Why Pacers-Thunder is (almost) the most unlikely NBA Finals ever
Yahoo Sports contributing NBA writer Tom Haberstroh and NBA writer Dan Devine discuss the unlikely paths for Indiana and Oklahoma City to make this year's championship series — and look at the minuscule odds that bookmakers had for this matchup coming into the season.
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This week's big number, Dan is 1%.
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As in, that is the likelihood that we would have seen a Pacers, Thunder, NBA finals based on where they were preseason and how Vegas and bet MGM saw the whole landscape, the title contender landscape.
99% of the time, this doesn't happen, but we got that 1% and you're asking yourself, has there been an NBA Finals matchup that was this unlikely, a 1% chance.
Based on preseason odds.
And the answer is that this is one of the biggest long shot NBA Finals matchups we've seen in a very long time.
The only one that we've had, Dan, that can best this, believe it or not, is the 2022 NBA Finals matchup of the Golden State Warriors and the Boston Celtics.
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So, according to sports oddshistory.com, Um, in 2022, Dan, Boston was coming off a 500 season.
Brad Stevens is out, he moves upstairs to the front office.
This guy Emi Udoka takes over for this, this team.
Kemba Walker's out.
They traded him for an old Al Horford.
What are the chances that Al Horford can, can still have enough juice left to run to the NBA finals and maybe win a championship for them.
Yeah, there was a lot of skepticism about that Boston Celtics team.
They were listed at + 2000 to win the East in 2022 before the season.
That was the sixth shortest odds behind the favorite, of course, Brooklyn, behind Milwaukee, Philly, Miami, and Atlanta, also more likely to make the NBA Finals preseason in 2022.
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And then on the other side, the Golden State Warriors.
Like they were two years removed from being like one of the worst teams in the.
NBA getting the James Wiseman pick and they were not expected to be the favorite coming out of the Western Conference.
So outside that, that had like a 0.9% chance rather than a 1, like solid 1% chance.
So this is a matchup that we wouldn't have expected, but kind of likely in some senses of what these two teams can do and what they've proven.
This is a really interesting finals.
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