Lakers path to another NBA title just got so much easier

The Los Angeles Lakers have seen the NBA title odds increase after Jamal Murray’s knee injury.

With Denver Nuggets star Jamal Murray out for the season with a torn ACL, the Los Angeles Lakers benefit tremendously when it comes to the latest odds to win the 2021 NBA Finals.

Even though the Lakers currently occupy the No. 5 seed in the Western Conference playoff picture, the bookmakers have them as the favorite to come out of the West this season. Denver met Los Angeles in the Western Conference Finals last year down in the Orlando bubble, but without their star guard going forward, there is not a lot Nikola Jokic and the rest of the Nuggets can do here.

Here are the latest NBA title odds, according to WynnBet.

Los Angeles Lakers: Updated NBA Finals odds after Jamal Murray injury

• Brooklyn Nets: +165
• Los Angeles Lakers: +250
• Los Angeles Clippers: +425
• Milwaukee Bucks: +550
• Utah Jazz: +600
• Philadelphia 76ers: +850

Even with the Phoenix Suns battling with the Utah Jazz for the top seed in the West, oddsmakers do not seen Devin Booker’s team as a serious threat to get to the NBA Finals. Phoenix is only listed at +1200 to win it all. With Denver’s stock plummeting, the two teams the Lakers need to worry about are the Los Angeles Lakers at +425 and the Jazz at +600 in the Western Conference.

Out of the Eastern Conference, there are three teams with better than +1000 odds to win an NBA title: The favored Brooklyn Nets at +165, the Milwaukee Bucks at +550 and the Philadelphia 76ers at +850. Even though these have been the three best teams in the East all year, none of them have been to an NBA Finals in recent memory. This give the Lakers a big advantage this summer.

With the odds shifting very much in the Lakers’ favor, perhaps they do repeat as NBA champions?