San Antonio Spurs and Oklahoma City Thunder lead NBA title market

The San Antonio SpursSan Antonio SpursNBA · United States and the Oklahoma City ThunderOklahoma City ThunderNBA · United States are reported to begin the 2026-27 NBANBAUnited States season at the top of the championship futures market, with the campaign about to start. The position comes from season-long prices rather than from any game played, and neither franchise has commented on it.

A futures market is where the coming season acquires an expectation before anything has been decided. For the Spurs and the Thunder, the reported position is first place — but in the sense of a market order, not a forecast that either will lift the trophy.

2025-26

Season 2025-26

Which markets involve the two teams

Michael Barera · CC BY-SA 4.0

The reported markets cover more than the championship. Prices are also quoted for conference winners, division winners and the Most Valuable Player award. That matters because the boards do not have to agree: a team can sit at the top of the title market and somewhere else in its conference or division, and the individual award is a separate question from the team ones.

For San Antonio and Oklahoma City, the championship is the board where their position is clear. Whether that standing carries across into the conference, division and MVP markets has not been established.

What is not yet known

Timothy Holdiness · CC BY-SA 4.0

• The exact prices: no odds figure for either team has been confirmed.
• The margin: whether the Spurs or the Thunder are clear favourites, or level at the top, has not been disclosed.
• The field behind them: the order of the remaining teams has not been set out.
• The MVP board: no individual player's position in the award market has been published.
• Reaction: neither club, nor the league, has addressed the markets publicly.

Why the favourites label carries little weight yet

A favourites tag in October describes expectation, not standing. It does not shape seeding, home-court advantage or availability, and it cannot anticipate how a roster holds together across a season. The teams with the best records are decided by games, and a market order is not a tiebreaker for anything.

The practical question is not who is favourite but by how much. Without the numbers, there is no way to tell whether San Antonio and Oklahoma City are separated by a wide margin at the top or priced almost level, and no way to judge how far clear of the rest of the league either one sits.

What happens next

The ordering will be tested once the season is under way and results begin to accumulate. Until then, the top of the board is an expectation assembled before a single game, and the first meaningful check on it arrives with the opening fixtures.

For now the story is the identity of the two teams at the front rather than the size of the gap. The Spurs and the Thunder go into the season as the pair the market has placed there, with the prices, the margin and the reasoning behind that position all still to be filled in.