NBA Offseason: 2024 Championship Odds After an Active Start to the Offseason

While we aren’t even into July, the NBA offseason has been one of the busiest in recent memory. While there are still some key players that could be on the move, we have already seen the entire NBA landscape change just a couple of weeks after the NBA Finals.

The major moves have also changed the betting favorites heading into next season. Basketball betting sites have updated their odds for next year’s NBA Champions, which is why we are breaking down the new top five favorites. We will discuss each team’s offseason and their prospects to win a title in 2024.

Below are the top five favorites according to DraftKings Sportsbook.

The Nuggets won their first NBA title in team history last season, but DraftKings does not have them as the lone favorite to win next year. While they will return their core next season, the rest of the moves made in the NBA will provide a challenge in their quest to repeat. The moves made by both the Celtics and Suns have moved bookmakers away from favoring the Nuggets outright. Regardless, any team with Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray are going to be hard to beat for any of the teams on our list. Given how dominant they looked throughout last season, these are pretty valuable odds and make them an interesting bet for 2024.

The Celtics made one of the biggest splashes of the offseason when they traded away Marcus Smart for Kristaps Porzingis. Smart was their top role player who has provided the Celtics with elite defense for years. The move adds some badly needed help down low, as well as one of the top scoring big men in the league. The trade also showed that the Celtics are looking to shake things up after a disappointing 2022-23 season, and more moves could be coming soon. While there are concerns about how their defense will look with Smart gone, they are likely to have one of the top offenses in the NBA next season.

While many expected the Suns to make moves to add depth around Kevin Durant and Devin Booker, they went in the opposite direction. Phoenix traded away Chris Paul to acquire Bradley Beal, and now they appear to be set on keeping Deandre Ayton. That will give them an incredible top four but will also result in them having little-to-no depth behind the stars. We saw the lack of support players come back to haunt them last season, and Beal has had chronic injury issues over the last five years. It seems that either this experiment works and they win a title, or injuries expose the lack of depth and lead to another disappointing season.

While the Suns and Celtics have made major moves, the Bucks have yet to make a splash in the offseason. With Khris Middleton opting out of his contract, the team will need to decide if they want to go into the luxury tax to keep him and/or Brook Lopez. Those are two major pieces for this team and losing them could be devastating. Even if both leave, the Bucks still couldn’t afford to spend to add a big star. While trades could still help this team, they have already failed to do so a couple times in the offseason. The lack of draft picks doesn’t help, and it means there is a very real chance the Bucks could see a major regression next season.

DraftKings have the Lakers as the fifth favorite to win next year’s NBA Championship, but they have yet to make a major move in the offseason. The Lakers made a run to the Western Conference Finals last season and have a solid group around Anthony Davis and Lebron James. That is one reason that bookmakers like them, but another is what they could do in the offseason. We know they will be aggressive to bring in another star, which would bring them much closer to Denver’s level. The Lakers odds make them a tempting bet, but injury concerns around LeBron and Davis have us avoiding it.