Lakers vs. Nuggets Tuesday NBA injury report, odds, props: LeBron James yet to win or cover spread in any Los Angeles season opener

The Denver Nuggets will raise the first NBA championship banner in franchise history on Tuesday night before tipping off the 2023-24 season at Ball Arena against LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers in a rematch of the 2023 Western Conference Finals. The Nuggets are 5.5-point favorites on the SportsLine consensus and history says to fade LeBron James.

James is just 7-13 straight up and against the spread in season openers in his career and 0-5 SU and ATS in such games with the Lakers. This is the third time that Los Angeles has been an opening underdog with James. It was +7.5 last season at Golden State and lost by 14, and was +3 at Portland in 2018 and lost by 9. Even predating James' arrival by a year, the Lakers are on a six-game losing streak in openers, the longest such streak in franchise history and longest active streak in the NBA.

The Lakers were 13th in the West at last season's trade deadline, but some smart additions and a return to health for James and Anthony Davis helped the Lakers get to the Western Conference Finals. But once they arrived there, they had no one to stop Nikola Jokic in the four-game sweep. James averaged 28.9 points per game in his 20th season, the most in a 20th season or later in league history (the previous high was Kobe Bryant's 17.6 PPG in 2015-16 for L.A.). James is set at over/under 23.5 points on Tuesday.

This offseason, the Lakers added the likes of Gabe Vincent, Christian Wood, Taurean Prince and Jaxson Hayes in free agency and selected Indiana freshman Jalen Hood-Schifino in the first round of the draft. However, Hood-Schifino is out for Tuesday's game, as is forward Jarred Vanderbilt due to injury. Head coach Darvin Ham announced that Prince would get the start in Vanderbilt's place.

Denver has brought back cach Michael Malone and his entire staff, as well as 12 players from last season. Nikola Jokic was unable to win a third straight MVP despite nearly averaging a triple-double of 24.5 points, 11.8 rebounds and 9.8 assists. He finished 12 assists shy of averaging triple-double and led the NBA with 29 of them. Jokic also had the highest field goal percentage (63.2%) by a 20-point scorer since Wilt Chamberlain in 1966-67. Jokic is +125 for a triple-double on Tuesday.

The one big loss for Denver was Bruce Brown, the team's glue player, who signed with Indiana. Brown declined his $6.8 million player option with the Nuggets earlier in the summer to become an unrestricted free agent and got two years and $45 million from the Pacers. Brown averaged 12 points, 4.0 rebounds, 1.9 assists and 1.1 steals off the bench in the postseason. It took the Nuggets until their 47th season as a franchise to win a title, which was an NBA record.

These teams split four games in the 2022-23 regular season, each sweeping at home. 

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