NBA 2025-26 Season Thread: THE NY KNICKS ARE CHAMPIONS! BING BONG!

Has any young team with no mainstream stars from a small market that’s never won much/anything ever been this big a favorite for the championship in any sport?

Ravens over Giants? Astros first win?

Holy ****. Super jealous!

Dallas beating Miami was one of the happiest moments of my nba life but I still feel the pain from the Ray Allen shot.

The Ray Allen shot sets up the greatest revenge story and redemption arc of all time though

The 2023 Texas Rangers were +5000 to ship in the preseason, but were -165 to win after they made it to the World Series against the DBacks.

Carlisle's masterpiece

Dallas beat the LMA Blazers in the 1st round.
Swept the Kobe/Pau Lakers in the 2nd round
Beat the KD/Harden/Westbrook Thunder 4-1 in the WCF
Then beat the Heatles 4-2 to RANG

That's the most insane run to a title ever.

Piston 2004 ?
Crushing 4-1 too.

OKC:
SGA
Dort

IND:
Nembhard
Mathurin

Either way, Canada is bringing home a pair of champs in this.

Since when is Houston a small market?

Someone made this point, so I'm going to steal it, but it's kinda shocking that it's this simple:

Pacers traded 3 FRP and Salary for Pascal

Knicks traded 5 FRP and Salary for Bridges

Pacers got ECF-level work from Pascal. Knicks didn't get anything near that from Bridges. There's obviously other stuff in there, but it's kinda crazy how much you can boil it down to that.

Mclovin dont forget I jumped on this at +6000 after our conversation. I knew he was a profit! Literally!

I remember seeing HBob question that Siakam deal on twitter when it happened fwiw

Seemed weird at time since Indy can't really sign a FA better than him

That being said, Siakam winning ECF MVP over Haliburton was maybe the most absurd awards robbery I've seen in my life. I would've laid like -1300 that Haliburton was winning that after the buzzer sounded if you let me. Only 9 people voting really opens it up to some variance though. Haliburton was always pretty similar odds to the Pacers winning throughout the series so can't imagine this cost people money but wow, I thought Siakam must have averaged like 10more ppg than him in the series and I just missed it. Then looked and saw it was 4.5.

Re the 04 finals upset to people asking about it. That was really weird because it was obvious the Lakers were completely on fumes and a shell of themselves but they did beat Duncan/KG to get to the finals and Det was a superstar-less team that was relatively new. Also the East had been getting killed in the finals since MJ retired.

But in the conf finals if Sam Cassell doesn't get injured then the Lakers might not have even beat the Wolves. Lakers defense against screen roll point guards was so atrocious by that point (which gave Billups an easy FMVP and made him somewhat overrated going forward), Spurs had to miss a million open shots to choke away the 2nd rd as well (final score of the Fisher .8 game was 74-73 iirc)

So they were clearly vulnerable but just a tough thing to price in. NBA was very superstar-centric then and they beat MVP KG and peak Duncan, they weren't gonna beat Big Ben and Rip? Pistons didn't exactly roll through the East either, the Nets and Pacers series were very competitive.

LEGEND!
YOU ARE NOT FORGOTTEN!

Kurt Warner Rams '99, just completely came outta nowhere

sure you can find more examples like pre 1990 when these leagues were all more in their infancy

as far as NBA history goes, '77 blazers seems like best proxy for OKC. They were really young as well. One difference is they were mostly dominating cokeheads.

Imagine a universe where Kawhi re-upped for a 1+1 with player option after he titled in Toronto (which as Chilltown has said he would've been very wise to do) --- then they 2-peated with another win the next season.

So, SGA remained on the Clippers.

NBA Butterfly Effect is Amazing!

Most of the time in the NFL/NBA if a guy rises to the top of the sport, I usually say it was gonna happen regardless of situation. Cream rises to the top in pro sports.

SGA an interesting case though, tough to say. Got 3 years of runaway on OKC to develop and basically do whatever he wanted in a non-pressure environment. Pretty rare for a superstar, not like he was Luka or LeBron coming into the league with big expectations and then the team had to make moves for him to try and win almost immediately.

How would his career have gone if he wasn't in that trade? As the great philosopher Jayson Tatum once said "I guess we'll never know"

?

Kiwi was pretty clear Raps were a pitstop on the way to LA, but after the surprise ring and all the love at the parade, not doing a 1+1 was pretty weak. Glad it’s never worked out with Clips, injuries aside.

The trillionaire man’s version of Hayward going to Boston after the Jazz finally won a first round series. Hayward getting unceremoniously dumped for Caruso and missing out on a crafty vet/great locker room guy (neither of which he is, it would’ve just been framed as that) garbage rang makes me happy on many levels, starting with the Jazz trading for Conley instead of Caruso.

The 1+1 thing overlooks the fact the Clipps had cap room/assets to make it happen that summer, who knows what happens in a year? Paul George gets traded somewhere else, Clipps get in the sweepstakes for another star or two and then what? Clipps had cap room that summer, not permanently.

It just wasn't gonna happen once they could land PG to team with him.

Raps got him for DDR for a reason and it wasn't because teams thought they could keep him. Everyone knew LAC was gearing up for summer of '19.

Obviously not—it was late—but the Astros seem to be the best comp in general looking at the gap between championship round appearances.

The 1986 Bears might even be a better comp, as they were huge favorites in that Super Bowl.

CP3 also taught a masterclass on how to be a great/professional guard in the league during his time in OKC, that a 21-year old SGA clearly benefited from.

Just checked, OKC went 44-28 that season --- which was a total surprise.

Kawhi did the right thing. Clippers made a couple of questionable signings i guess over the last 5 years but honestly that team was set up pretty well for a several year run. Injuries just crushed them.

Kiwi is my favorite player to watch outside of Steph though so I might be a bit biased. The raptors likely dont repeat

Raptors had their playoff run without OG Anunoby. That is forgotten over the years. Rapz woulda been pretty damn good the following year, especially with another year of growth together.

That was a bizarre era and also the first year after the merger, and Walton was very famous from college, but if Walton doesn’t go down and the blow & egos don’t wreak havic they probably threepeat. Probably the best NBA comp, nice one.

But OKC did not come completely out of nowhere like Warner. They also didn’t cheat like the Astros did, and people who had never watched a hockey game other than Slap Shot knew who Gretzky was, he was like Tiger & Caitlin that way.

The ‘86 Bears are a great comp for OKC, but everyone knew Sweetness, Fridge, and the Super Bowl Shuffle. The 2000 Ravens are the best one, especially when you factor in the theft from another city.