With the NBA Regular Season tipping off on the home court of the 2024 NBA Champion Boston Celtics on Tuesday, basketball is back. This raises the question of who will win the title in 2025?
ESPN has Boston going back-to-back at odds of +300, and Fan Duel has their odds at +310. It’s very simple to see why these sportsbooks are so favorable to the Celtics
Last year, Boston went a league-best 64-18 (the best record since the 2017-18 Houston Rockets, who went 65-17), had the league’s third-best defense, and had an offensive rating of 123.2, which set the NBA record for the highest offensive rating of all time.
Coupled with their ratings is their stellar roster, put together by former head coach Brad Stevens and coached by Joe Mazzulla. It all starts with star forward duo Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, both drafted by picks traded from the Brooklyn Nets, both of whom are an easy 25 points on a nightly basis. Supplemented by the 7’3″ Latvian center Kristaps Porzingis, who finally had a healthy season last year, but missed most of the playoffs, and the Celtics still won the ring. On the front end, two 2024 All-Defensive Second Team guards Jrue Holiday and Derrick White were acquired by masterful trades from Stevens. Boston has well-rounded depth too, from sharpshooters Payton Pritchard and Sam Hauser to the ageless 38-year-old Al Horford. These all make Boston a formidable opponent for any team this year.
But who can beat them? I feel that only two have a real shot.
The New York Knicks were on a collision course with the Celtics until they ran into injuries in the second round against the Indiana Pacers. They finished as the 2nd seed in the east with a 50-32 record, as well as boasting the league’s 7th-best offense and 10th-best defense. But the stats only show half of the story.
Midway through the season, the Knicks traded disappointing 2019 3rd overall pick R.J. Barrett and 6th Man of the Year candidate Immanuel Quickley to the Toronto Raptors in exchange for 3-and-D wing OG Anunoby, and the Knicks ended the season with a 20-3 record whenever the 26-year-old Brit laced up.
In the offseason, the Knicks also traded for another incredible 3-and-D wing in their cross-town rival, the Brooklyn Nets’ Mikal Bridges. When in Phoenix, before he was traded in a package for superstar Kevin Durant in February of 2023, Bridges made a name for himself as a knockdown three-point shooter (37.6%) and a lethal scorer when the need arose.
This isn’t even including the rise of Jalen Brunson, who went from a decent side piece to Luka Doncic in Dallas to a superstar in the Big Apple, and the blockbuster trade for Minnesota Timberwolves center Karl-Anthony Towns. This Knicks team is primed to meet with the Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals barring any injury.
Moving out west, the only other legitimate challenger to Boston’s reign is the team who without a doubt has the league’s best future: the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Following a third straight first-round exit in the playoffs in 2019, the Thunder’s GM Sam Presti traded superstar Paul George and franchise icon Russell Westbrook for a boatload of draft picks and young players. Looking mainly at the Paul George trade, the Thunder got an unbelievable seven first-round picks from the Clippers, as well as a then little-known Canadian point guard named Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
The Thunder would make the playoffs in the bubble in 2020 but then would miss the dance for the next three seasons, all while the team was improving via the draft. In 2021 they drafted Josh Giddey, in 2022 they got center Chet Holmgren with their own pick and combo-wing Jalen Williams with the Clippers pick, and in 2023 they drafted lockdown shooting guard Cason Wallace.
The Thunder went 40-42 in 2022-23, barely missing the playoffs, but broke out last season with a 57-25 record, which was the best in the west, and an MVP-caliber season from Gilgeous-Alexander. Jalen Williams turned into a lethally efficient scorer and facilitator, and Holmgren came back after losing his first season to injury to average 17 points and 8 rebounds with 2.3 blocks a contest. The Thunder made it out of the first round for the first time since 2016 last year but fell to the finals-bound Dallas Mavericks in six games in the second round. They got experience in the dance last year, and if the team stayed complacent and continued to develop, they would likely make it to at least the Western Conference Finals.
The Thunder, however, had the best offseason in the NBA this past summer.
They kicked off the trade era with a straight-up deal where they sent Josh Giddey to Chicago in exchange for Alex Caruso, who might be the best perimeter defender in the NBA. They also sured up their weak rebounding presence by signing free-agent center in the rim-running and basket-protecting German Isaiah Hartenstein. In all, the Thunder appear to be the best team in the west and are the most likely matchup for Boston in June.
There are some other teams that have chances of dethroning the Celtics, but not nearly as high of chances as the previous two. If the Milwaukee Bucks can figure out the Dame-Giannis dynamic then they will be scary. Indiana could also be a sleeper team out east, as many view their conference finals run to be a fluke. Orlando and Cleveland are also young teams on the up and up who could meet the Celtics early in the playoffs. Out west, Denver and Nikola Jokic should never be taken lightly, and Anthony Edwards and the Minnesota Timberwolves proved that they very much belong in contender status. Let’s also not forget the Western Conference finalists last year: the Dallas Mavericks and Luka Doncic.
History is also not on Boston’s side. No champion has repeated since the 2017-18 Golden State Warriors, and the champions of the previous seasons have not made the conference finals in their title defense years during that time span either.
Tip Off for the 2024-25 NBA Season is at 7:30 pm on Tuesday, October 22nd in the TD Garden in Boston between the Celtics and the aforementioned New York Knicks.
We’ll see this year if anyone can take down the Monster in Green.
