The Boston Celtics have not been given the best odds to come out of the East next season
After the absurd playoff run the Boston Celtics just went on, you think about them adding Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward, and they feel like immediate title contenders. When you look at the rest of the Eastern Conference, there is not another team that played as well as them and is adding anywhere close to their level of talent.
Even so, the Celtics open up with 8/1 odds to win the championship, behind the Golden State Warriors, the Houston Rockets and, the Philadelphia 76ers. Obviously, Vegas is thinking about the 76ers adding a player in free agency.
When you think about how the Celtics dismantled them without their top two players, it feels too much like Vegas is picking LeBron James to join the 76ers, and by a considerable margin right now. If that is the case, then the 76ers could be understandably favorites in the East.
In any other scenario, however, the Celtics should be overwhelming favorites in the East, and no team is really that close. Who knows what kind of state the Toronto Raptors and going to be in, the Cleveland Cavaliers might be losing James again and the 76ers looked like they were missing a lot more than just one piece when they lost to the Celtics, a series they were heavy favorites in.
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Right now, everything is pointing to the Celtics being the top team in the East. They have a young core that is ready to compete now, and has the kind of playoff success and experience that other young teams in the East have not even tasted.
They are adding Hayward and Irving, which gives them the best top end established talent in the entire East. They are bringing all of that together under a coach who has built a reputation for getting more than anyone else out of that talent.
Everything is coming together exactly how the Celtics want, and there are not many question marks left, other than going out there and proving how good you are. For the rest of the East, all the top teams could be in shambles soon.
The 76ers are dealing with a front office nightmare, the Cavaliers could be losing everything with James and the Raptors just fired the coach who did everything to make that team great.
The Celtics are solid in every way they need to be, and it does not feel right having any East team ahead of them for championship odds. The Celtics have to understandably prove they are better than the Warriors and the Rockets, but adding James to the 76ers may not even be enough to make them better than the Celtics.
When you think of how much better the Celtics were this year, and there may not be any free agent additions possible that can close the gap when that Celtics team adds two of the best players in the NBA.
A lot of people might be thinking we have to wait and see if the Celtics are able to retain everything from last year, and make everything work exactly as they need to with the additions. Even with that, the Celtics are a significantly safer bet, because the 76ers would have to see every facet of their game and roster take a huge leap just to stay on the court with the squad the Celtics will have next season.
Next: Celtics have assets to move up in the draft
It is still way too early to trust any of these championship odds, but it looks silly seeing the 76ers with better championship odds than the Celtics, before they’ve had a chance to go after any free agent.