Why You Should Bet Against Every Top-10 NBA Championship Favorite
The NBA playoffs are just around the corner, which means we're nearing hole-poking season. You know, the time when most basketball discourse abandons in-season optimism and focuses instead on what teams don't do well.
Flaws define the playoffs. The team that winds up winning the whole thing tends to have the fewest and is probably the most successful at exploiting those of its opponents along the way.
Here, we'll take the top 10 NBA teams in terms of championship odds, per FanDuel's latest rankings, and isolate the one factor most likely to prevent them from hoisting a trophy in June.
All of these teams have a lot more good qualities than bad ones, but we're only interested in the latter.
Let's get negative.
Oklahoma City Thunder: The Non-Shai Minutes
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There have been far fewer of them this year than last, when secondary creation was also a major concern for the Oklahoma City Thunder, but the defending champs still struggle to score whenever Shai Gilgeous-Alexander leaves the floor and cedes control of the offense to Jalen Williams.
On the season, OKC is putting up just 113.3 points per 100 possessions when Williams is the top offensive option during Gilgeous-Alexander's rest periods. That's a 36th-percentile scoring rate, which is a touch better than last year's 111.0 but certainly not a source of confidence. In fact, Williams' injury issues this season—he missed a huge chunk to start the year coming off wrist surgery and has more recently battled a hamstring strain—make it even harder to imagine he'll be his best self come playoff time.
Williams is shooting a career-worst 31.3 percent from deep on the year.
Ajay Mitchell, who's also hurt because the Thunder are enduring a team-wide injury epidemic, could find himself playing an outsized role against elite postseason competition. While he's been a vital playmaker in a breakout year, asking him to save the non-SGA minutes is a bit much.
Denver Nuggets: The Health-Defense Interplay
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The Denver Nuggets won a title with the No. 17 defense in 2022-23, so their current No. 21 ranking on D doesn't definitively rule them out. But there are other key factors on that end of the floor that raise significant concern.
For starters, no team applies less pressure to opponents than the Nuggets, who force turnovers on the lowest percentage of plays in the league. And while it's true that three of the team's most disruptive defenders—Christian Braun, Peyton Watson, and Aaron Gordon—have missed time with injury, it's not exactly a given that they'll all be back in perfect form when the games start to matter.
Gordon is easily the most important defender on the team, and his health situation is the most worrying. He bowed out of the playoffs with an injury last year after playing just 51 games during the season, and has had recurring hamstring strains all year. He'll be lucky to play 35 games before the playoffs start.
Note, too, that Nikola Jokić might be quietly having his worst defensive season in years. This is the first time in his career that opponents are attempting a higher share of shots at the rim with him on the floor than off, and they're hitting 64.5 percent of attempts inside six feet against him, the second-worst figure among high-usage big men this season.
San Antonio Spurs: It's Too Soon
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It may seem like a hack cliché to make the "you've got to walk before you run" case against the San Antonio Spurs, but sometimes the old adages are true.
In his excellent Good Morning It's Basketball newsletter, Tom Ziller laid out an argument that applies to both the Spurs and the East-leading Detroit Pistons, neither of whom has won a single playoff series as presently constituted.
Of the last 15 NBA champions, only one of them won a title without securing at least one playoff series win in the previous five years. That was the 2020 Los Angeles Lakers.
Your "suspect Bubble title" alarm should be going off, and it should be ringing while you're also noting that LeBron James wasn't exactly a playoff newbie at that point.
While the lack of a previous postseason series win doesn't completely disqualify a team from title consideration, recent history says it's a pretty strong indicator that a full run to glory is unlikely.
Basically, everything about Victor Wembanyama is norm-defying, but it remains tough to believe even he can buck a trend this strong.
Cleveland Cavaliers: James Harden
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We all chuckled at the irony of the Cleveland Cavaliers trading Darius Garland for James Harden, in large part because they believed it gave them a better chance of winning the championship this season.
Playoff failures won't be the first thing in Harden's career retrospective, but they'll show up no later than the second paragraph.
The list goes back over a decade, but freshest in everyone's minds is Harden's 2-of-8 shooting night in Game 7 of the first round against Denver last year. In 13 elimination games prior to that one, Harden's teams went just 2-11 while he shot 39.0 percent from the field.
The "what are they thinking?" derision for Cleveland's logic was always a little unfair. Even with his reputation for laying postseason eggs, a healthy Harden seemed certain to outproduce a persistently banged-up, undersized, and not exactly playoff-GOATed Garland.
The track record is what it is, though, and if Harden puts together four straight superstar-caliber playoff series this spring, it'll be the first time.
Boston Celtics: Free Throws
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The Golden State Warriors put the idea that jump-shooting teams can't win championships out to pasture a long time ago, so we can't disqualify the Boston Celtics as potential title-winners just because they rank dead last in rim-attempt frequency.
But when you pair their inability to create close-range shots with a terrifying lack of the only scoring chances that grade out as a higher-percentage proposition than layups, you've got a real problem.
In addition to that No. 30 ranking in point-blank looks, Boston is also last in the league in free-throw attempt rate. Besides a lack of gimmes, the Celtics' offense is also hamstrung by a lack of freebies.
The postseason is all about earning your way to the top. Champions scrap and fight and do things the hard way. But most of them also thrive because they're pretty good at getting easy points and, in most cases, completely unguarded ones at the foul line.
Jaylen Brown's elite pull-up jump-shooting vaulted him into the MVP conversation this season. It won't be nearly enough to offset his team's struggles to accumulate dunks and free throws.
Detroit Pistons: Cramped Offense
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Cade Cunningham's durability could earn him an MVP as other candidates fall below the 65-game cutoff for awards eligibility, and he should be expected to log major postseason minutes without issue. That mitigates concerns about the Detroit Pistons' offense falling apart when he rests, which it does, because he probably won't rest much.
The lingering issue: Detroit doesn't really score that efficiently with Cunningham on the floor, and it has to work hard for the points it generates.
The Pistons value the defense of Ausar Thompson and Ron Holland II on the wings, but neither threatens opponents from the perimeter on offense. Jalen Duren doesn't space the floor at all.
That's three core rotation pieces (and two starters) who allow defenses to pack the paint and make everything difficult for Cunningham—both as a scorer and setup man.
Detroit is dominating the regular season, and its starters have a respectable offensive rating of 122.7 (73rd percentile). But the playoffs are a different animal, and the Pistons will have difficulty scoring consistently because of their rough spacing.
New York Knicks: The KAT/Brunson Defensive Tandem
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The normal cadence of a competitive, late-stage playoff series is pretty predictable. The two teams start with standard lineups and the tactics that got them this far, then gradually make tweaks to expose the opponent's problem areas.
New York Knicks opponents will know where to attack right away.
Many teams have exploitable defensive personnel, but the Knicks have two at critical spots in point guard Jalen Brunson and center Karl-Anthony Towns. Attacking one or the other in isolation is likely to yield good results, but the real danger for New York arises when teams can involve both in pick-and-roll actions.
On the season overall, the Knicks are allowing .89 points per possession to opposing pick-and-roll ball-handlers, which ranks in the 37th percentile. Roll men are scoring 1.14 points per 100, good for an even worse 27th-percentile ranking. Those are team-wide figures, but they illustrate a core vulnerability that teams already understand and are sure to attack.
Houston Rockets: Late-Game Offense
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Small-sample caveats apply, but the Houston Rockets' inability to score in close-and-late situations doesn't augur well for the playoffs. Clutch minutes are the best approximation of the postseason we get until April, and Houston's offensive rating in them is just 107.8, by far the worst among playoff teams in the West.
Only the New Orleans Pelicans, Dallas Mavericks, Sacramento Kings, and Memphis Grizzlies score less efficiently when the game is within five points in the last five minutes.
The diagnosis is pretty simple: Other than Reed Sheppard, Houston doesn't have a playmaking guard or wing who can shoot.
Amen Thompson gets precisely zero defensive attention off the ball, and defenders can duck under any screen without fear of pull-up damage. Among bigs, Alperen Sengün works as an elbow and post hub, but he's hitting 29.8 percent of his threes.
Kevin Durant's mid-rangers are always reliable, but they haven't kept the Rockets from bogging down in the clutch.
We expected this issue the moment Fred VanVleet went down with an injury prior to the season, but it's worth remembering that Houston couldn't score in the 2025 playoffs when he was healthy.
Minnesota Timberwolves: They Don't Beat Good Teams
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This is an admittedly tough team to knock, given the two-way competency and star power that got it to the last two Western Conference Finals. As long as Anthony Edwards is commanding the offense, Rudy Gobert is anchoring the defense, and a collection of capable role players are filling in the gaps, the Minnesota Timberwolves should be able to beat anyone.
Should.
In reality, the Wolves have been alarmingly mediocre against the types of opponents they'll face once the tankers and middling outfits get sent home.
Minnesota is just 12-14 against teams with winning percentages of .500 or better, and those are the only kinds of opponents they'll see in the playoffs. For some context, the 2025 Thunder were 31-10 against winning teams. The 2024 champion Boston Celtics were 34-15.
Those are high bars, but we're talking about championship potential. At least in this particular area, the Wolves don't seem to have it.
Philadelphia 76ers: Joel Embiid's Health
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Joel Embiid isn't the Philadelphia 76ers' most important player, but they still can't afford to lose him for any portion of the postseason.
Tyrese Maxey's All-NBA-caliber rise means the Sixers will be dangerous as long as he's on the floor. Dangerous is a long way from being the same thing as "championship-worthy."
Embiid has never made it through a postseason healthy, and even if his dramatic improvement after a lost 2024-25 is encouraging, it's certainly not a safe assumption that this will be the year he breaks the trend. Even if Embiid were to hold up through four postseason rounds, there's also the small matter of his production being well below what it was at his peak.
Top Sixers executive Daryl Morey has often discussed his team in terms of championship equity. The extreme unlikelihood of Embiid staying healthy and productive for a deep postseason run means Philadelphia doesn't have any.
Stats courtesy of NBA.com, Basketball Reference, and Cleaning the Glass. Salary info via Spotrac.
Grant Hughes covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Bluesky and subscribe to the Hardwood Knocks podcast, where he appears with Bleacher Report's Dan Favale.
