1. Who will win the NBA championship?
In the Western Conference, the difference between a home playoff seed and facing single elimination in the play-in tournament is currently a two-game margin. The past two winners of the West, the Phoenix Suns and Golden State Warriors, would be favorites for the seventh and eighth seeds if the postseason started today. The LA Clippers are in sixth place, half a game from falling into the play-in fray, along with the only other teams in the conference with NBA Finals experience. That could mean a bloodbath in the first round.
Whoever wins the West must navigate three rounds against opponents on a fairly equal playing field. Nikola Jokic could climb to a tier all to himself and lead the first-place Denver Nuggets to the Finals, and we would still have questions about their inexperience at that level and their 25th-rated defense. There are similar concerns about the ability of the Memphis Grizzlies, New Orleans Pelicans and Dallas Mavericks skipping the usual steps to a championship. And the teams that have been there before, the Suns, Warriors and Clippers, are all vulnerable to the volatility of their collective health. Every West contender has its flaw.
The Eastern Conference playoff picture is clearer. The past two winners of the East, the Boston Celtics and Milwaukee Bucks, are the most dangerous playoff teams in the NBA, no matter what rough patches they face over the course of the season. Giannis Antetokounmpo is so relentless a force that he alone can will a competitive series against Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown and a loaded depth chart built to contain him.
The Brooklyn Nets and Cleveland Cavaliers are the top candidates to prevent what seems like an inevitable conference finals showdown, and the Miami Heat are always a threat to unseat anybody. All three teams are also flawed. Do you trust Kevin Durant to stay healthy, Kyrie Irving to stay grounded and Ben Simmons to stay confident in Brooklyn? Can Donovan Mitchell really elevate Cleveland from the lottery to a Finals berth in a single season? Are Jimmy Butler and Kyle Lowry still built to survive three rounds of brutal basketball?
Milwaukee and Boston are not without questions, either. Khris Middleton cannot stay healthy, and the Bucks' half-court offense is two-dimensional without him. The Celtics continue to vacillate between an overabundance of confidence and a lack of it, and their composure in close games suffers from both.
Still, Boston's ceiling is higher than that of any other team on either end of the floor. Their defense dominated the final two months of last season, and their offense dominated the first two months of this season. They have yet to reinsert Robert Williams III into the starting lineup, which feels like the next step toward meshing their best on both sides of the court. If you ask me which team has the best chance of putting it all together, answering every lingering question and playing the best basketball come playoff time, it is the Celtics.
Prediction: The Celtics will win the 2023 NBA championship.
2. Which non-favorite could win the title?
BetMGM features the following championship odds: Celtics (+350), Bucks (+500), Nets (+800), Clippers (+900), Suns (+900), Warriors (+1000), Nuggets (+1300), Grizzlies (+1300), Philadelphia 76ers (+1600), Cavaliers (+2000), Pelicans (+2000), Dallas Mavericks (+4000) and Heat (+4000). I cannot imagine any other team winning the title this season, and even a handful of these teams will need help to seriously contend.
I have no idea how six teams have better championship odds than the Nuggets, who boast arguably the best player in the league and inarguably the best record in the West. Denver is also far from playing its best basketball. Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr. are still finding their footing after extended injury absences. The sooner they fall in step behind Jokic, the sooner a complementary blend of competent role players — Aaron Gordon, Bones Hyland, Bruce Brown and Kentavious-Caldwell Pope — lines up behind them to form a playoff rotation that is one backup big away from being the best balanced lineup in the West.
Can we even call the Nuggets non-favorites? They are neck-and-neck atop the West with the Grizzlies and Pelicans, both of whom could realistically win the title, despite the odds. Memphis, as the No. 2 seed, went toe-to-toe in the conference semifinals with the eventual champion Warriors before Ja Morant suffered a series-ending injury. New Orleans added Zion Williamson to a team that could already score with anyone.
On the other side of the bracket, I do not trust Joel Embiid and James Harden to stay healthy, conditioned and composed enough to win four playoff rounds for the Sixers. The addition of Mitchell gives the Cavaliers someone who can take the fight to any superstar opponent, and Cleveland has the weapons around him to keep every series competitive. Winning all of them would require a monumental leap from the entire roster.
Still, that's four teams — the Nuggets, Grizzlies, Cavaliers and Pelicans — that could win as longer shots than 10-to-1 favorites, and my money is on Denver's top-to-bottom talent advantage taking the reins from that group. If you are looking for an even longer shot, do not count out Dallas. Doncic is a generational talent who carried his team to the Western Conference finals at age 22. He needs only so much help to compete with any contender, which perennially makes the Mavericks a move away from beating them all.
Denver, however, is built to win now, and the betting odds are bound to reflect that sooner than later.