Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum finally reached the NBA’s mountain top Monday, completing a 4-1 series win over the Dallas Mavericks to claim the Boston Celtics’ first championship since 2008.
You can argue they should have won sooner after reaching the conference finals in five of the previous seven years.
Those past shortcomings are why some will consider the Celtics a hard team to trust moving forward, even as they’re set to return most if not all of their key pieces from this year’s run. It’s not likely they’ll face as little resistance as they did in 2024 again, or remain as relatively healthy as they did.
It’s also hard to expect they’ll be as hungry as they were this season.
Regardless, Boston is the NBA’s team to beat until another squad proves otherwise, and the champs are big early favorites to win it all again in 2025 with +300 odds at BetMGM.
The Denver Nuggets have the next best odds at +750, followed by the Mavericks at +900. The Milwaukee Bucks are the next closest Eastern Conference team at +1000, tied with the Minnesota Timberwolves and Oklahoma City Thunder for fourth best odds.
Boston is the NBA’s sixth different champion in the last six years. Though the Celtics appear more prepared to defend their title than any of those previous teams, recent history suggests they won’t — many of us thought the Nuggets would be back after winning last year.
As long as Nikola Jokic is healthy, I’m still partial to the Nuggets in 2025. However, for maximum value, I’d recommend aiming for upstarts primed to take another leap next season, like Minnesota, OKC or even the New York Knicks (+1600).
The Celtics are favorites, as they should be, but their expected dominance leaves little value even this far out.
