With the NBA season kicking off a season preview also should come with it, As it stands right now the Boston Celtics have the best odds to go back to back at (+290) They have all their returning members of the championship team although they will be without their star big man Kristaps Porzingis until at least December.
Next is the up-and-coming OKC Thunder who are favorite to win the west and (+650) to win the Finals with their exciting young roster. They are led by their exciting superstar guard Shai Gligeous-Alexander. With Shai coming off an All-NBA First-team selection, and their up-and-coming star big man Chet Holmgren who just finished second in rookie of the year voting only to Victor Wembanyama, the Thunder are a team to pay attention to.
There were three big players that switched teams this offseason: Mikal Bridges and Karl-Anthony Towns to the Knicks and Paul George signing with the 76ers I will link the details for each trade. These trades all really shook up the East as the Knicks now have the third-best Odds to win it all. The Mikal Bridges trade although good for the short term, but is going to be quite costly in the long term. The Knicks gave the New York Nets the rights to their first-round pick until the year 2031 which will be worth it if they win a championship. However, if the Knicks aren’t able to hang a third banner in the rafters of Madison Square Garden or at least make their first Finals appearance since the turn of the century, it would be considered a massive disappointment.
The Minnesota Timberwolves, led by the NBA’s newest young superstar Anthony Edwards, made a deep run in the playoffs but sadly fell short in the Conference Finals at the hands of Luka Dončić and the Dallas Mavericks. With the new additions of Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo, Minnesota is one of the favorites out West with (+900) there are still many questions with this team though. With shaky depth and the long injury history of Julius Randle, there is still a long way for this team to go before they make it to the promised land.
The Philadelphia 76ers have been disappointing over the past half-decade or so, to put it lightly. They have yet to make a Conference Finals appearance in the era of “The Process”, with their best year coming in the 2019 playoffs falling to the Raptors in 7 games. The team then decided that offseason to resign Tobias Harris over Jimmy Butler and it’s safe to say they made the wrong decision with Butler leading the Miami Heat to two Finals appearances in two years after leaving the team. Meanwhile, the 76ers paid Tobias Harris 180 million dollars to average 17 points a game during his time with the team. Now the team has paid Paul George 211 million dollars over 4 years. George is 34, with his laundry list of injuries continuing to get even longer, and with a knee hyperextension in the pre-season, the 76ers season is already off to a rough start. However, they are one of the favorites to make it out of the East.
