Breaking down the four NBA contenders who could seemingly win the championship and six pretenders who, according to our formula, can't.
The final stretch run of the 2024-25 NBA season is here. Nearly every team in the league has fewer than 30 games left before the start of the postseason and over the next few weeks, we're going to see the majority of the league shift to full throttle as they look to make a final push toward the playoffs or, for contenders, begin to tune up for a run at a championship. This leads me to the question, how many teams could realistically win the NBA Championship this season?
There is a formula that I've used in the past to determine this answer that has worked pretty well. Last year, this formula predicted that the Indiana Pacers were a dark horse contender and that the Minnesota Timberwolves were a peripheral contender. Interestingly enough, both of those teams made conference finals runs. It also predicted that the Boston Celtics would be a heavy favorite to win it all. And they would end up doing so. Before we get into what the computer spits out for this season, let's take a look back at the formula that we're going to continue to use this season.
The formula
1. A contender has at least two "star" players AND are top 10 in offensive rating AND defensive rating OR net rating.
2. A contender has two "superstar" players AND a top 10 offensive rating, a top 10 defensive rating, OR top 10 in net rating.
3. A contender has a top 5 offensive rating AND top 5 in defensive rating, and a top 5 record in the NBA.
Could there be some exceptions? Sure. For instance, last year's Dallas Mavericks didn't qualify or meet any of these qualifications. That's why the formula labeled them as a pretender last year. However, they would get hot and go on to make a run to the NBA Finals. The formula is admittedly not perfect but, at the same time, it's hard to argue with last year's results.
We're going to divide this year's results into four categories: Pretenders, dark horse contenders, peripheral contenders, and overwhelming contenders. The pretenders are teams that didn't meet any of the qualifications but are still ranked in the top 5 of each conference. The dark horse contenders are teams that met only one of the qualifications. The peripheral contenders are teams that met at least two of the qualifications. The overwhelming contenders are teams that met all three or were extremely close to doing so.
With all of that explaining, and it will probably be easier to digest once we get into the results, let's take a look at what this formula says about this year's champioship race in the NBA.