NBA Championship Betting Odds and Expert Picks for 2025 Title

Now that the trade deadline has passed, has it changed the projections of who has the best chance to win the 2025 NBA championship?

(Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)

We offer a quick breakdown and update our projections of which teams will battle for the NBA title in June.

Eastern Conference

In the preseason, we projected the Boston Celtics (currently 36-16) to meet the New York Knicks (34-17) in the conference finals with the defending champions winning the series, 4-3. Those two teams are running No. 2 and No. 3 in the conference standings behind the Cleveland Cavaliers (41-10).

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Earlier in the season, the Cavs were on a 70-win pace but after losing to Western Conference front-runner Oklahoma City on Jan. 16, Cleveland is 7-4 and now on pace for 63 or 64 wins. Don’t look now, but Boston is only 5.5 games behind the Cavs in the standings.

The Cavs have good chemistry

They have a terrific core and shored up a need at the trade deadline by adding De’Andre Hunter, who is a 19 ppg scorer at what was the Cav’s weakest position (wing forward). That has to make fans of Cleveland and those betting on the Cavs to win the East feel good.

We had the Celtics beating the Cavs in the conference semifinals back in October, but now we’d take the Cavs to advance to the conference finals instead of New York. Is New York capable? Sure, but it’s hard to bet against Cleveland, which just made its offense more potent.

Sportzino Eastern Conference Winner Odds

*Odds current as of February 11, 2025

Over the years, the eventual NBA champ doesn’t often add a key piece at the deadline

We still like Boston’s experience, intangibles, coaching and roster makeup to get them through the East, although the task won’t be easy.

Cleveland is having a great year and should be good in the future, but it has three all-star pieces playing really well today (Darius Garland, Donovan Mitchell and Evan Mobley) and there is no guarantee all of them will have an individual season like the one they are having in 2024-25 again. Cleveland got better, but Boston is still better.

• Conference Finals Prediction: Boston 4, Cleveland 3

Western Conference

There was more movement in the West than the East, but the best team and the team with the most assets to move, the conference leading Oklahoma City Thunder (currently 40-9) didn’t make any moves of significance. It’s pretty eye-opening to think OKC is the odds-on favorite in its conference and has the brightest future of any team in the league in terms of assets and personnel.

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That has rarely happened in the history of the league. We predicted OKC to grab the top seed and it still should, as the Thunder are six games in front of the Memphis Grizzlies (35-16) and 8.5 games ahead of the Denver Nuggets (33-19).

The Grizzlies made the trade

But it was primarily to free up salary cap space by moving former NBA Defensive Player of the Year Marcus Smart to Washington; it didn’t upgrade their roster or chances to win the West this season. Denver stood pat, and as long as it has Nikola Jokic, it has a chance to win the West and win it all.

He’s playing as well as an individual can, and Denver is banking that its developing bench can play well enough to pull off an upset of OKC in the post-season. Some insiders felt teaming up Bogdan Bogdanovic with his Serbian running mate would have been a good move, but Bogdanovic was traded from Atlanta to the L.A. Clippers.

Sportzino Western Conference Winner Odds

*Odds current as of February 11, 2025

Western oowers shuffle after Luka-AD trade

The Dallas Mavericks are trying to win now, but with Anthony Davis we still don’t think they get past the conference semifinals just as we predicted in the preseason.

The Lakers (30-19) better hope Mark Williams stays healthy and is as good as advertised defensively or else they are not nearly better, either, with Luka in the fold sitting at No. 5 in the West. L.A. is better than we predicted in the preseason (as the L.A. Clippers, Minnesota and Sacramento have underachieved) but the West should still come down to Denver and OKC.

We predicted the No. 3 seed Nuggets to beat the top seed Thunder, 4-2, and that’s exactly where they are in the standings today. As it stands now, however, we feel the Thunder have grown up enough and have just enough interior presence to get past Denver.

Conference Finals Prediction: Oklahoma City 4, Denver 2

Sportzino Conference Winner Odds

*Odds current as of February 11, 2025

Sportzino NBA 2024/25 Championship Odds - Top Teams

*Odds current as of February 11, 2025

After all the trades, the two best teams in the NBA should reach the NBA Finals. A majority of the most meaningful trades before the deadline helped up-and-coming teams, teams looking to slash salary for future free agents pursuits, or for the long term. Yes the Luka-AD trade was seismic, but OKC and Cleveland are still much better than the teams that made major moves, plus the Cavs got better.

We think Cleveland will push the defending champ Celtics to the brink, but actually feel Denver has a better chance to upset OKC than Cleveland does Boston. Boston is the betting favorite to win the title, but would they rather face OKC or a Denver club with Jokic playing lights out? Denver could be more dangerous to Boston’s repeat chances, but OKC is the slightly better team.