The real 2025 NBA championship contenders

[Street Hunger]

The obvious picks are the Cavaliers, Thunder and Celtics.

But if you could pick one additional contender from the East and one from the West who would you pick?

[FKAri]

95% chance one of those teams will be in the finals. Nuggets are a distant 2nd in the West and Bucks a distant 3rd in the East.

[Neal Romer]

Im ready to make a deal when you are OP.

[Street Hunger]

What about the Knicks or Grizzlies, any chance?


95% chance one of those teams will be in the finals. Nuggets are a distant 2nd in the West and Bucks a distant 3rd in the East.

[bison]

Those 3 are the only clear cut contenders. The next tier dark horse contenders would be Denver, knicks, lakers and dare I say…golden state?

[tpols]

Celtics or Thunder are 100% going to win it.

[Full Court]

Those 3 are the only clear cut contenders. The next tier dark horse contenders would be Denver, knicks, lakers and dare I say…golden state?

Nuggets aren't contenders. One of five teams will win the championship: Celtics, Cavs, Lakers, Thunder, or Warriors.

[Street Hunger]

Worth remembering that many years, a surprise team makes it to the Conference Finals. And no one expected the Mavs to make the finals last year. Predicting this stuff is never as easy as it seems. Upsets do happen!

[999Guy]

Kawhi looks really good and spry. I think they're way better than their stats this year. Harden has had a weird resurgence lately. He looks better and more athletic in the past month than he has in years.

Memphis is amazingly good considering how many injuries they've had. I just truly doubt Ja can last a playoff run though.

Warriors look good on both ends.

Denver has the best player in a generation with decent offensive players so they're a threat in the first couple rounds to beat anybody.

Ranking the west:

Thunder
Lakers
Warriors
Clippers
Rockets
Grizzlies
Nuggets
TWolves



Rockets defense is as good as anybody's outside OKC but their offense is built to die.


Memphis with a healthy Ja would have the second best record and clearly be the second best team but too bad.

Lakers/Clippers/Warriors are interchangable. Legitimately could be the last dance for Kawhi, Harden, LeBron, and Curry in one playoff run.

[pandiani17]

Worth remembering that many years, a surprise team makes it to the Conference Finals. And no one expected the Mavs to make the finals last year. Predicting this stuff is never as easy as it seems. Upsets do happen!

And injuries do happen. On paper, those are the contenders but it is strange for me reading people saying this team or that team will be in the finals 100%. For example, nobody expected the Raptors to win it all in 2019 (the Warriors were the heavy, heavy favorites) but injuries happened and they won it all. The same in 2004 with the Detroit Pistons. We'll see what happens.

[John8204]

I think this season is really going to come down to matchups. The Warriors being able to rotate Draymond and Butler off SGA is going to be huge for them...but they might not beat The Nuggets. Denver on the other hand they can beat The Lakers and Warriors but Houston might give them a lot of problems.

[ILLsmak]

Celtics or Thunder are 100% going to win it.

What odds you offering? The Cs could win, but okc has not been there and its pretty rare for a team who has never been to finals to win. I think cs are gonna shoot themselves out of it. I think playoffs will be much different. Lal won’t win (imo) but I can see it being possible as well.

Nyk is talented if they get it together. I think cs, lakers, bucks, and nugs are the teams id look for. If cs lose early its open. Same if okc loses early.

Otoh i made an ncaa bracket and it is already trashed so haha

Edit: forgot about jimmy. Wars dark horse.

-Smak

[Axe]

Celtics or Thunder are 100% going to win it.
Both of them are heavy favorites for this year too.

Btw, the narcissistic retard below you is a homosexual mongoloid as well. Lmao.

[Jasper]

I have to say top 6 teams in each conference are dangerous.

Oak .. I just wonder if they can sustain a 7 game series .. maybe for 2 rounds to get to chip series.

Same for Cav's .. I know how to stop them ..

deepest teams I think are the better chances of winning,