After winning the NBA Finals in 2020, the Lakers are currently listed by sportsbooks as the odds-on frontrunners to do so again in 2021.
Over at BetOnline.ag, oddsmakers have listed the Lakers as +275 favorites to come out of the Western Conference in 2020/21. That means if you place a $100 bet on the Lakers and they win the West next season, you’ll win $275.
While the Lakers are the current favorites, BetOnline.ag places two other Western Conference teams in roughly the same tier. The Clippers (+375) have the second-best odds to win the conference, while the Warriors (+400) have the third-best odds.
Golden State’s placement is an interesting one. We can safely assume that the Warriors will be much improved in 2020/21 with a healthy Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson back in their lineup, and they have the resources necessary to make further roster upgrades. Still, the club is coming off a dismal 15-50 season that saw them finish in last place in the NBA. Winning the West in 2021 would represent a historic turnaround.
The rest of the odds to win the West next year are as follows, per BetOnline.ag:
- Nuggets: +1200
- Rockets: +1200
- Mavericks: +1400
- Trail Blazers: +1800
- Jazz: +2500
- Pelicans: +2500
- Suns: +3300
- Thunder: +4000
- Grizzlies: +5000
- Kings: +12500
- Spurs: +12500
- Timberwolves: +12500
As we acknowledged on Tuesday when we asked you for your thoughts on the Eastern Conference odds for 2020/21, it’s way too early to confidently predict next year’s conference champions. Rosters will undergo significant changes in the coming months in the draft and free agency, and on the trade market.
Still, the anticipated offseason directions for certain teams is baked into BetOnline’s odds. The Thunder would certainly be higher on the above list if the possibility of a rebuild wasn’t hanging over the franchise.
So, with the caveat that plenty could change in the coming months to alter the outlook of the West for the 2020/21 season, we want to get your thoughts on the early projections from oddsmakers.
Should the Lakers be considered the favorites to come out of the West again in 2021? Are the Warriors or another team being overvalued? Are there other clubs being undervalued? Which team do you like to come out of the West next season? And which club do you view as the best value pick based on the odds listed above?
Head to the comment section below to weigh in with your early forecast for the Western Conference in 2020/21!
if you place a $10,000 bet on the Wolves and they win the West next season, you’ll win $1.25 million.
If Wolves win the west, you don’t have to work next 30 years because of compound interest.
Of course if the Wolves didn’t win the West, you would be out $10,000. And if $1.25 million will stop you from working for 30 years, I am betting you cannot afford to lose $10,000.
And there is a reason for that. Theres better odds at pigs flying than the 2021 Wolves making the Finals.
Not to mention that 1.25 mil will actually be more like 800k after taxes
It would not be taxed
Clippers have $25 advantage over Warriors.
So close.
The Warriors become winners quickly again would not be that strange. The one year when David Robinson was injured for the season, the Spurs lost a ton of games, enough to get Tim Duncan with the #1 pick, and the next year they won over 50 games again. For that matter, look at the difference between the Lakers this year and the Lakers one year earlier when LeBron was hurt. All it shows is that just about any team is just an injury away from a lottery pick. Imagine Milwaukee with Giannis hurt for the year or Houston without James Harden. It can happen to anyone.
Accept that’s not really the case at all, lakers completely dumped there whole team and ad a top 5 player. Warriors lost kd (their best player) and have players coming off serious injuries (lebron had a mild groin injury)
Durant was not their best player. They were as good a team, if not better, before he arrived.
Warriors don’t win those 2 chips without kd. Especially against lebron.
Depends on what they would have had instead of KD. It’s not like they would have had an empty roster spot if KD didn’t come. They would have been fine.
Great point. In order to bring in Kevin Durant the Warriors had to let go of Harrison Barnes Andrew Bogut and probably other guys I can’t remember. Durant wanted big dollars and the Warriors made it happen. Oh yeah, guys like Barbosa had to be let go as well. Ian Clark.
LeBron barely beat the warriors without KD he had to get Green suspended to win a game 6. Stop with the Lebron GOAT he is no Jordan.
Arc89 barely won he won it without love and you guys choked a 3-1 lead ahahahahaha. Foh, warriors homers really out in force defending there aging has beens. When you guys are an 7/8 seed what will the excuse be? bench is depleted, klay is coming off injury?
facts are facts he barely beat GSW if it was not for Irving 3 point shot. fact is Cavs were a stacked team with highest payroll in the league. So stop pretending there was no help on the Cavs when they had a full FA bench.
You would think Draymond was prime Kareem, Wilt and Larry Bird rolled into one with the way Golden State homers fluff him up. There were 2 games after that where GS could close it and they failed.
You haters love to bash draymond but you truly contradict yourselves. Gsw obviously “choked” a 3-1 lead cuz draymond was suspended one game YET you claimed he’s overrated. So they don’t “choke” that series if they have an ovrrrated player on the team. Brilliant! Former DPOY, and an all star.
Yes this contradiction wasn’t specifically posted word for word but it’s inferred.
I have posted the following ad nauseum (Sp?). 2019 conference final versus Blazers…Green averaged a triple double in a 4 game sweep WITHOUT Durant. 4 game sweep.
And with curry but without klay and Durant came within a half of beating raptors in game 7. ONE YEAR AGO. Stars were hurt this year but will have extra time to get stronger/healthier. Many acquisitions to come. But you haters don’t see that coming because you’re just haters. Your criticisms would be more acceptable if you just came out and said “no matter what, I just hate the warriors”
I think that year the loss of Bogut was more important than Green’s suspension. Bogut Burt his knee in G5 and missed the reminder of the playoffs. Back then Bogut was coming off being an all defensive player. He really protected the rim from the Cavs. Once he went out Lebron and company change philosophy for G6 & G7 and drove to the basket more which the Warriors could not stop without help at the rim.
They’d win at least one of the two, stop disrespecting Steph Curry, its such a lowbrow entry-level move. He’s better than Bron, just admit it.
They were, except for the fact that they lost a lot of the depth that made them so great. Then they lost the rest of their bench last season which is why they were so bad without their top 2 players. Now even with a healthy Curry and Thompson they won’t be nearly as good as most people think.
It wasn’t just Thompson and Curry hurt. Green was hurt for over half the season. Looney was out the whole season. They also traded 3 of their best bench players for draft picks. D’Lo was hurt half the time too. Many games they barely had enough players to even play. I will beat you now that they will be better than the Rockets. You wanna make that bet?
I just don’t see how gsw will compete with wiggins and draymond’s terrible deals and an aging roster with zero depth. It would be stupid to assume klay will be 100 percent of himself every again let alone his first season back. The biggest plus they have is a #2 pick In the draft that is labeled as one of the worst in the past 10 years. This year will either validate there roster and coaching or break them and put a lot more of the successes on kd.
What is terrible about Draymond’s deal? Getting out of Minnie probably helps Wiggins.
The Lakers and Drays BFF Bron would take on his contract in one second.
It would allow GSW to pair Giannis with the Splash Bros which would equal like 10 more titles.
The Warriors without KD were solved in 2016. Houston and Portland are perennial chokers so beating them without KD is not impressive. Lebron and AD would smoke the Warriors.
Smoke the Warriors? Miami was beat up and injured and it took Lakers six games LOL.. that’s hilarious. Just one of those Lakers wins goes the other way and you’ve got a seven-game series pal. Smoke the Warriors, ha.
Here’s the bottom line. Those horrible Golden State Warriors went to five straight finals.. out of the West. That’s not a crappy team. This year they did a little reset with the salary cap. Ready to go again next year. What happens, nobody knows. It’s going to be fun to watch I will tell you that.
Lebron and AD already got smoked by the Warriors, multiple times.
Nice try.
Think Vegas is over valuing the past successes of the warriors seeing as they lost their best player and there stats suffered serious injuries. If Kerr scuffles this year it will only validate what we already think of him.
It’s the people that make the bets who are skewing things, not the ones that set the odds. They know that people are overestimating how good the Warriors will be next season, just like the Nets. Then they set the odds accordingly because they know that popular teams always have more people betting on them and they set the odds accordingly.
Sounds like you have a excuse for every occasion.
That’s exactly right and the more people that bet on the Warriors the lower that number goes. They definitely know what they’re doing in Vegas and those are some of the sharpest Minds around.
Imagine the audacity of a Rockets fan, a guy who’s team just exploded, talking down about the Warriors, the greatest team of all-time who all got injured last year but were otherwise contenders if everyone was healthy. Go eat some soup man.
Vegas is overvaluing past success of the Warriors? Do you realize who runs those Sports books and puts out the odds? You know there’s billions of dollars on the line? I hardly think they would be making a mistake LOL. That is a highly calculated number and if it’s such an egregious error then drive over to Vegas and put 10 grand against them. If the bookmakers did such a horrible job you should be laughing all the way to the bank by betting against it.
It’s simple Mindless ( btw, fitting name), as others have posted, odds are set with bettors in mind. They change based on bets made.
If some crazy rich guy bet $500k today on Minnesota to win the west, the odds change drastically from the current 125/1. Would the new odds reflect what vegas “predicts”. No, because it’s not a prediction.
Do us a favor and head to the dollar store to see if they have minds for sale
Right now, today, the Lakers have to be the favorite. Until someone changes teams it’d be hard not to go with the defending champions.
Pretty sure it should be historic turnaround, not historical.
Yes, thanks.
It was already an historic turnaround last season when the Warriors went from going 57-25 two seasons ago and making the Finals for the 5th year in a row, to going an NBA-worst 15-50 last season. It’s simply foolish for anyone to think that the opposite will happen next season and they will be back in the Finals again in 2021.
How about that, people going overboard supporting their fav team, multiple threads on the same page, page after page.
Lol I’m surprised we haven’t started hearing about how the Rockets are the obvious favorites
Rockets fans are forever shook by the Warriors.
GSW is run better than your team, fact. You will always lose, fact. All of your snide lie-packed comments about GSW are so corny and really muddle up these threads. Let it go man, Steph has 3 rings and owns you, just accept it and wait til he retires to care about basketball again.
Speaking of the Warriors, is the hard cap over now that the season has ended?
A team is only hard-capped one season at a time.
As long as they don’t do something this offseason such as using the BAE, using more than the taxpayer portion of the MLE, or acquiring a player in a sign and trade then they can avoid being hard-capped in 2021.
Thanks. Does that mean the 19-20 season is officially over? It’s usually over on June 30.
I believe the CBA refers to the hard cap applying for the “salary cap year,” so it wouldn’t lift until the 2020/21 league year begins (the Warriors and other hard-capped teams could still make draft-day trades that would add money — they just might not be able to officially finalize them until free agency).
Thanks. I was just wondering, if the transaction freeze lifted before draft day whether they could use their $17M trade exception. They can’t if they’re still hard-capped, but I guess they would just wait to finalize a trade until after the moratorium.
The Nuggets, Jazz, Griz & Spurs should be “ranked” higher. The Pels, Suns & Thunder, 9-11, are mysteries. The Wolves would be except for their defense, so last (nothing personal). The rest down a little. That will probably be my prediction, as the Cali teams compared to Denver, make trades that are harder to tune.
:D. Check out the nature show. Nuggets of jazz play while the grizzlies spur pelicans, sons of thunder, to flight. The wolves could only stand and watch!
I just don’t understand how the Nuggets can be so undervalued after displaying so much promise this season.
Even assuming one of Millsap or Grant is gone, they will have Barton back and Murray has blossomed into a borderline all-star. Jokic is among the most versatile players in the game. Furthermore, both Porter and Monte took significant strides to fortify the bench unit.
Of course the Lakers should be the favorites, but why are the Clippers and Warriors considered such greater favorites? LAC just replaced their coach and the Warriors will need to re-acclimate their stars after an injury-plagued campaign. Both teams undoubtedly have talent, but I do not see it being significantly greater than that of Denver
Maybe glamour matters? I noticed the odds were celebrating the coastal teams… could be a money play by the oddsmakers.
Wagner13, do you make great points. Yes the nuggets are up-and-coming but I suppose what they take into consideration is that guys on the Clippers and guys on the Warriors have done it before. They’ve already been through the war.
The Nuggets would be slightly behind them because they are still climbing the mountain. And I think they will get higher with this group before they come back down. Watch out for the nuggets.. if they keep there team basically together they’re going to be dangerous.
No one in the Clips has done it, only Kawhi!
“The Pels, Suns & Thunder, 9-11, are mysteries.”
YOU MADE ME LAUGH SO LOUD I SCARED THE CAT !!
Goddamn its going to be great watching Rockets fans heads explode when GSW wins 60+ games this season as they coast to title number 4.
(number 4 of the Curry era, of course)