We are down to the final weeks of the NBA’s regular season, with the SoFi NBA Play-In Tournament beginning April 14 and the playoffs tipping off April 18.
With much still unsettled in terms of seeding and matchups, the futures odds for the NBA playoffs currently offer a wide array of opportunities.
Here are Andre Snellings, Eric Moody, Eric Karabell, Jim McCormick and Steve Alexander to explain the futures bets they like most with the playoffs only a few weeks away.
Odds by DraftKings Sportsbook and subject to change.
Celtics to win the Eastern Conference (+170)
Snellings: While both conferences are competitive, the top of the Eastern Conference has more questions right now than the top of the West. The top-seeded Detroit Pistons have little playoffs experience and their best player is still recuperating from a collapsed lung. The Cleveland Cavaliers and New York Knicks are talented enough to compete with anyone, but neither have put it together enough to look like true contenders. But the Celtics have been strong all season led by Jaylen Brown, and now with Jayson Tatum back they look like the most talented, most experienced and most confident team in the East. While I could see any of four to five teams winning the West, at this point I would be surprised if a healthy Celtics team doesn’t come out of the East.
Finals exact result: Spurs over Celtics (18-1)
McCormick: The Spurs winning their conference is appealing at +350 on its own. Taking speculation a step further, that grows to 18-1 odds when predicting San Antonio to topple the storied Celtics for the 2026 title. Any bet other than the Thunder is bucking consensus, so I’d rather swing big. The Spurs are the rare team with a counter — if not multiple counters — to the Oklahoma City Thunder’s full deck of talent and schematic dexterity. And while the Spurs appear ready to contend ahead of expectations, the Celtics are similarly ahead of schedule in their own right.
Spurs to win the Finals (+600)
Moody: The only team in the league with a higher net rating than the Spurs is the Thunder. San Antonio has won four of five matchups against OKC this season and, in my opinion, has a legitimate shot to win the Western Conference. If the Spurs can dethrone the Thunder in the playoffs, they become serious title contenders. At +600, the Spurs offer better value than both the Thunder and the Celtics.
Alexander: Victor Wembanyama is on a historic MVP run, and while the Spurs will likely finish behind the Thunder in the West, I still think Wemby is going to continue to destroy the opposition until the end of the season and win the MVP award. He’s not only going to win MVP, but the Spurs just might win it all, and $100 to win $600 is not a crazy bet right now. In fact, I like the Spurs to win it all.
Any play-in tournament team to reach the conference finals (+290)
Karabell: The Philadelphia 76ers may have run out of time to earn a top-six seed in the East, as they waited for the powerful triumvirate of Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey and Paul George to get healthy, but they are healthy now. For however long this continues — and nobody knows for sure — the 76ers can match up with any East team, including the Pistons, Celtics and Knicks. With these odds, take a chance.
