Hedging Happiness in the Era of Inevitable Champions

Drew Thirion|published: Fri 23rd January, 22:03 2026

Jan 19, 2026; Cleveland, Ohio, USA; Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (2) looks to pass against Cleveland Cavaliers forward Nae'qwan Tomlin (35) during the second half at Rocket Arena. Mandatory Credit: Ken Blaze-Imagn Images

The NBA and MLB are currently in difficult situations. Both sports currently have a singular team that many believe are a foregone conclusion to win a championship.

In the NBA, the Thunder opened the season with a 24–1 record and, since then, have mostly maintained a similar level of dominance.

More so than the Thunder being great, there aren’t many teams close to their level. San Antonio has shown some success against OKC, but they’re young and unproven in the playoffs. Denver and Houston have shown signs, but I don’t see either team holding up against a healthy Thunder team in a best-of-seven series. Then in the East, there’s not a single team that is even close to the Thunder.

Then in the MLB, you’ve got the Dodgers.

Unlike basketball, baseball has far more variance; however, Los Angeles is trying to push the limit of how much variance can really occur in the sport. They were taken to the brink by Toronto in the World Series this past season, so what did they do? Oh, they added a top-20 hitter in the sport in Kyle Tucker and added one of the best closers in Edwin Diaz.

It’s professional sports, so there are no guarantees either of these teams wins a title, but it’s starting to look that way. That’s why you’ll need to find a way to hedge your happiness.

OKC is currently +115 to win the NBA Finals. There’s absolutely no juice in that line. If Shai Gilgeous-Alexander were to go down with an injury, you’d have even money on a team to win a title. Obviously, when you’re betting, you’re expecting that team to stay healthy, but taking the risk on an even-money future is pointless.

With the Dodgers, they’re +230 to win the World Series, and that also has zero juice. On paper, the Dodgers should have destroyed the Blue Jays last season, but Toronto was a literal toe away from winning a world title.

Neither of those lines is very appealing; however, both of them to win at +640 has my interest.

Since the Warriors dynasty, there haven’t been two teams in all of sports that I was more confident in to win championships than these two. I’m not rooting for either team to add to their hardware collections, but if they’re going to, I might as well profit from it.

I won’t ever hedge my happiness on my favorite team’s rival, but I will do it on two teams that are as big of favorites as they are.