had all the momentum. And from the first pitch of Game 5, the Blue Jays showed that they hadn’t let go of it. Blake Snell needed to be at his best for the Dodgers to keep their season from being pushed to the brink. Instead, he got ambushed.

Toronto’s leadoff man, Davis Schneider, unloaded on Snell’s first pitch of the game, depositing it into the Dodgers’ bullpen for a 1-0 deficit. Two pitches later, Blue Jays superstar Vladimir Guerrero Jr. did the exact same thing, launching his second no-doubter in as many days.

Snell had allowed three home runs in the entire 2025 regular season. And three pitches into Game 5, he had surrendered two. Dodger Stadium was stunned, and so were the Dodgers.

Throughout their run to the World Series, L.A.’s greatest strength has been the starting rotation. But in this Fall Classic, for the first time in months, the Dodgers’ starting pitching (aside from Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s gem in Game 2) has been far from spotless. Combine that with an offense that is struggling mightily to produce runs, and the Dodgers suddenly find themselves with a formula that doesn’t work.

Just like Shohei Ohtani in Game 4, Snell wasn’t bad in Game 5. His final line — 6 ⅔ innings, 6 hits, 5 runs, 4 walks and 7 strikeouts — looks worse than his performance deserved. But mix in spotty defense, such as Teoscar Hernández’s fourth-inning miscue that turned a triple into a run, and walks that come around to score, as 9-hole hitter Andrés Giménez did in the seventh, and that’s how a game — and a series — can slip away.

And with another L.A. loss in the books, the story of Game 5 and, frankly, much of this postseason is that the Dodgers’ offense has gone ice cold, scoring just four runs across the past 29 innings. Manager Dave Roberts seemed to acknowledge as much when, in search of a spark, he changed his lineup ahead of Game 5. But against dominant Blue Jays rookie right-hander Trey Yesavage, it didn’t matter.

[Get more L.A. news: Dodgers team feed]

On Wednesday, Yesavage looked much different than he did in Game 1 at Rogers Centre. He kept L.A. off-balance from the start, recording 12 strikeouts and taking advantage of the Dodgers’ inability to put innings together. And once the 22-year-old got into a rhythm, it was impossible to slow him down.

“We gotta hit the ball. We gotta hit the ball,” third base man Max Muncy, who was 0-for-3 in Game 5, said afterward. “You look at what they’re doing — they put the ball in play a lot, and it’s finding spots. We’re not putting the ball in play a lot, and when we do, it seems to be finding the glove, so we gotta find a way to put the ball in play a lot more.”

Pitching with an immediate lead thanks to the leadoff blasts, the young rookie looked like a seasoned veteran, setting the Dodgers down in order in four of his seven frames. He finished the game having allowed just one run on three hits while striking out 12 and logging 23 swing-and-misses. It was the most whiffs a starter has generated against the Dodgers in this series.

“It was just a complete 180 from Game 1,” Freeman said of Yesavage. “His command was pinpoint tonight. We were fighting that lane, and he was still getting his slider and splitter down in the zone for strikes.”

Reflecting on the Dodgers’ struggles against Toronto’s pitchers, Freeman had this to say: “Baseball is a hard game. It’s been hard for us these last two days.”

Something making things infinitely harder for the Dodgers on offense is the lack of production from superstar shortstop Mookie Betts, who went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts Wednesday. He is hitting just .234 this postseason, with zero home runs. And things have gotten worse in the World Series, where he’s 3-for-23 (.130).

With other typically reliable bats such as Muncy (.188 average this postseason), Tommy Edman (.232) and Freeman (.237) also underperforming, the ugly trend for the Dodgers’ offense has created an over-reliance on Ohtani to carry them. This is surprising because prior to his epic performance in Game 4 of the NLCS, the three-time MVP was dealing with some offensive struggles of his own.

But at this point, the fact of the matter is that when the best player in the world doesn’t look like Superman, the Dodgers are struggling to score. This postseason, L.A. is averaging 6.3 runs in games in which Ohtani homers. In games he doesn’t, including Game 5, they’re averaging 3.5 runs. It’s a stark contrast to the way Toronto’s offense has been wearing down the Dodgers’ rotation and bullpen, which was L.A.’s biggest concern coming into the World Series.

“It doesn’t feel great. You clearly see those guys finding ways to get hits, move the baseball forward, and we’re not doing a good job of it,” Roberts said postgame of the two offenses. “I thought Yesavage was good tonight mixing his fastball, slider and the split.

“You still have to use the whole field and take what they give you, and if they’re not going to allow for slug, then you’ve got to be able to kind of redirect [and] take competitive at-bats. … You know, those guys are doing it.”

Trailing 3-2 as they head back to Toronto for Game 6 and — they hope — Game 7, the Dodgers are officially in the danger zone. And for all the postseason experience on this roster, they haven’t faced elimination since the 2024 NLDS against the Padres.

After their loss Wednesday, several players in the Dodgers’ clubhouse referenced that series as a similar experience, one in which they were able to right the ship just in time. They’ll need to tap into that starting Friday as they attempt to stave off elimination and force Game 7. But this time around, they won’t have the Dodger Stadium crowd behind them, as they did last year against San Diego.

No, this time, they’ll have to win two games in a hostile environment, in front of a Rogers Centre crowd hungry to see its team win a World Series for the first time in 32 years.

“Everyone has to draw from their own experiences,” Betts said. “There’s nothing really to say. We’ve got to find a way to win. There’s no magic formula.”

The formula might not be magic, but the Dodgers do need to find a spark if they want to accomplish their goal of repeating as World Series champions. Because the reality is that one team in this series looks like a champion right now, and it’s not the one that most recently hoisted the trophy.

The Dodgers can no longer rely on time to get them back to being the team they want to be. They don’t have any runway left, and if they wait any longer to perform at their best, it’s going to be time to go home.

The Los Angeles Lakers tried their best to blow a 20-point lead against the Minnesota Timberwolves. But as he’s done throughout the season in the absence of LeBron James and now Luka Dončić, Austin Reaves played the hero Wednesday night.

The Timberwolves roared back from a 20-point second-half deficit to take a 115-114 lead on a Julius Randle bucket with 10.2 seconds remaining while playing at home without injured superstar Anthony Edwards (hamstring). 

The Lakers called timeout to set up a game-winning bucket for Reaves. And he delivered with a floater in the lane as time expired to secure a 116-115 Lakers win.

The bucket capped another sensational effort from Reaves, who continues to thrive as the Lakers’ No. 1 option. 

Reaves keeps on doing it

With Dončić and James both sidelined Sunday, Reaves dropped a career-high 51 points to lead a 127-120 win over the Sacramento Kings. With both sidelined again he scored 41 in a losing effort against the Portland Trail Blazers on Monday. 

But there was no swallowing a loss with Wednesday’s effort, which featured considerably more from Reaves than his game-ending heroics. Reaves once again led the Lakers in scoring with 28 points. And he chipped in a career-high 16 assists along with two steals. 

[Get more Lakers news: Los Angeles team feed]

Reaves continues to demonstrate when called upon to carry the load that he can and does. 

When will Dončić, James return?

It remains unclear how much longer Reaves will carry the alpha role for the Lakers. Dončić has been sidelined since Sunday with a lower left finger sprain and a lower left leg contusion. The initial reports stated that he would be re-evaluated in a week. 

James, meanwhile, has yet to play this season due to sciatica that was initially reported as expected to sideline him through mid-November. Both players remain without a precise timeline to return. 

When asked for an update on both players before Wednesday’s game, head coach JJ Redick offered little clarity and vague timelines that mirrored those that were already reported.

In the meantime, it remains the Austin Reaves show in Los Angeles. And so far, that’s been good for a 3-2 start for a team playing without its All-NBA superstars. 

Lakers nearly blew it

For most of Wednesday’s game, the Lakers didn’t appear to need Reaves’ heroics. Behind an out-of-nowhere 27-point effort from journeyman Jake LaRavia, the Lakers took a 62-58 lead into halftime that they extended to 95-75 late in the third quarter. 

They kept the Timberwolves at bay through most of the fourth and led by 16 points with 6:36 remaining. But Donte DiVincenzo scored eight of his 14 points in that final 6:36 and sparked a 24-7 rally that Randle capped with a layup in traffic over LaRavia with 10.2 seconds remaining. The bucket gave the Timberwolves their first lead of the second half. 

It capped an outstanding night from Randle, who finished with a game-high 33 points alongside six assists and five rebounds while shooting 4 of 7 from 3.

But it wasn’t enough to fend off Reaves, who continues to be one of the most compelling stories of the early NBA season.

Dallas Mavericks All-Star Anthony Davis left Wednesday’s game against the Indiana Pacers with what the team described as “left lower leg soreness” and did not return. 

The Mavericks listed him as out before the end of the game after initially listing him as questionable to return. 

Davis walked off the court mid-play during the first quarter and sat on the scorer’s table after the whistle blew on a Mavericks timeout. He hunched over and grabbed his left calf. 

He left for the locker room from there and did not return to the game. 

Davis was cleared to play after being listed on the pregame injury report as probable with bilateral Achilles tendinopathy, which causes pain in the lower leg and can be caused by overuse. The severity of Davis’ injury wasn’t immediately clear Wednesday night after he left the game. 

It’s a troubling sign for Davis, whose career has been plagued by injuries. 

[Get more Mavericks news: Dallas team feed]

Davis has been limited to fewer than 70 games in 11 of his 14 NBA seasons. He played just nine games after joining the Mavericks in a midseason trade last season as he dealt with multiple ailments, including a strained adductor in his Dallas debut.  

Alongside rookie Cooper Flagg and injured All-Star Kyrie Irving, Davis is key to any hopes in Dallas of competing this season and moving on from the widely reviled trade of Luka Dončić to the Los Angeles Lakers in the deal that sent Davis to the Mavericks. 

That plan is off to an ominous start as the Mavericks entered Wednesday at 1-3 before losing Davis to injury early. And Davis is not the only key Maverick on the sideline. Irving remains out with an ACL tear suffered in March with no timeline for return. The Mavericks also played Wednesday without Davis’ frontcourt mates Dereck Lively II (sprained knee) and Daniel Gafford (sprained ankle).

The Mavericks secured a 107-105 win over the now 0-4 Pacers, led by 15 points from Flagg and double figures off the bench from Dwight Powell (18 points), Brandon Williams (18) and D’Angelo Russell (14).

They’ll host the Detroit Pistons next on Saturday. It’s unclear whether or not they’ll do so with Davis on the court. 

Atlanta Hawks All-Star Trae Young left Wednesday’s 117-112 win over Brooklyn Nets with a sprained knee after a collision with teammate Mouhamed Gueye.

The injury took place late in the first quarter. Gueye fell backward after contact on the baseline and directly into Young’s right knee. Young’s knee bent in the wrong direction, and he fell to the floor, clutching his knee in pain.

Young was able to walk to the sideline and speak with head coach Quin Snyder. But he left for the locker room and was ruled out before halftime with a sprained knee. 

The extent of Young’s knee sprain wasn’t initially clear. Snyder said postgame that the injury is not to Young’s ACL and that he’ll undergo and MRI later Wednesday on Thursday for further diagnosis. 

Hawks have promise, but they’re counting on Young

An injury of any significance would be a blow to the Hawks. A four-time All-Star, Young has led Atlanta scoring in each season since his 2018-19 rookie campaign. He averaged 24.2 points and a league-high 11.6 assists per game last season while shooting 34% on 8.4 3-point attempts per game. 

Young is the offensive centerpiece of a roster that Atlanta hopes can propel the Hawks into contention in a wide-open Eastern Conference. 

The Hawks added Kristaps Porziņģis to a roster that also features reigning NBA Most Improved Player Dyson Daniels, who led the league in steals, earned first-team All-Defensive team honors and finished second in Defensive Player of the Year voting last season. 

Atlanta also returns two-way rising star Jalen Johnson, who was on his way to his first All-Star campaign in 2024-25 before knee and shoulder injuries limited him to 36 games and ultimately ended his season early. And last year’s No. 1 overall pick, Zaccharie Risacher, is back after rallying from early-season efficiency struggles to finish second in Rookie of the Year voting. 

It’s a roster without a track record, but plenty of upside in an Eastern Conference that’s up for grabs. Whatever the Hawks do this season, they’re counting on Young to be at the center of it. 

Before the NFL season kicked off in September, I asked a group of oddsmakers to Here’s everything you need to know for the 2025-26 season. (Mallory Bielecki/Yahoo Sports Illustration)

Wembanyama missed a good portion of last season with blood clots in his right shoulder, but has been given a clean bill of health entering this year and is the player some oddsmakers think is most likely to be atop this list sometime in the future. Others weren’t as sold.

“The Spurs have a lot of nice pieces and enough to keep that team competitive when he’s out,” an oddsmaker said. “As long as Giannis stays on the Bucks, it’s hard to surpass him.”

SGA, the 2024-25 NBA MVP, was tied with Curry in fourth place and hurt by his place on a 68-14 Oklahoma City Thunder team that just won the NBA title.

“Without [Jokić or Giannis] on the team, it seems like it’s hopeless,” an oddsmaker said. “If you’re missing SGA, that Thunder team can still perform — they have other players that are stars in the making.”

Another oddsmaker echoed that sentiment and said he’d raise SGA’s point-spread value “probably to 5 or 5.5 if he was on a bad team.”

As for Curry, oddsmakers noted how much he does for the team on offense — even when he’s not making shots.

“Steph still does so much for that Warriors team,” an oddsmaker noted. “Spacing, how the ball moves, he impacts everything even if he’s not scoring. He impacts the other team’s defense. Pretty significant drop-off there.”

Other notable players

6. Luka Dončić, Lakers (4.21)

7. Joel Embiid, 76ers (4.17)

T-12. Jalen Brunson, Knicks (3.25)

T-12. Kevin Durant, Rockets (3.25)

19. LeBron James, Lakers (2.79)

T-50. Cooper Flagg, Mavericks (1.33)

Several oddsmakers noted that Dončić would likely be a little higher on the list if not for the presence of LeBron and Austin Reaves on the team, with one oddsmaker ranking Dončić as the fourth-most valuable player ATS.

Embiid was one of the more difficult players for oddsmakers to rank, given his potential as a top-five player and former MVP, but with the obvious health concerns.

Said one oddsmaker: “Embiid, is that 4 the right number? That was the right number the last time we saw him playing, but I think we’ll see right away and adjust.”

There was also plenty of disagreement on LeBron’s value to the spread, even within the same sportsbook trading room, given his age, injury history and the presence of Dončić. The 40-year-old James is starting the season out with sciatica and targeting a mid-November return.

“There were differences in the trading room on LeBron,” one oddsmaker admitted. “Someone said [his ATS value was] 2.5 and someone said 1. LeBron’s a great player, but they also have Luka. LeBron’s not what he used to be when it comes to value to the spread. If they both happened to be out, it would be substantial [to the spread].”

While Flagg is the favorite to be NBA Rookie of the Year (-225 at BetMGM), his ATS value (1.33) is diminished both because oddsmakers want to see him against NBA competition and due to the Dallas Mavericks’ overall roster strength — something that hurts his ATS value relative to other past No. 1 picks.

“Maybe we’re wrong, but it just depends on his usage,” one oddsmaker said. “He’s a huge defensive player with Anthony Davis. Two months from now, maybe it’s 2.5. I’m a little bit more down than general consensus, but I don’t see plugging him in and him being a generational player.”

Full list