The sportsbooks had the Kings at 15-to-1 odds.
In other words, if you bet on the Kings and they won the championship, you would win fifteen times your wager. That showed just how little the sportsbooks believed in them.
According to the experts' predictions, the Kings had only a 9.3% chance of winning.
And that was after they took Wang Yi's freakish ability into account and repeatedly adjusted their projections.
By normal calculations, the Kings' odds of winning the championship would have been just 1.5%.
The notorious Wang Yi hater Stephen A. Smith offered a solemn analysis:
"Although Wang Yi is undeniably great, the Kings' roster is simply too weak this year. Wang Yi has won a championship as a one-man team before, but his opponents that year were the Heat. Relatively speaking, that Finals matchup wasn't as impressive. This year, though, his opponents are the Five-star Bucks."
"There's simply no way Wang Yi can win a championship as a one-man team against the Five-star Bucks."
Wang Yi had only one response to that: "You willing to bet? Let's put our houses on the line."
In the past, Stephen A. Smith would have backed down in an instant.
After all, he had donated his house the last time he made a bet with Wang Yi.
Under normal circumstances, there was no way he would bet against Wang Yi again.
But this time, he was partly doing it for the show, and partly because he truly didn't believe Wang Yi could win a championship as a one-man team against the Five-star Bucks.
The other team had Durant the Grim Reaper and the Greek beast, Antetokounmpo. If Wang Yi could still win the championship, it would be utterly absurd.
In a villa in Los Angeles—one Stephen A. Smith had bought only recently—