- The Thunder and Spurs are +260 co-favorites at Bovada, each an implied 28% before the book’s margin.
- The reigning-champion Knicks sit third at +850 despite beating San Antonio in the NBA Finals.
- San Antonio reached the Finals on Victor Wembanyama’s run past Oklahoma City in a seven-game West final.
- The Celtics and 76ers share the next tier at +1400, with Miami’s new Giannis pairing back at +2200.
San Antonio – Two teams that did not win the 2026 title share the shortest price to win the next one. The Oklahoma City Thunder and San Antonio Spurs sit level at +260 apiece to win the 2026-27 NBA championship at Bovada as of July 14, a two-team tier ahead of the reigning-champion New York Knicks at +850.
2026-27 NBA championship winner, Bovada odds as of July 17th
- Oklahoma City Thunder (+260)
- San Antonio Spurs (+260)
- New York Knicks (+850)
- Boston Celtics (+1400)
- Philadelphia 76ers (+1400)
- Toronto Raptors (+2000)
- Cleveland Cavaliers (+2100)
- Miami Heat (+2200)
- Minnesota Timberwolves (+2200)
- Denver Nuggets (+2500)
Two Western teams, one price
Read the top of the board like a bettor and the message is blunt: the market thinks the next champion most likely comes out of the West’s top two. At +260, the Thunder and Spurs each carry an implied win probability near 28% before the book’s built-in margin. Stacked together, that is better than a coin flip that the 2026-27 title belongs to Oklahoma City or San Antonio.
They are level for good reason. The Thunder were the season-long favorite and return a young, deep core intact. The Spurs are the team that ran them down, taking a seven-game Western Conference finals on the way to San Antonio’s first Finals since 2014, with Victor Wembanyama named Western Conference finals MVP in his first trip to the playoffs. One side owns the pedigree, the other owns the head-to-head. The book splits the difference and prices them identically.
The champion sits third
The oddity is who is not on top. The Knicks won it all, rallying past the Spurs to close out a five-game Finals for New York’s first championship since 1973, with Jalen Brunson taking Finals MVP. A team that just cut down the nets opening its title defense at +850, a distant third, is the market fading recency and betting that the West is simply deeper than the conference the champion had to beat.
That +850 translates to about a 10.5% implied shot, less than half of either co-favorite. For a bettor, the whole read lives in that gap: back the two Western giants at a short number, or take the champions at nearly double the price on the belief the market is underrating the team that actually finished the job.
The tier behind, reshuffled by the summer
The offseason has churned the board without moving its top. Boston and Philadelphia share the next rung at +1400, an implied 6.7% each. Miami sits at +2200 after pairing two-time MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo with Bam Adebayo in a blockbuster with Milwaukee, the kind of move that reshapes a roster but still leaves the Heat outside the contender tier on this board. The summer’s player movement, tracked closely by where prediction markets say stars land next, keeps nudging the middle of the list while the two co-favorites hold firm.
For anyone weighing futures during the offseason lull, the value questions are set by that structure: a short, crowded top of two Western teams, a champion priced like a mid-tier contender, and a long gap before the field. The board, and the wider menu of California sportsbooks carrying these markets, will move again once camps open, but the shape of the read is already on the table for anyone tracking gambling in California.