Key Points
Bullet point summary by AI
- A historic NBA championship win saw the Knicks overcome long odds to claim their first title in over five decades.
- Preseason betting markets gave the eventual champions just a 10 percent chance to win it all, rewarding early believers with massive returns.
- Even deep into the postseason, sportsbooks continued to undervalue the team’s title chances, making every step of their journey an even sweeter upset.
The New York Knicks are the 2026 NBA Champions (for the first time in 53 years), and while in hindsight this outcome seems obvious after watching the juggernaut they morphed into during the postseason, this result was far from what was expected.
But if you were one of the people who truly always believed in the Knicks, you are likely feeling pretty good about your pockets right now.
How much would you win if you played the Knicks before the season started?
Basketball-Reference has so many great features, and chief among them (at least for the sake of this post) is their page that tracks the preseason championship odds for every team (dating all the way back to 1984).
The Knicks were by no means long shots prior to the start of the season. Injuries to Tyrese Haliburton and Jayson Tatum opened up the Eastern Conference hierarchy in a way that gave the Knicks (and the Cleveland Cavaliers) a prime opportunity to be the team representing their side of the bracket in the NBA Finals.
According to Basketball-Reference, only three teams (the Oklahoma City Thunder, Denver Nuggets, and Cavaliers) had better odds of winning it all than the Knicks. Still, the Knicks were listed at +900 to win it all (an implied probability of 10 percent). So, if you bet 100 dollars, you would win 900 dollars. That is a pretty nice return on your money. Very few investments give you a 900 percent return on investment.
The wild thing is that you could have gotten even better value by betting later on in the season. The Knicks had an up-and-down regular season. On the flip side, the Celtics didn't miss a beat (and Tatum made a surprising return), and the Detroit Pistons shocked the world by winning 60 games in the regular season -- claiming the top spot in the Eastern Conference.
So, despite all the injuries their adversaries were dealing with, the Knicks finished in the exact same spot as they did last season (with the three seed). Meanwhile, the two best teams out West (the Thunder and San Antonio Spurs) looked so unbeatable that it seemed like whoever made it out from that side of the bracket would be crowned champion.
As recently as May 1, right when the Knicks were finally finding their groove, you could have played them to win the NBA Championship at +1900 (implied probability of 5 percent), which means that 100 dollars gets you 1,900 in return.
Even before the start of the series against the Spurs, you could still get plus odds by picking the Knicks (+185, implied probablity of 35.1 percent).
Every step of the way, sportsbooks doubted New York's chances. But that's what makes the team's first championship in over half a century so beautiful.
More NBA news and analysis:
Add us as a preferred source on Google