Copyright CBS Sports
The Utah Jazz are bad, and they're at peace with that. They even traded away veterans for basically nothing just to facilitate their inevitable tank. They're certainly in the right conference for it, because everyone else here thinks they can win. Are they necessarily right? Probably not. The New Orleans Pelicans probably shouldn't have traded their unprotected 2026 first-round pick, for instance, and it's going to be a long, slow rebuild for the Phoenix Suns. But those teams have talent. They should be able to be competitive on a night-to-night basis. And in the Western Conference, that's the absolute floor. It only gets harder from there, leading up to a 68-win defending champion that's only going to get better as its young players age toward their primes. That brutal competition manifests in the standings every year. Last season, the difference between the No. 2 and No. 8 seeds was four wins. The year prior, No. 4 and No. 10 were separated by just five games. The wrong ankle sprain at the wrong time, a miss on a trade, or even some bad shooting luck can derail a season in the Western Conference. So let's go through these teams one by one and try to figure out where they stand compared to their Las Vegas win totals, knowing that one false move can doom almost any team on this list. For the sake of consistency, we'll be using lines from FanDuel, but as a bettor, always seek out the best price. Big news, NBA fans. The all-new DraftKings promo code gives new users three free months of NBA League Pass and $300 in bonus bets with a winning $5 wager. Get started here. NBA League Pass lets you watch out-of-market NBA games, live and on demand. NBA League Pass users can also use multi-view features to stream multiple games at the same time, making it even easier to watch your favorite players, teams, NBA bets, or Fantasy basketball lineups. Claim your offer now: Oklahoma City Thunder: Under 63.5 I wouldn't advise you to actually bet an Oklahoma City under. They could absolutely win 70 games. This number is just incredibly high, even for the team that just posted the greatest regular-season point differential ever. Only 28 teams have ever won 64 games. Now, how many teams have repeated the feat? Two: the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls, who did so again in 1997, and the 2014-15 Golden State Warriors, who did it three years in a row, but added Kevin Durant for the third. It's not impossible, but it's rare. Even when you're as good as the Thunder, it's just very difficult not to lose at least 19 games. Players get hurt. Jalen Williams already is. Travel wears you down. As the champion, the Thunder have a target on their back. Who knows if the regular-season fire is still there? If they're on the bubble at the end of the regular season, you have to assume there's a chance they punt a game or two for rest if their seeding is secure. They'll spend regular-season minutes developing younger players, like Nikola Topić. The Thunder will be awesome. They're the heavy championship favorites. Nobody will be disappointed if they go 63-19. I just can't justify an over on a number this high. Denver Nuggets: Over 53.5 Preseason win totals are often a shade lower than where you'd expect the best teams to end up because they have to account for the possibility of things like injuries. Well, there's not really a low-end downside here because Nikola Jokić never gets hurt. Since 2018, their floor is playing at a 46-win rate, even when multiple starters have missed the majority of the season. If Jamal Murray and Cam Johnson retired tomorrow, you'd probably still expect Denver to approach 50 wins. Obviously, that isn't going to be the case. The only real danger for Denver lately has been its awful bench. The starters had the second-highest total plus-minus of any lineup in basketball last season, and Johnson is an upgrade on Michael Porter Jr. Therefore, if you expect the bench to improve substantially with Jonas Valančiūnas, Bruce Brown and Tim Haradway Jr., you really don't need much upside for this over to hit, and your downside risk remains minimal. This is an easy over. Houston Rockets: Over 52.5 Every team Ime Udoka has coached has improved by at least 10 wins compared to the previous season. The loss of Fred VanVleet is significant, but Reed Sheppard had a strong preseason, and it was time to hand control over more of the offense to the combination of Amen Thompson and Alperen Sengun anyway. It can't be overstated how significant the addition of Kevin Durant is to this specific team. Houston ranked 29th in the NBA in spot-up offensive efficiency, 24th in isolation and 19th at the end of the shot clock. Think adding Kevin Durant might help in those areas? At his age, he can't lead an offense anymore, but he's exactly the sort of super hyper-athletic driver and crafty post scorer they need. Only the Thunder have more defensive depth, and the addition of Clint Capela eases the pressure on Steven Adams to play every night, which means quite a bit considering how important he became last season. Yes, they're a guard short right now, but they can use the VanVleet contract to correct that if they need to. Virtually everything else in this organization is on point. They're the clear No. 3 in the Western Conference to me. Minnesota Timberwolves: Under 49.5 Minnesota's trip to the Western Conference Finals threw people off their scent after a slightly disappointing regular season. They dipped seven wins after the Karl-Anthony Towns trade despite being the luckiest defense against wide-open 3s in the NBA. Now they've lost Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Mike Conley is a year older, and even Rudy Gobert quietly dipped to the second-lowest block rate of his career last season. Anthony Edwards is transcendent. The team is otherwise in a somewhat transitional stage. There are a lot of young perimeter players ready for minutes, but we don't know which of them will earn them. They paid Naz Reid to be a starter and Joan Berenger looks promising as a rookie, so what does the frontcourt look like in a year? If Stephen Curry had stayed healthy last season, the Timberwolves may not have reached the conference finals and their expectations would be more in line with the season they actually had. Instead, they're slightly inflated. NBA Top 100 players, ranked: How Nikola Jokić, SGA, Luka Dončić and more stack up as new season begins Sam Quinn Los Angeles Clippers: Under 49.5 Betting on older teams is inherently risky. Clippers fans have acted as though they'll automatically be better by virtue of having a healthy Kawhi Leonard on opening night after he played just 37 games last season. Well, Leonard is 34, has had a litany of injuries and is in the middle of a scandal right now. What guarantee is there that he plays 37 again, or that he plays the games that he does participate in at the level he did last season? James Harden is in a similar boat. He's already not in the best shape and he just turned 36. The Clippers added quite a bit of depth in the offseason, and it should make them better offensively, but how much do the Clippers lose defensively if Derrick Jones Jr. and Kris Dunn play less so Bradley Beal, Chris Paul and John Collins can play more? This isn't a massive under, especially since Ty Lue is one of the NBA's best coaches. But with the Aspiration scandal hanging over their heads, I can't get to an over here. Golden State Warriors: Over 47.5 Yes, I know I just laid out the risks of picking older teams. I'm higher on the Warriors for a few reasons. Their old players have, by and large, been more durable than Leonard. There is more youth on the bench to potentially improve and pick up some slack if there's a decline at the top. They're almost certainly going to make a win-now trade with Jonathan Kuminga at some point in the season. And if things do go right, well, they're going to go very right. The numbers absolutely adore the Warriors. ESPN's Kevin Pelton projected 56 wins, for example, and most of the statistical models trend in that direction. The Al Horford addition is about as perfect an offseason move as a team with its limitations could have hoped for. He does everything they need a center to do: shoot, pass, react and switch onto the perimeter. He was tailor-made to play with Draymond Green. The upside here, at least in my eyes, is higher than it is for the Clippers. Los Angeles Lakers: Over 46.5 If you're worried about the LeBron James injury, remember, the Lakers started 13-12 last season and wound up winning 50 games. They don't have to dominate the early part of the season. They just have to survive it. That's pretty doable considering how backloaded the Laker schedule usually is. The opening slate isn't especially difficult, and it's a chance for Luka Dončić to post monster numbers and make an early MVP impression. The offense isn't really the question, though. It's the defense, and if you're a pessimist, well, you'd be justified in feeling that way. The Lakers ranked 21st in defense before adding Dorian Finney-Smith and 14th after landing him despite trading Anthony Davis in that window. Finney-Smith is now a Rocket. The Lakers also benefited from quite a bit of opponents' shooting luck that should normalize. Marcus Smart is old. Jarred Vanderbilt is such an offensive negative that finding minutes for him gets tricky. All of this is valid. You're relying on JJ Redick to scheme the Lakers up to average, but hey, he largely did so last year, and now he at least has a center with some upside in Deandre Ayton. Ultimately, the talent just seems sufficient to reach 47 wins so long as James is reasonably healthy after returning. Is that a lock? No. He's about to turn 41. But he's also LeBron James and deserves some benefit of the doubt. 30 NBA storylines to follow this season: LeBron's last dance? Next-level Wemby? Old-en State Warriors? Brad Botkin San Antonio Spurs: Over 44.5 In our East picks, we covered the importance of redundancy in three key areas: shooting, shot creation and rim protection. The Spurs have very little shooting. They do, however, have plenty of shot creation and rim protection. Victor Wembanyama is the best rim protector in the NBA and Luke Kornet is maybe the best bench rim protector in the league. That immediately gives the Spurs a sky-high defensive floor. Between De'Aaron Fox, Stephon Castle and Dylan Harper, they have three guards who can at least make their own shots, and Fox has done so at an All-Star level. There are concerns here that probably prevent the Spurs from contending for a title this year. There's a lack of shooting, an inexperienced coach, and many young players trying to establish themselves, but the goal here is only 45 wins. When you have two of the three most important things for regular-season winning and a potential MVP candidate, that's a very attainable goal. Dallas Mavericks: Under 41.5 If you're a Dallas optimist, you're assuming their size automatically makes them an elite defense and that Cooper Flagg will be capable of serving as either a primary or secondary shot-creator right away. I don't believe either of those things, so I'm an under. Their point of attack defense leaves a lot to be desired, especially since they're going to have to play offense-centric guards like D'Angelo Russell and Klay Thompson just to get by on that end of the floor. Even the best statistical rookies tend to thrive more on an individual than a team level. When Luka Dončić won Rookie of the Year, for instance, the Mavericks ranked 20th in offense. Rookie LeBron James led the 18th-ranked offense in the league. The list goes on. Anthony Davis is always an injury risk. The roster is imbalanced. The fans are ready to pounce on the front office the moment anything goes wrong. Maybe Kyrie Irving is back in February and maybe he never returns at all. This is the last season in which Dallas controls its own first-round pick until 2031, so if they start slowly, there will be some incentive to take their foot off the gas pedal. There are far more negative outcomes here than positive ones. Memphis Grizzlies: Under 39.5 Let's take a look at Memphis' injury report. Ty Jerome, Scotty Pippen Jr., Brandon Clarke and Zach Edey are all out with injuries. Ja Morant is day-to-day with an ankle injury, though he is expected to play Wednesday. Jaren Jackson Jr. is also expected to suit up Wednesday, but he dealt with turf toe surgery over the summer. Mind you, the season hasn't even started yet. They traded their third-best player. They have a rookie head coach. They just added a huge stockpile of draft picks in the Desmond Bane trade and they're playing in a loaded conference. If things start out slowly, or if the injuries pile up, they might just pivot into a mini-tank. Even if they don't, the Grizzlies have struggled to stay healthy for years now. It's not clear how they plan to replace Bane's offense. Rookie Cedric Coward is promising but raw. Even if you're a long-term believer, sometimes teams just have down years. It's trending in that direction for Memphis. Portland Trail Blazers: Over 35.5 Portland had the fourth-ranked defense in the NBA after the All-Star break, and it's pretty hard to win 35 or fewer games with an elite defense. The Magic went .500 with the 27th-ranked offense last season, for instance, so if you think Portland is even close to the defense we saw at the end of last season, they should be reasonably competitive. There are questions about how they'll balance developing youth (most notably, Yang Hansen and Scoot Henderson) vs. playing veterans. The Jrue Holiday trade indicates that they're in win-now mode, so they shouldn't lose too much on the basis of the youth. Shaedon Sharpe has had a stellar camp and is primed for an offensive breakout. The ceiling isn't especially high, but the Blazers aren't tankers anymore. Sacramento Kings: Under 33.5 They're going to be a defensive Hindenburg. Keegan Murray is hurt, and with Russell Westbrook now in place, there are too many guards with reputations they can no longer live up to, demanding minutes that should go to Keon Ellis. Those are the only defenders on the team. If the offense was anything close to the Beam Team squad of a few years ago, they could potentially overcome that, but the shooting is pedestrian, they still haven't found a reliable playmaker, and if their offseason pursuit of Jonathan Kuminga is any indication, they're still just swinging for talent and not thinking enough about fit and balance. At least last year's team had the sheen of professionalism that Mike Brown spent years trying to bring. Now they're just the Kangz again. I'm a hard under. New Orleans Pelicans: Under 31.5 Everyone always gets hurt. There's not nearly enough shooting for a team built around Zion Williamson's rim gravity. They're heavily incentivized to play two rookies significant minutes, one because he was the No. 7 pick (Jeremiah Fears), the other because they traded a pick that could be higher than No. 7 to get him (Derik Queen). Dejounte Murray will miss part of the season as he recovers from a torn Achilles, but he was playing some of the worst basketball of his career before he got hurt last season. It's not clear how much job security the coach has. Really, aside from Trey Murphy's ascension last season and the hope that this might finally be the year Williamson stays healthy, there's just not much to get excited about heading into the season. Phoenix Suns: Over 30.5 The pieces here don't fit well enough for the Suns to be a playoff team, but the roster just has too many quality NBA players to win 30 or fewer games. Devin Booker is reasonably durable, and while he's not enough of a creator to play point guard as he'll need to on this team, he creates enough of an offensive baseline to keep the Suns out of the basement. Dillon Brooks and Ryan Dunn will be annoying to play against for opposing offenses. There's plenty of shooting. Jalen Green has always been athletic enough to grow into a high-quality starter. Maybe a new team pushes him in the right direction. The whole operation seems substantially more normal now than it has over the past two seasons. Less attention. Lower expectations. The Suns have a long, long way to go before they can be taken seriously as a contender. But there are a lot of NBA players on this team, including an All-Star in his prime. They should be more competitive than this line suggests. Utah Jazz: Under 19.5
