2020-21 NBA Championship Odds - Basketball Betting

2020-21 NBA Championship Betting

The 2020-21 NBA season will begin on Tuesday, December 22, 2020. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the 75th season of the National Basketball Association will look a bit different. The start of the season was delayed because the previous season ended in October with the Los Angeles Lakers defeating the Miami Heat in the NBA Finals. The 2020-21 season will have teams playing 72 games instead of the traditional 82 games. The NBA Draft will be held on November 18 and training camps will open on December 1. The NBA Playoffs will begin in mid-May and conclude sometime in July. It is also expected that there will be a play-in tournament where some teams will qualify for the playoffs. The playoffs are expected to be concluded sometime in early July and definitely before the 2021 Olympics which are scheduled to begin on July 23rd in Tokyo, Japan.

2020-21 NBA Championship Odds (Apr 12)

2020-21 NBA Eastern Conference Odds (Apr 12)

2020-21 NBA Western Conference Odds (Apr 12)

A number of teams will have new coaches in 2020-21. The Brooklyn Nets will be coached by Steve Nash, the Chicago Bulls by Billy Donovan, the Houston Rockets hired Stephen Silas, the Pacers are going with Nate Bjorkgren, the Clippers hired Tyronn Lue, the Pelicans are going with Stan Van Gundy, the Knicks hired Tom Thibodeau and the 76ers hired Doc Rivers. We still don’t know the head coach of the Oklahoma City Thunder.

The 2020-21 season still has the COVID-19 pandemic hanging over its head. The NBA is planning to have teams play games in their home markets and with some fans in attendance. Whether that will happen is still unclear. Last season’s playoffs were played in a bubble and the league had success in preventing COVID-19 outbreaks. Protocols for the 2020-21 season are still in the process of being agreed to by the players.

The 2020-21 season will have a very brief preseason, with teams playing just three or four games. The NBA is expected to cut travel this season by at least 25% and limit the number of cross-country flights, especially early in the season. There is a chance that the league may completely eliminate East-West games this season with teams playing the other four teams in its division eight times and playing the other ten teams in the conference a total of four times.

The NBA Playoff format from last season was such a success that the NBA is continuing the play-in tournament for the last two seeds. Last season if the eighth-place team finished four games or fewer in front of the ninth-place team, those teams would play for the final playoff spot with the No. 9 seed having to win two games to advance. The idea for the 2020-21 season is that a four-team tournament will be played to determine the seventh and eighth seed in each conference. The seventh seed will play the eighth seed for the No. 7 spot and the loser of that game will play for the No. 8 seed against the winner of the game between the No. 9 and No. 10 seed.

One thing that is up in the air is where the Toronto Raptors will play. The Raptors want to play their games at home in Toronto at Scotiabank Arena, but there is a major problem. The current situation has visitors entering Canada facing a 14-day quarantine after arrival. This problem was worked around in Major League Baseball, as the Toronto Blue Jays moved their home games to Buffalo. The city of Buffalo would like to see the Raptors play their home games in Buffalo this season, but two other cities have expressed an interest. Newark and Kansas City are pushing for the Raptors to play their home games in their cities. There is still a chance the Raptors can play at home if rapid COVID-19 testing is available and reliable.

NBA Eastern Conference Teams

NBA Western Conference Teams

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