2025 NBA Title Contenders Not Getting Enough Respect
Teams in the NBA championship mix rarely suffer from a lack of respect. The appreciation is implied in the "title contender" label itself.
This season is slightly different.
The 2025 NBA Finals landscape is currently portrayed as a Party of Three. There is the reigning champion Boston Celtics, the Oklahoma City Thunder, the Cleveland Cavaliers and then everyone else.
Given what we've seen all season, this is an accurate depiction of the foremost threats to win it all. But other squads are fully capable of crashing the discussion.
Determining what constitutes a "contender" is, as always, open for interpretation. For our purposes, we are looking to spotlight teams with plausible paths to the conference finals that have not received nearly enough national consideration as a four-wins-away-from-the-Finals possibility.
Teams will be ranked in increasing order of how much they are being undervalued relative to both their performance and the title odds they're laying at FanDuel entering games on Tuesday, March 18. Let's hop to it.
5. Los Angeles Clippers (+12000)
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Including the Los Angeles Clippers is not so much meant to be a stretch as a nod to a championship field heavy on proper or overweighted betting-odds value.
Lightning-in-bottle potential fuels this declaration. The Clippers defense is no-notes material. They rank second in points allowed per possession against top-10 offenses and have the personnel to shape-shift relative to opponents. Anyone who thinks Ivica Zubac's value will crater in the postseason needs to watch more of Ivica Zubac.
Los Angeles' offense is an entirely different story. James Harden's enviable availability has not been enough to elevate them versus set defenses. The Clippers are 19th in half-court efficiency on the year.
And yet, having a semi-healthy Kawhi Leonard along with the addition of Bogdan Bogdanović changes things. Los Angeles is eighth in half-court efficiency since the trade deadline and is pumping in 1.03 points per half-court possession (83rd percentile) when Harden and Kawhi share the court.
Leonard's health is the mother of all caveats, especially when viewed through a championship-contention lens. But the Clippers' 120-to-1 title odds suggest they need him operating at the peak of his powers to have a real shot. Between Harden, Bogdanović, Norman Powell (if healthy) and their defense, that overstates the fragility of their situation.
4. Houston Rockets (+21000)
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Skepticism surrounding the Houston Rockets' ability to generate offense in a playoff setting remains perfectly fair. They rank in the bottom five of half-court efficiency, do not deploy a singular lights-out sniper and are entirely too dependent on Fred VanVleet.
Relying on relentless fast breaks and second-chance opportunities is a prickly proposition over the course of a seven-game series. The Rockets need another perimeter shot-creator who's more consistent—and a better playmaker—than Jalen Green before they're mentioned in the same breath as Oklahoma City and perhaps even Denver.
Houston's 210-to-1 championship odds are nevertheless a flat-out crime. This line ascribes too much value to both the Rockets' offensive limitations, particularly given their defensive apex, and the importance of postseason experience.
Houston is vying for second place in the Western Conference. It is also one of just four teams with a winning record against opponents with top-10 net ratings. Its company? Boston, Cleveland and Oklahoma City.
That doesn't happen by accident. The Rockets may not be title-favorite-clique material, but they're far from the playoff steppingstone inferred by these odds.
3. Golden State Warriors (+2100)
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More attention is being paid to the Golden State Warriors this side of the Jimmy Butler trade. Rightfully so. They are 14-3 since his debut with a top-five offense and defense.
Golden State's championship line has been adjusted accordingly. Only five teams are laying shorter odds—and three of them are the just-about-beyond-reproach Boston, Cleveland and Oklahoma City. That inherently caps just how high we can slot the Warriors in this exercise. It cannot entirely exclude them, though.
In the aggregate, it still doesn't feel as if we've properly wrapped our heads around just how menacing this team can be. Stephen Curry is re-emerging as a back-of-the-ballot MVP candidate just as Golden State has found a lifeline to spearhead minutes without him.
The Warriors have a net rating of 15.8 during Butler's minutes with Curry, and the sample is getting large enough to start talking more about it. This is all happening despite Butler not yet peaking. His rim pressure and foul-drawing pops. He has room to provide more scoring and efficiency.
Jonathan Kuminga's reintegration will be a pivot point as the postseason nears. His first three appearances since returning have generally unfolded better than expected. All the while, Moses Moody and Gary Payton II are playing some of the best basketball of their careers, Draymond Green may make his ninth All-Defense team, and the emergence of Quinten Post opens the floor in a way that lets Golden State run out shakier-shooting combinations.
Creating a top-five contender more than 40 games into the season is and beyond rare. The Warriors may have just pulled it off, though.
2. Minnesota Timberwolves (+7000)
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By no means should anyone trust the Minnesota Timberwolves (yet). They are maddeningly inconsistent and are perhaps the team most likely to play down to the level of their opponent or inexplicably implode. (See: Monday's loss to the shorthanded Indiana Pacers.)
We also cannot argue against their ceiling. They have at least eight players who can be part of a postseason rotation.
Minnesota's offense can be cause for some concern. There is no A-level playmaker for others in the rotation. Anthony Edwards isn't there yet. Mike Conley falls a notch or two short and isn't logging nearly as many minutes as he did in his prime.
Much of this skepticism can be offset thanks to Edwards' three-point volume and efficiency, on-ball thrust and the moments in which he table-sets against blitzes like a floor general. The Wolves have also found optimal lineups to deploy around Randle, and the spacing Naz Reid provides is a cheat code.
Jaden McDaniels' outside shot remains touch-and-go, but even he's proving to be an outlet. He's shooting over 54 percent on more drives and hitting 48.5 percent of his two-point jumpers since Feb. 1.
More than anything, Minnesota is a top-of-the-standings irritant. Boston, Cleveland and Oklahoma City are the only teams with a better point differential against opponents with a top-10 net rating.
1. Indiana Pacers (+15000)
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Ranking fifth in 2025 championship odds among Eastern Conference teams is not an especially egregious place for the Indiana Pacers to sit. But the difference between them and the No. 4 seed Milwaukee Bucks (+8500) is pretty bonkers, all things considered.
Indiana has cooled off from its midseason pinnacle. It's playing around .500 basketball since the trade deadline. The defensive questions aren't going anywhere, either. Rival offenses are too often parading their way to the basket.
Still, the Pacers offense remains a high-octane nightmare for opposing defenses. Tyrese Haliburton and Pascal Siakam are both playing well enough to earn All-NBA consideration, Aaron Nembhard is a tough cover even when he's not making threes, and the middle of the rotation arms them with the floor-spacing to thrive in just about any matchup.
Depth is frequently considered more of a regular-season weapon than playoff-success indicator. This is fair, to some extent. However, Indiana's depth is something more. It's functional optionality.
Players who are liabilities in certain matchups are assets in others, and head coach Rick Carlisle has more lineup levers to pull in higher-stakes situations than advertised. It can get a little dicey in the frontcourt, but that thorniness is offset with change-of-look options on the perimeter in Ben Sheppard and T.J. McConnell.
Measuring the Pacers versus top-end competition does virtually nothing to discount their underappreciation. They have the third-highest winning percentage in the East against opponents .500 or better.
If nothing else, consider this a plea to not decidedly shoehorn the Pacers beneath Milwaukee and New York.
Dan Favale covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Bluesky (@danfavale), and subscribe to the Hardwood Knocks podcast, co-hosted by Bleacher Report's Grant Hughes.
Unless otherwise cited, stats courtesy of NBA.com, Basketball Reference, Stathead or Cleaning the Glass. Salary information via Spotrac. Draft-pick obligations via RealGM.
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