Kevin Durant trade fallout: Huge jump for Rockets 2026 NBA championship betting odds

The 2025 NBA Finals have yet to be decided, but the landscape for next season has already taken a dramatic shift.Kevin Durant was traded from the Phoenix Suns to the Houston Rockets on Sunday in exchange for Jalen Green, Dillon Brooks, the No.10 pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, and five future second-round picks, according to ESPN.The blockbuster deal leaked on Sunday, just hours before Game 7 of the 2024-25 NBA Finals between the Oklahoma City Thunder and Indiana Pacers.Oddsmakers were quick to react to the deal, slashing Houston’s odds to win the 2025-26 NBA Championship from 18/1 to +750.

If you convert those odds to implied probability, the Rockets’ chances went from 5.3 percent to 11.75 percent.Only Oklahoma City (+240) boasts shorter odds than the Rockets at this point.Although it was expected that Durant would be dealt this summer, the odds-on favorite to land his services was the San Antonio Spurs.The Rockets were the second-favorite to land Durant at +600, but it was clear that the bookmakers had positioned themselves for the future Hall-of-Famer to head to the Alamo City.San Antonio and Houston were both sitting at 18/1 before the deal, and given the drastic shift in Houston’s odds, it’s likely that the bookmakers had already baked in the presumed Durant trade into the Spurs’ price to win the 2025-26 title.

Michael Leboff is a long-suffering Islanders fan, but a long-profiting sports bettor with 10 years of experience in the gambling industry.He loves using game theory to help punters win bracket pools, find long shots, and learn how to beat the market in mainstream and niche sports....