The 2021 NBA Playoffs are down to the final four teams, and none of them were predicted to reach their respective conference finals according to the championship futures posted prior to the postseason’s onset.
Last season’s finals featured a matchup of major market franchises featuring the Miami Heat and the Los Angeles Lakers led by LeBron James. NBA betting sites are not as optimistic for the same result in 2o21.
The inclusion of large market franchises didn’t equal massive television ratings despite captive audiences during a COVID-19 lockdown, and there are many factors that attributed to that. Long story short – the NBA’s television ratings are tanking and have been on the decline for years now.
The late, great “Rowdy” Roddy Piper* once said, “Just when you think you’ve got all the answers, I change the questions.” Well, that appears to be what networks and data providers have done as the game is now tilted heavily toward specific demographics.
*Sidebar – if you have not already, check out A&E’s recent biography on Roddy Piper and several other professional wrestling stars of the 80s and 90s.
This is largely due to the emergence of online, streaming, and other alternative outlets for viewing live sports, and advertisers are tightening their aim to target all sorts of factions of the human population based on age, gender, race, and other identifiers.
Let’s not get things twisted, here. There’s not a single television network in business today that isn’t interested in scoring a massive ratings total on a level with a Super Bowl or an NCAAF CFP Title Game. That’s still a big deal.
Advertisers and networks simply can’t bank on those big-time ratings hits any longer and must scrap for the viewers that are there over a variety of mediums.
With all of those elements considered, larger markets will still draw more sets of eyeballs to the games, and the franchises with the two most populated cities that could compete in the 2021 NBA Finals are the Atlanta Hawks and the LA Clippers.
Odds To Win The 2021 NBA Championship
- Milwaukee Bucks +110
- Phoenix Suns +160
- A. Clippers +600
- Atlanta Hawks +1200
Unfortunately, the above odds for betting on the NBA Playoffs feature Los Angeles and Atlanta in the two most unlikely positions to reach the championship series.
The Bucks managed to outlast the previous favorite to win in all this year, the Brooklyn Nets, and are now poised to make it to the finals and deliver on the failed promises of last season where expected to make a deep run into the postseason but were bounced early.
Online sportsbook sites have posted the below betting odds for which player will become the MVP of the 2021 NBA Finals, and Giannis Antetokounmpo is well ahead of any other potential contenders.
Odds To Win The 2021 NBA Finals MVP
- Giannis Antetokounmpo +110
- Devin Booker +275
- Chris Paul +500
- Paul George +700
- Trae Young +1100
- Khris Middleton +2000
- Jrue Holiday +3500
- Terance Mann +6600
- Deandre Ayton +8000
- Reggie Jackson +8000
- Bogdan Bogdanovic +10000
- Rajon Rondo +12500
- John Collins +25000
The inclusion of the Suns’ Devin Booker and Chris Paul as the second and third options in the betting odds for NBA Finals MVP ensures that Bovada, the online sports betting site that provided this prop bet, strongly believes in an occurrence of a Pheonix vs. Milwaukee championship series.
The LA Clippers are already down one game to the Suns, and the Bucks vs. Hawks series will begin on Wednesday, so place your bets now.
