NBA playoffs odds, lines, betting: Oklahoma City Thunder one win away from NBA Finals
The Oklahoma City Thunder (-375) are now the prohibitive title favorites at BetMGM, followed by the Indiana Pacers (+550), New York Knicks (10-1) and Minnesota Timberwolves (40-1). The Thunder responded to a Game 3 blowout by making several big shots down the stretch in a 128-126 Game 4 win over the Wolves to take a 3-1 series lead.
In the East, the Knicks entered as -155 series favorites, which is only the second time in the past 50 years that the franchise has been favored in a conference finals series. The Pacers, however, won both games at Madison Square Garden to take a 2-0 series lead, before the Knicks held on to win Game 3.
Whereas public betting may waver at times during the NBA season because of all the injuries and load management, the playoffs are a big betting event, Thomas Gable, sportsbook director at the Borgata in Atlantic City — a BetMGM book — told Yahoo Sports.
"From a betting perspective, the handle is very good," Gable said. "The NBA suffers from the way that they handle the day-to-day season with players resting, and I think a lot of the recreational players have phased out of the NBA because of that. But the playoffs are a totally different story."
Here are the updated series prices for the 2025 NBA playoffs from BetMGM:
No. 4 Indiana Pacers (-210) vs. No. 3 New York Knicks (+170)
Indiana up 2-1
No. 6 Minnesota Timberwolves (+1800) vs. No. 1 Oklahoma City Thunder (-5000)
Oklahoma City up 3-1
Eastern Conference
No. 4 Indiana Pacers (-325) vs. No. 1 Cleveland Cavaliers (+260)
Indiana wins 4-1
No. 3 New York Knicks (-275) vs. No. 2 Boston Celtics (+225)
New York up 3-2
Western Conference
No. 4 Denver Nuggets (+240) vs. No. 1 Oklahoma City Thunder (-325)
Oklahoma City wins 4-3
No. 7 Golden State Warriors (+1600) vs. No. 6 Minnesota Timberwolves (-5000)
Minnesota wins 4-1
Eastern Conference
No. 8 Miami Heat (12-1) vs. No. 1 Cleveland Cavaliers (-2500)
Cleveland wins 4-0
No. 7 Orlando Magic (16-1) vs. No. 2 Boston Celtics (-5000)
Boston wins 4-1
No. 6 Detroit Pistons (+325) vs. No. 3 New York Knicks (-425)
New York wins 4-2
No. 5 Milwaukee Bucks (+165) vs. No. 4 Indiana Pacers (-200)
Indiana wins 4-1
Western Conference
No. 8 Memphis Grizzlies (10-1) vs. No. 1 Oklahoma City Thunder (-2000)
Oklahoma City wins 4-0
No. 7 Golden State Warriors (-165) vs. No. 2 Houston Rockets (+140)
Golden State wins 4-3
No. 6 Minnesota Timberwolves (+165) vs. No. 3 Los Angeles Lakers (-200)
Minnesota wins 4-1
No. 5 Los Angeles Clippers (-115) vs. No. 4 Denver Nuggets (-105)
Denver wins 4-3
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New York Post
10 minutes ago
- New York Post
Basketball pillar Rucker Park will forever have a long legacy through NBA stars
Marvin 'Hammer' Stevens surveys the court at Rucker Park from the shade of a tent by the baseline, shaking his head at the game of streetball before him. A player misses a layup, then grabs his own rebound and misses again. The bleachers are about half full on this warm summer evening. 'When we played, this was all different,' Stevens says, looking around. 'This is nothing compared to our games. No comparison.' That's not exactly a groundbreaking declaration. These days, Rucker mostly hosts summer youth leagues and local streetball tournaments. Fifty years ago, when Stevens played there, it was the summertime center of the basketball universe. 7 NBA draft prospects Victor Wembanyama and Bilal Coulibaly visit Rucker Park during 2023 NBA Draft week on June 21st, 2023. NBAE via Getty Images The legendary venue at 155th Street and Frederick Douglass Boulevard shaped the way basketball is played as we know it, according to many of the icons who passed through — including Julius 'Dr. J' Erving, one of the greatest to ever grace the Rucker courts. 'I would think Rucker had a great influence on the NBA,' Erving, 75, told The Post. 'Up-tempo style. Even defensively, there were isolations that you had to step up. You had to man up, or get booed. It was action-reaction, which is a fun style for fans.' In its golden era, the Rucker Pro League featured a mix of pro superstars and playground legends. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (then Lew Alcindor), Wilt Chamberlain and Willis Reed made appearances in the 1960s, before Erving and Nate 'Tiny' Archibald shared the court with local icons like Pee Wee Kirkland, Joe 'The Destroyer' Hammond and Stevens in the '70s. When Dr. J first played at the venue in 1971, he had just finished his second and final season at UMass, where college basketball regulations made it illegal to dunk, and impossible for Erving to put his athleticism on full display. 7 Julius 'Dr. J' Erving at Rucker Park Rucker Pro Legends The Rucker league provided the opposite experience. Fans waited in hourslong lines to see players like Erving dunk, and they'd boo if a player passed up a slam for a layup on a fast break. Erving thinks the environment helped him develop into the player basketball fans came to revere. 'It was like the chains coming off,' Erving, who played at Rucker for five summers, said. 'OK, not worried about what the coach has to say. We're not worried about what, really, the officials have to say, because they're on our team now.' Dr. J played for the Westsiders, a team coached by longtime basketball columnist Peter Vecsey, alongside point guard Roland 'Fatty' Taylor, a quick, shifty point guard who loved to run the floor. 'He really could push the ball,' Erving said. 'So getting used to that, my college experience wasn't filled with that. I don't think I remember catching the ball at full speed the way I was able to at the Rucker.' 7 Michael Jordan looks on as young athletes practice during the World Basketball Festival at Rucker Park on August 13, 2010 in New York City. Getty Images for Nike Erving took that style to the ABA when he joined the Virginia Squires in 1971, and he helped bring a run-and-gun brand of hoops to the NBA when he joined the 76ers after the 1976 NBA-ABA merger. 'He became a franchise player in the NBA from playing at Rucker,' said Kirkland, who had several highly anticipated battles with Dr. J in Harlem in the early '70s. 'Because just as much as he brought to people there, that's what they were bringing to him.' Vecsey, then a young, ambitious sportswriter, deserves much of the credit for making it happen. Vecsey became infatuated with the Rucker after reading Pete Axthelm's 1970 book 'The City Game,' which covered the title-winning 1969-70 Knicks, but also the Rucker tournament and the city's culture of playground basketball. He wanted in. A former Hofstra basketball player, Vecsey convinced co-commissioners Bob McCullough and Freddie Crawford to let him start a team, and he persuaded Nets owner Roy Boe to put up $300 for the squad before the summer of 1971. Vecsey then met with Erving and his best friend, Dave Brownbill, at Rucker to see if the then-21-year-old wanted to play on his team, which would become the Westsiders. 7 Rucker Park legends Joe Hammond, left, and Pee Wee Kirkland, right, are seen during a preview of the upcoming playoffs of the Entertainer Basketball Classic, Monday, Aug. 11, 2003, at the NBA store in New York. Rucker Park is the legendary home to New York's great street ball tournament. AP Photo 'How much are we going to get paid?' Erving asked Vecsey, who replied that as far as he knew, nobody would be getting a penny. After taking a walk around the park to discuss, Brownbill and Erving told Vecsey: 'OK. Let's go.' Almost instantly, Erving's presence brought the Rucker atmosphere to a new level. Fans did anything and everything to catch a glimpse. Kids crawled along tree branches. Schoolboys dangled off the roof of the neighboring elementary school and perched on top of the fence lining the court. Residents of the nearby Polo Grounds Towers watched from windows. The unlucky ones? They peered down from the elevated portion of 155th Street. 7 Shaquille O'Neal speaks with reporters while guest coaching Team MMG at Rucker Park on July 9, 2013. Getty Images 'Other than Madison Square Garden,' Erving said, 'there didn't seem to be any more significant a place to play.' Erving would use extra caution to navigate the court, because the first few rows of seating often bled onto the floor itself. 'The court was reduced in size, even in the feel of the size of the court, because people were so close to you,' Erving said. 'That was a real live experience that I think made a difference in terms of the energy level, action, reaction.' To replicate that experience today would be almost impossible. For one, the then-small oak trees surrounding the court now tower over the park, blocking the view from the elementary school and the 155th Street overpass. And although Kobe Bryant (2002) and Kevin Durant (2011) played in one-off pickup games at Rucker, NBA players are far more hesitant to play on pavement because of the potential for injury. 7 Kevin Durant celebrates after dunking during EBC Basketball game against Sean Bell Allstars, at Rucker Park (155th Street), August 1st, 2011. Robert Cole Still, the spirit of the place remains. On a recent summer evening, a live DJ spun remixes of Drake and Lil Wayne songs at a game of organized streetball, with an on-court emcee, Larry King Agee, acting as a hybrid of a play-by-play announcer and a comedian. 'Shoutout to all the beautiful people out here tonight,' Agee exclaimed into the mic before tipoff. 'And if you're ugly, we appreciate you too.' 7 Kobe Bryant attends the World Basketball Festival at Rucker Park on August 14, 2010 in New York City. Getty Images for Nike That quip had Maurice Portis, a Bronx resident, chuckling from the stands. He's a personal trainer who visited Harlem to watch his friend play, and to scout things out before making his Rucker debut in a few weeks. Like everyone else in attendance, he's well aware of the history. 'It's probably not like it used to be,' Portis said, 'but when you come in here and you put on that uniform, it's something to be proud of.'
Forbes
11 minutes ago
- Forbes
How Many Max Contracts Should The NBA Have Each Year?
As frequent readers of my work are well aware, the financial side of the game is nearly as important as the actual product on the court. Time and time again, we see that the best teams are those that get the best value for their investment. Recently, in an article focused on examining De'Aaron Fox's new extension, I discussed the 'Flawed Star' dilemma that is killing teams around the league. By my definition, a flawed star is a player who is being paid maximum-level money but doesn't necessarily produce at that level. This got me thinking: How many players truly deserve a max contract? Our Methodology For this exercise, we are going to reverse engineer the formula I normally use to estimate a player's yearly monetary value (production*value of a win = estimated production value). First, we will take the maximum salary cap each team is allotted in a given season. For example, in 2024-25, that number was 140.6 million. Then, we divide that number by 41 (since the average team would theoretically go 41-41 in a given season). From there, quick math tells us that a win was worth 3.4 million dollars that season. FEATURED | Frase ByForbes™ Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase Pinpoint By Linkedin Guess The Category Queens By Linkedin Crown Each Region Crossclimb By Linkedin Unlock A Trivia Ladder After that, we take the 30% max salary for that season (42.2 million in 2024-25) and divide it by 3.4, which gives us 12.4. So, to be 'worth' a max contract in 2024-25, you need to provide your team with at least 12.4 wins. According to the website Dunks & Threes, seven players eclipsed that threshold in 2024-25, yet 24 players were paid at least 30% of their team's salary cap. We then rinsed and repeated this arithmetic for every season all the way back to 2012-13 (Spotrac's leaguewide salary data only goes back to 2011-12, and that season was a lockout, so we cut our analysis off at 2012-13 to keep things nice and clean). What We Found Now, without further ado, here is what we found: There are two interesting epochs at play here. From 2019 to 2025, we had an average of 17.7 players per year being paid max contracts, despite only 7.7 players providing enough value to warrant that type of payment. Juxtapose this with the data we gathered from 2012 to 2019, and during that period, only eight players per year were earning max money. However, based on our equation, 14.3 players deserved to be paid the highest dollar amount teams can offer. Right now, the league has something of a salary cap epidemic – there are more max contracts out there than there are max players; hence, the emergence of the flawed star category that gave rise to this entire article in the first place. But it wasn't always like this. For most of the 2010s, there weren't enough max contracts for the number of max players in the league. So, what's going on? The league's tendency to over-index on precedent has led to the current financial conundrum we are seeing teams face today. In negotiations, a player can cite a past player of similar caliber getting a max contract and demand that they receive the same. It doesn't matter that said player wasn't qualified for this illustrious designation. The fact that they got it is convincing enough. In the future, a smart team would be wise to reject the status quo and not automatically give a very good player a contract they can't meet the expectations of simply because that is the perceived going rate of a player in today's financial landscape. Not only are there more max contracts out there than there were a half decade ago, but there are also fewer max-level performers. What's causing this? Unfortunately, I don't have as firm an answer to this riddle. My guess is it is some combination of an increase in load management causing players to miss more games/play fewer minutes (remember, contracts are handed out for regular season production, not the playoffs) and the growing injury crisis many fear is taking shape. Examining this subject matter further would be a great follow-up to this article. In any event, one thing is clear after this experiment: there are too many max contracts circulating around the NBA world right now, and teams need to tighten up their spending.
USA Today
an hour ago
- USA Today
After Twitter rant, Kevin Durant has invited Thunder fans to boo him Opening Night
Well, any goodwill Kevin Durant built up in recent years went up in smoke this past weekend. After the NBA sparked a fire when it scheduled the Oklahoma City Thunder to host the Houston Rockets for the 2025-26 Opening Night, the future Hall-of-Famer poured gallons of gasoline on top. The NBA knew what it was doing when it scheduled the Rockets to be in OKC for its ring ceremony. Durant's attendance only added flavor for what was already going to be a very special night for the Thunder as they celebrated their 2025 NBA championship one last time. To have Durant across the court when Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and his teammates get what he never did in his nine seasons on the Thunder is just old-fashioned classic TV drama. It's the type of scenario OKC fans dreamed of when they brought home the Larry O'Brien trophy. What's better than winning an NBA championship without Durant? Having him be in the building when the championship banner is rolled out and rings are handed to the roster. The schedule-makers graduated the fan fiction into reality. It only adds to the eternal beef between Durant and Thunder fans. The two will always be affiliated with each other. It was only poetic for Durant to be traded to the Rockets on the same day the Thunder won their NBA championship in a Game 7 win over the Indiana Pacers. Whether NBA fans admit it or not, they love the off-court drama that comes with following the league. There's a reason why transactions garner nearly as much buzz as the games themselves. The storylines formed from following the league for years are what make professional sports fun. Proudly instigating the two parties, Adam Silver must've had the biggest smile on his face when he opened social media on Sunday morning. While Durant has fondly spoken about his time with the Thunder and congratulated the players for their championship, there's no love lost between him and OKC fans. The hatefulness remains as strong as ever. Nearly a decade into the divorce, neither party is ready to move on. Don't hold your breath on that changing either. If you want to get ratioed on Twitter, the quickest way to do that is by bringing up Durant's contributions to the Thunder. Sure, Durant is one of the greatest players the NBA has ever seen. He led the Thunder to become one of the more successful teams of the 2010s. The 2013-14 MVP winner headlined an NBA Finals squad and made four trips to the Western Conference Finals in six years. But none of that matters to Thunder fans. They don't want to hear it. While retiring Durant's No. 35 is the objectively right move and may be inevitable, fans will fight tooth and nail to make sure that doesn't happen. Or at the very least, let their disapproval be loudly known. All of that context put in the groundwork for what happened on Sunday. In Durant's latest Twitter episode, he went at it against the Thunder. Harder than he's ever had. In the early morning hours, he sent tweet after tweet engaging with a bunch of fan accounts. Durant trolled the Thunder for needing a decade to win their first championship. Of course, he has two with the Golden State Warriors, after his controversial decision to join them in 2016. He bluntly said he doesn't care or need OKC's love. He went nihilistic when confronted about what his all-time legacy will be. He even said his social media ambitions are to upset fans in a tweet he later deleted. Sheesh. Talk about an all-time Twitter rant that gave what is otherwise the slowest part of the NBA calendar some content to run with. After taking a day to digest Durant's comments, I think he made it pretty clear for those who were on the fence on the boo-or-not-to-boo question for the season opener that circled social media talks this past weekend — let it rip. If Durant is going to downplay the Thunder's championship, he's inviting fans to boo him on Opening Night. That's happened in his seven trips to OKC since he left. Expect that to continue until the day he retires, and at his eventual jersey retirement ceremony a few decades from now. At this point, Durant has happily burned his bridge to be eventually admired by Thunder fans for his all-time contributions. There's an alternate reality where maybe things could've been better. After all, time heals all wounds. Instead, the 36-year-old has kept scratching it and stubbornly refuses to let it be fixed.
