FanDuel Sportsbook released its latest NBA title odds and gave the Miami Heat +3000 odds to win the 2024 NBA championship.
The Boston Celtics have the best odds at +370, with the Milwaukee Bucks right behind them at +410. The Denver Nuggets and Phoenix Suns both have +550 odds.
The Heat lost several players who were invaluable to the team that reached the NBA Finals a season ago. Max Strus is a member of the Cleveland Cavaliers, and Gabe Vincent joined the storied Los Angeles Lakers franchise to team up with stars LeBron James and Anthony Davis.
But the Heat re-signed forward Kevin Love in the offseason and also made some quality additions. The team added guard Josh Richardson — who was drafted by the Heat and spent the first four seasons of his pro career with the franchise — as well as big man Thomas Bryant.
Richardson is a great perimeter defender and solid 3-point shooter, and Bryant boasts impressive interior scoring and rebounding chops.
The Heat’s 2023 playoff run was nothing short of historic, as Miami became the first No. 8 seed since the 1999 New York Knicks to reach the NBA Finals.
Miami had a very inconsistent 2022-23 regular season and did not look like a team destined to make history, though. The Heat finished the regular season with a 44-38 record and struggled to win games away from home as they ended up with a 17-24 road record.
But the Heat dominated the Milwaukee Bucks — who owned the league’s best record at 58-24 — in the first round of the 2023 playoffs. Miami eliminated the Bucks in five games, and two of its four wins came by 13 points or more.
Jimmy Butler and the Heat then eliminated the New York Knicks in six games and Celtics in seven games in the next two rounds of the playoffs to stamp their ticket to the NBA Finals.
There’s certainly an argument to be made that the Heat are worse than they were a season ago. But to give the Dallas Mavericks — a team that didn’t even qualify for the play-in tournament last season — better title odds than the Heat seems disrespectful.
