The two preseason favorites to win the NBA championship may both miss out on the playoffs. The Los Angeles Lakers were unceremoniously eliminated from playoff contention on Tuesday night, and the Brooklyn Nets are locked into the Play-in Tournament. Brooklyn is still one of the overall favorites to win the NBA title despite being just three games over .500, but the Nets might need to win two winner-take-all games to make the playoffs.
This will be a long postseason as the NBA Finals aren’t slated to start until June 2, 2022. The NBA will dominate the headlines over the next two months though, and BookMaker Sportsbook will have betting on every game.
2022 NBA Championship Odds
Phoenix Suns +265
Milwaukee Bucks +545
Brooklyn Nets +675
Golden State Warriors +815
Boston Celtics +825
Miami Heat +1050
Philadelphia 76ers +1050
Memphis Grizzlies +1300
All Other Teams +2350 or More
Phoenix has been the best team in the league all season. The Suns have essentially had home court advantage locked up for the last month, and the road to the title will go through Phoenix. Chris Paul and Devin Booker are an old school backcourt that is playing well together with Paul leading the league in assists and Booker being one of the top scorers as a traditional No. 2 guard. This team has depth too, and they are close to odds-on favorites to come out of the Western Conference.
The defending champions erased a 2-0 deficit to beat the Phoenix Suns in the NBA Finals last year. Giannis Antetokounmpo took his game to another level in the playoffs, and he might do the same with Milwaukee again in these playoffs. The Bucks were the third favorite in the Eastern Conference behind Brooklyn and Philadelphia for much of the year, but more observers are turning to the proven commodity now that the playoffs are less than a week away.
Brooklyn is tough to bet as the third favorite to win the NBA title. The Nets have two of the most talented players in the league in Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant, but Seth Curry is hurt, and they will have to win on the road throughout the postseason. There are real questions about their defense too.
The last few weeks haven’t been good for Golden State. The Warriors are trying to stave off Dallas for the No. 3 seed in the Western Conference, and they lost seven of eight games at one point as Steph Curry continues to miss time due to injury. They are just one game over .500 on the road, so the Warriors may have a hard time in the postseason, especially because they don’t have good big men.
Boston might be the most intriguing team on the board. The Celtics were well over 20-1 months ago, but they have been red hot over the last three months. They have the best point differential in the Eastern Conference now and have largely blown out their foes. The Celts won’t have center Robert Williams for a while due to a torn meniscus, but he could return as early as the second round.
It's getting tougher to like Philadelphia even though the 76ers have tempting odds at over 10-1. They have two stars in Joel Embiid and James Harden but not much else, and they can’t play up-tempo basketball. That might not be a problem in the grind of the postseason, but we have seen teams single out Harden on defense and expose him.
The team with the most value right now is Dallas. The Mavericks are almost 25-1, and Luka Doncic is a real difference maker. They don’t have a quality second star, but this is a team with well-defined roles, and they play good defense.
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