Bleacherreport
Buy or Sell Top 2025 NBA Championship Odds Right Now
M.Hernandez29 min ago
- Melissa Tamez/Icon Sportswire via Two weeks into the 2024-25 season, it already feels like we need to reevaluate the NBA championship picture. What better way to do that than collecting the latest title odds and determining which of them make the most and least sense? The small sample size of the data available means we should still probably put the most stock in preseason priors. If a team looked like a championship favorite in mid-October and hasn't suffered any major injuries, it's good practice to view it the same way until we get deeper into the year or something drastic changes. The urge to overvalue what we've seen on the floor is strong, though, and we're going to give in to it a couple of times as we buy or sell the latest championship odds.
- Ron Hoskins/NBAE via Coming off of last year's extremely convincing championship run, the Boston Celtics could have taken their foot off the gas, conceded that they wouldn't be quite as dominant without injured big man Kristaps Porzingis and cruised through the first half of the 2024-25 season. Instead, it seems as if every Celtics player is committed to showing last year's dominance was only a hint of what was to come. Boston is firing off threes at historic rates and is currently the only team in the league attempting over half of its shots from long distance. Jayson Tatum might mess around and collect an MVP award using the tried and true "best player on the best team" approach that didn't quite get him into the inner circle last year, Jaylen Brown hasn't missed a beat since winning Finals MVP and Derrick White is somehow even more confident and productive than he was during a breakout 2023-24 season. It's fair to wonder whether the Celtics deserve to be such a strong favorite with Porzingis' health looming as a question mark, but Boston went 10-2 in the 12 games he missed last postseason. This group is a great bet to lead the league in offensive efficiency all year, and it's difficult to imagine it finishing outside the top five on the other end. That's a prohibitive-favorite makeup.Verdict: Buy. Boston has nothing to prove but plays like it hasn't won anything yet.
- Melissa Tamez/Icon Sportswire via The Oklahoma City Thunder added two of the league's top defenders—Isaiah Hartenstein and Alex Caruso—to a unit that ranked fourth in the league on that end a year ago. Those newcomers, combined with the general upward angle of every rotation player's career-trajectory arrow, fueled some wild preseason hype about OKC's defensive potential. And, well...hype justified! Oklahoma City hasn't even seen Hartenstein take the floor yet, and Caruso is playing fewer minutes per game than he has in any season since 2019-20, but the Thunder are running away with the league lead in defensive efficiency. While most teams excel at suppressing shot accuracy by staying in solid position generating turnovers with chaotic pressure, this group is doing both. The Thunder are holding opponents to the lowest effective field-goal percentage in the league and forcing turnovers on a higher percentage of plays than anyone else. Somehow, perhaps through some sort of sorcery, they're doing all this without fouling. Opponents are making 15.2 free throws per 100 field-goal attempts, the lowest figure in the NBA this season. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is an MVP contender, Chet Holmgren looks like a potential superstar and the guy everyone expected to make a leap, Jalen Williams, hasn't even hit his stride yet. It's not quite right to say defense wins championships—certainly not without high-end play on the other end. But we could be looking at one of the best defenses in history, one that's supported by more than enough scoring clout.Verdict: Sell. OKC should be closer to Boston than it is.
- Issac Baldizon/NBAE via These odds look better than they did prior to Karl-Anthony Towns' pressure-relieving 44-point outing against the Miami Heat, but they still feel too optimistic. Maybe we should chalk that up to the Knicks being exactly the kind of "public" team that tends to be overvalued in betting markets. Or maybe we need to be more charitable in assessing these' odds legitimacy. After all, Jalen Brunson proved last season he could run a viable postseason offense almost by himself. Adding KAT to the mix provides better spacing, and both Mikal Bridges and OG Anunoby can offer supportive shooting. Defensively, New York is well suited to handling the Celtics as anyone; Bridges and Anunoby are as good as it gets when looking for matchups against Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown. Having made the devil's advocate case for the Knicks, we need to circle back to the reasons these odds seem too favorable. For starters, the Brunson-KAT tandem might as well be wearing giant targets on their backs. The best playoff teams don't feature exploitable matchups like this, and it's doubly concerning because the Knicks' offensive success depends so heavily on these two's scoring synergy. New York can't take Towns or Brunson off the floor unless it wants the offense to crater, which means opponents will always have weak points to attack with basic pick-and-roll actions.Verdict: Sell. New York belongs in the top 10, but it has real flaws. Giving it better odds than teams like Dallas and Denver is pushing it.
- Jordan Johnson/NBAE via It might have been reasonable to give the Dallas Mavericks and Minnesota Timberwolves similar odds prior to the season, but it doesn't make sense to do so anymore. Start with the fact that Dallas hammered the Wolves in last year's Western Conference Finals, winning the first two contests of that series on the road and closing out the affair in just five games. Since then, the Wolves made what looks increasingly like a cost-cutting move by dealing Karl-Anthony Towns to the Knicks for Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo, while the Mavs added Klay Thompson, Naji Marshall and Quentin Grimes to a deep and dangerous rotation. More recently, Dallas took a head-to-head matchup with Minnesota by a final score of 120-114 on Oct. 29, weathering a 24-point first quarter from Anthony Edwards before suffocating the Wolves' offense and riding clutch offensive efforts from Kyrie Irving and Luka Dončić. It's not just that the Mavericks seem to have Minnesota's number in direct matchups. It's also that Dallas has the superior individual force in Dončić, a cast of seemingly perfect role players and nowhere close to the fit issues the Wolves face after their big trade.Verdict: Buy. Dallas shouldn't have longer odds than Minnesota and should only trail OKC in the West.
- David Sherman/NBAE via Anthony Edwards is shooting and making several more threes per game as he did during his All-NBA 2023-24 season while somehow converting more unassisted shots than ever and getting to the line nearly as often as he did last season. Usually, major shooting gains come with tradeoffs. Not so for Ant, who's playing exactly like his optimistic supporters probably imagined he would after firmly establishing himself as a superstar last postseason. The foundation-shaking trade of Karl-Anthony Towns changes a lot for the Wolves, but it's possible Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo will combine to outproduce Minnesota's starrier (and, notably, much costlier) big man. The adjustment period may take a while, but Randle's ability to create shots could elevate the Wolves' attack by easing the playmaking burden on Edwards. DiVincenzo's high-volume shooting and rugged defense will play well in high-stakes games, something we know because that's exactly what happened last year with the Knicks. Minnesota still has all the key pieces that combined to produce a league-best defense in 2023-24, Edwards seems to have taken another step and the depth of offensive talent is the best it's been in years.Verdict: Buy. Minnesota deserves high placement, but landing right behind Dallas feels right.
- Mark Blinch/NBAE via Denver Nuggets: +1500 The on-off splits are as extreme than ever, with the Nuggets completely disintegrating whenever Nikola Jokić is off the floor. Postseason runs tend to depend most on which team has the best player in the series, and depth means less as rotations shrink. But these Nuggets are pushing the limits of what Jokić, a three-time MVP, can handle on his own. Unless Jamal Murray rounds into peak form and both of Christian Braun and Peyton Watson deliver on expectations, the Nuggets don't deserve to rate among the top five among oddsmakers.Verdict: BuyPhoenix Suns: +1500 It's not clear Jusuf Nurkić makes sense as a regular postseason closer, and the offensive boost of having Tyus Jones running the point may not matter against playoff opponents who'll target him on D. That's two of Phoenix's five starters with real question marks—not so much now, but once pursuit of a championship begins in earnest. The seventh-best odds reflect that concern, acknowledging the Suns' top-end scoring talent but conceding there are real flaws with the roster that could be exposed in postseason competition. But they also rate Phoenix on par with Denver, which actually has championship experience and an in-prime MVP. That feels too charitable.Verdict: SellPhiladelphia 76ers: +2000 It's impossible to be confident in Joel Embiid's health, particularly with the NBA recently fining the Sixers $100,000 for essentially not revealing the severity of his current knee issue. Philly can talk all it wants about preserving its best players for the long haul, but we need to see some indication that things are trending in the right direction. After that, the Sixers have to provide proof that they belong above teams like the Cleveland Cavaliers and Orlando Magic, neither of whom have better odds but both of whom have looked significantly better than Philly in the early part of the season.Verdict: SellCleveland Cavaliers: +2200 You simply can't have the Cavaliers behind the Sixers. Cleveland was the last undefeated team standing in the East, is getting evolved play from rising star Evan Mobley and seems totally optimized under new head coach Kenny Atkinson. The postseason questions will remain unanswered until the Cavs prove they can extend this strong start into April, but given Philly's health concerns and general messiness so far, it's hard to justify the order of the last two teams. The Cavaliers should rate ahead of Philadelphia.Verdict: SellLos Angeles Lakers: +2500 We can't get too far ahead of ourselves, but early returns suggest the Lakers are much closer to a top-six team in the West than many suspected. And let's not forget the potential for a win-now trade. Los Angeles can deal two future first-rounders and three swaps if the right star shakes loose.Verdict: Sell
Read the full article:https://bleacherreport.com/articles/10141554-buy-or-sell-top-2025-nba-championship-odds-right-now
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