{"id":81,"date":"2016-08-15T19:47:48","date_gmt":"2016-08-15T19:47:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonprobasketball.com\/?p=81"},"modified":"2017-10-25T14:12:53","modified_gmt":"2017-10-25T18:12:53","slug":"russell-westbrook-extension-increases-chances-of-warriors-cavaliers-rematch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2016\/08\/15\/russell-westbrook-extension-increases-chances-of-warriors-cavaliers-rematch\/","title":{"rendered":"Russell Westbrook Extension Increases Chances of Warriors-Cavaliers Rematch"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Last week, <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/w\/westbru01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Russell Westbrook<\/a><\/strong> agreed to a max extension with the <strong>Oklahoma City Thunder<\/strong> that will keep him in OKC through at least 2018.\u00a0 While the deal is huge for the Thunder, it does little to alter the <strong>NBA<\/strong> landscape this season.\u00a0 In fact, the inevitable reality of a 2017 Finals rematch of 2015 and 2016 just got a little more inevitable.<\/p>\n<p>Some sports books currently have both the <strong>Cleveland\u00a0<\/strong><strong>Cavaliers<\/strong> and <strong>Golden State\u00a0<\/strong><strong>Warriors<\/strong> as -250 favorites to win their respective conferences.\u00a0 Any other season, it would be insane for both conferences to feature such heavy favorites, but not this year.\u00a0 Neither the Warriors nor Cavs have seen their conference rivals take a major step forward. This paves the way for yet another Warriors-Cavs matchup in June.\u00a0 Moreover, it wouldn\u2019t be a surprise to see both teams coast through their first 12 playoff wins.<\/p>\n<h2>Russell Westbrook Extension Increases Chances of Warriors-Cavaliers Rematch<\/h2>\n<h3><strong>Western Conference<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>The Golden State Warriors won 73 games last year (just in case you forgot).\u00a0 They also signed the 2014 NBA MVP in<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/d\/duranke01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kevin Durant<\/a><\/strong>, who will be just 28 this season.\u00a0 Simultaneously, Golden State crippled the team that gave them the biggest scare in the Western Conference.\u00a0 Who is going to challenge the Warriors out West?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>This article was originally posted on our parent site,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/\" target=\"_self\">Last Word on Sports<\/a>. It can be read in full at the site. We are now expanding, with a dedicated site for all your basketball analysis, news and opinion. So stay tuned to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lwosonnba.ms.lastwordonsports.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Last Word on Baskeball<\/a>, where we will bring you all of your favorite Last Word features, and much more, from now on.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last week, Russell Westbrook agreed to a max extension with the Oklahoma City Thunder that will keep him in OKC through at least 2018.\u00a0 While the deal is huge for the Thunder, it does little to alter the NBA landscape this season.\u00a0 In fact, the inevitable reality of a 2017 Finals rematch of 2015 and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":82,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[54,53],"class_list":["post-81","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-thunder","tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","tag-russell-westbrook"],"modified_by":"Ben Kerr","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}