Will the Thunder Repeat? An NBA Future You Should Bet Now

After a week on vacation with the family, spending our Florida Panthers futures money, we are back for another edition of Betting with Bearman. If you couldn’t tell by the temperatures, the summer is here. Or maybe you noticed because the NBA and NHL seasons are over, leaving us with Boys of Summer on the diamond.

For today, we will have some MLB betting content, WNBA content and our favorite Friday staple, the Bear Necessities, a one-on-one interview with a betting influencer. And because we weren’t around earlier this week, we owe you a future to get ahead of. Instead of the normal NFL or CFB one, we will hit on an early look at next year’s NBA and return next week with the football futures.

The summer is off to a nice start with us cashing the Panthers at +1000 and we almost cashed a Pacers ticket, going all the way to the finish line. Now we dig in for the heat of the summer. On we go!

You didn’t think we’d completely skip the NBA just because the season ended, did you? Much like we looked at the opening NHL odds for 2026, we now have the opening odds for the NBA for 2026 and fresh off the NBA draft being finished.

I would totally understand anyone who jumps on the Thunder to repeat, but +225 just doesn’t do it for me, even if they might be the best team. Keep in mind, they still needed seven games to beat the Pacers and a bunch of teams already haven’t gotten better, mainly the Rockets (+750) in trading for Kevin Durant. Plus, we just paid off a Panthers repeat ticket for +1000, so +225 isn’t good value to me.

So where am I looking? I do think the East is wide open with the Pacers losing Haliburton, the Knicks having a new coach, the Celtics losing Jayson Tatum and the Cavaliers having not yet proven they can handle being the best in the East. If I were to play an East team, my money would be on the Cavs at +850 as they have the most talent and winning 64 games is nothing to sneeze at.

But for today, my favorite “way too early” NBA future is the Denver Nuggets at +1500. This is a team that continues to not get the betting respect it deserves. It has one of the best players on the planet in Nikola Jokic, was able to hold it together with an interim coach and took the champion Thunder to the full 7 games. People might forget, they were up 2-1 in the series and held an 8-point 4th-quarter lead in Game 4. They just might have won the series and been in the NBA Finals if not for a poor end to that game. They matched up great, and at +1500, I see that as much better value than +225 on the Thunder repeating.

Seattle Mariners (, Logan Gilbert) at Texas Rangers (, Nathan Eovaldi)

The AL West foes have already seen each other six times this season and are both hovering around .500. Will either challenge the Astros as the season progresses?