NBA betting: Two ways to get more value betting on the Thunder this season

The Oklahoma City Thunder have followed up their championship 2024-25 season with one of the best starts in NBA history, going 26-3 before Tuesday's loss to the San Antonio Spurs. Despite it, the Thunder are such huge favorites to win all three championships (division, conference and NBA) that it doesn't make much sense to bet them to win any of them straight up.

However, with a little creativity and the variety of offerings available, there are ways to bet on Thunder futures that return enough juice to have value.

First, here's some historical perspective on how great a start OKC is off to this season.

The Thunder's +16.1 points per game average scoring margin in 2025-26 is by far the highest point differential at this point in a season in NBA history. The second-best scoring differential through 27 games was +14.1 PPG, set by the 1970-71 Milwaukee Bucks more than 50 years ago. Third on the list was a tie between the Michael Jordan-led 1996-97 Bulls and the Kevin Garnett-led 2007-08 Celtics at +13.9 points.

While the 1971-72 Bucks were unable to defend their 1971 championship and lost to the Wilt Chamberlain/Jerry West Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference finals, each of the other teams on this list won the NBA title that season. This puts the current Thunder team in extremely exclusive historic territory.

The books know this, so finding value by betting on the Thunder is a challenge to say the least.

• The Thunder are almost even money (+110) to win it all, significantly ahead of the next two contenders, the Denver Nuggets (+600) and Houston Rockets (+1000).

• The Thunder are -140 to win the Western Conference (Nuggets +450, Rockets +800) and a whopping -3000 favorites to win the Northwest Division (Nuggets +1500, Minnesota Timberwolves +30,000).

With the Thunder being such significant favorites for every team future, below are two other ways to bet on the team that provides much more value.

DraftKings Sportsbook offers a couple of bets exclusively for the Thunder.

Thunder to win 74-plus regular-season games (+650)

Betting on the Thunder to break the Golden State Warriors' single-season win record (73-9) from 2015-16 is the future with the most value, because it is entirely based on regular-season action and is completely in the team's control, yet it has significantly more juice than the other OKC future bet. The Thunder's record-setting scoring margin indicates that it is rare for opposing teams to even keep the game close, let alone win. There are relatively few teams that would be expected to challenge a healthy Thunder squad in any given game.

One way to quantify the gap between the Thunder and everyone else in the regular season is our Basketball Power Index (BPI). The Thunder's defensive BPI (DBPI) is 8.6, higher than any other team's overall BPI (the Rockets are second at 7.5), and the Thunder's offensive BPI (OBPI) of 4.1 is still fourth overall. The Thunder's combined BPI of 12.7 is more than twice that of the third-place New York Knicks (5.9) or fourth-place Nuggets (5.5).

In addition to the stats, the Thunder are young and already have a championship, that is deep enough that they compiled much of their dominant record without their second-best player, Jalen Williams, and whose MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander already publicly stated a desire to break the season wins record. They enter almost every game with the expectation of a double-digit win, which gives them enough margin to crank out victories even on days when they don't have their A-games.

Exact NBA Finals result

For those convinced that the Thunder would win the title again, this is the other way to vote on them and still get some juice. DraftKings Sportsbook offers the "Finals Exact Result" bet, where you would need to pick the winner and the runner-up correctly. But if you entered this process convinced the Thunder will win, you will essentially just be picking which team you expect to come out of the Eastern Conference ... but with better odds.

• For example, the Knicks are the favorites to win the East at +275. But a bet on the Thunder to defeat the Knicks in the Final returns +700.

• Similarly, down the line: Detroit is +400 to win the East, but the Thunder defeating the Pistons is +950.

• Cleveland is +550 to win the East, but the Thunder over the Cavaliers in the Finals is +1100.

For those who want to bet on the Thunder to win, there is value in this bet because it returns significantly more juice. You could even hedge if you want to bet on more than one Eastern Conference team.

For example, a 20-unit bet on the Thunder to win would return just over 20 units. But if you bet 10 on the Thunder over the Knicks and 10 on the Thunder over the Pistons, and either happened, the win would be either 70 or 95 units.

Even if you split the initial bet into three, and the Thunder beat any of the three Eastern teams you picked, you would still get a better return than betting on the Thunder straight up. There is more risk, sure, but if you believe there are only a small number of teams that could legitimately come out of the East, there could still be value in the bet.

Bottom line

Betting on teams other than the Thunder to win holds value because, as great as the Thunder are, the playoffs are a gauntlet, and all of the other contenders are getting much better odds since OKC is so far out in front.

If you only want to bet on the Thunder, though, there is value in their odds to win 74 games and in the exact NBA Finals market.