The 2023 NBA playoffs tip off Saturday with 16 teams set to compete for the Larry O'Brien Trophy (though as of Thursday morning, 18 teams were still alive, heading into the final play-in game in each conference).
The NBA postseason is always difficult to predict, but this year's version is particularly wacky, especially in the Western Conference, which failed to have a team reach a .650 winning percentage for the first time since 1978-79 -- so long ago that the NBA Finalists that year were the Washington Bullets and the Seattle SuperSonics.
To get you ready for the most wide-open postseason in years, let's break down what you need to know in chart form.
The upside-down West
Things in the East are relatively tidy. The Milwaukee Bucks won 58 games and enter the playoffs as both the No. 1 seed and the betting favorite to reach the Finals (+120). The 2-seed Boston Celtics are just behind them with +160 odds. In fact, the teams with the five-shortest odds to win the Eastern Conference are, in order, the top five seeds.
That cannot be said about the Western Conference.
Kevin Durant's sudden arrival in Arizona -- and the Phoenix Suns' unbeaten record with him in the lineup -- is one reason for the apparent chaos. Despite the fact that Phoenix ended the season just eight games over .500, the Suns are the clear betting favorites to win the Oscar Robertson Trophy this year.
Sure, the Denver Nuggets have reigning two-time MVP Nikola Jokic, the Memphis Grizzlies have Ja Morant, and the Sacramento Kings have De'Aaron Fox, but those players and their teams are unproven in the postseason, while the teams below them in the seeding are all led by former Finals MVPs (Durant, Kawhi Leonard, Stephen Curry and LeBron James).
There's no doubt Denver, Memphis and Sacramento have been steadier clubs all season, but do you know which teams have the three best net ratings in the West since the All-Star break? That would be the Golden State Warriors, Los Angeles Lakers and Suns.
So the question becomes what do you trust more: the players and teams that have been consistent all season, or the superstars with rings who have played better in recent weeks?
For the sportsbooks and the betting public, the answer seems to be the superstars.
The unstoppable Kevin Durant
Since 2012, the NBA has handed out 11 Finals MVP trophies. Ten of them have gone to players currently suiting up for teams seeded fourth or lower in the West -- including the two won by Durant when he was playing for the Warriors.
Now he's in Phoenix, where he's made the Suns a serious threat (again, just look at that 8-0 record when he plays).
Despite being one of the most active jump shooters in the league, Durant made a staggering 56% of his shots this season (and that number actually went up to 57% in Phoenix). He was especially efficient in the midrange, where he made an absurd 57.4% of his 2s not inside the paint this season. His ability to create and convert unguardable midrange shots against virtually any defender in the league immediately makes Phoenix a legit favorite to win it all.
Durant's productivity was literally unprecedented. He became the first player in NBA history to shoot at least 55% from the field, 40% from 3-point range and 90% from the line. He's also one of three players -- along with Steve Nash and Larry Bird -- to log multiple 50/40/90 seasons.
The epic title gulf
While Durant already has two rings, the franchise he plays for has never won an NBA title. That's not uncommon among this year's playoff field. Among the 20 teams that qualified for the postseason and play-in games, eight of them -- the Nuggets, Grizzlies, Clippers, Suns, Timberwolves, Pelicans, Thunder and Nets -- have yet to raise the Larry O'Brien Trophy (no Thunder fans, you don't get to claim Seattle's title in 1979).
You could say the Kings and Hawks belong with the Thunder too -- neither franchise has won a title in its current city (but their franchise histories aren't as fiercely disputed as the Seattle/OKC split). Meanwhile, the Knicks, 76ers and Bulls are looking for their first title this century.
On the other side of things, only two of the past 15 NBA champions are not represented in this postseason (the 2011 Dallas Mavericks and the 2014 San Antonio Spurs), with the past three teams to win the title -- the Warriors, Bucks and Lakers -- accounting for eight rings in that span.
The efficiency landscape
The top three teams in the East standings all finished with better records than anyone in the West, and the fourth-seeded Cleveland Cavaliers actually had the league's second-best net rating in the regular season. However, that only tells part of the story.
Many of the West's most intriguing contenders greatly improved in the latter part of the regular season. Most notably, the Suns added Durant, who is undeniably the most effective scorer in the league. But the Lakers, Clippers and to a lesser extent Warriors, all also underwent their own changes and aren't quite the same teams that racked up their relatively mediocre regular-season marks.
Still, there other things that jump out looking at this landscape.
Through the lens of net rating, four of the league's top five teams this season came from the Eastern Conference. The Grizzlies are the only representative from the West. The West's top seed, Denver, had just the sixth-best net rating in the regular season.
The Celtics earned the league's second-best record because they have been consistently great on both sides of the court. In Joe Mazzula's first year, Boston finished second in both offensive and defensive efficiency, becoming just the third team over the past 25 years to rank in the top two in both categories. This year's Celtics join the Warriors from 2014-15 and 2016-17. Both those Warriors' squads won it all.
Sacramento is a great story and a great offense, but the Kings own the worst defense left in this postseason. They can score with anyone, but to advance past the first round, they will also need to find ways to stop Golden State enough to win four times in seven games.
One of the most cited phrases in the NBA is "Defense wins championships," and while that three-word mantra has become cliché, it's also become a pretty compelling litmus test in the 21st century.
Dating back to 2002, every single NBA champion has ranked 11th or better in defensive rating in the regular season preceding their title run. If this trend holds true for a 22nd consecutive season, it will mean postseason teams, including the Warriors, Lakers, Clippers and Kings, will be eliminated while teams like the Celtics, Bucks, Cavaliers and Suns have a real shot to win it all in June.
Centers are back! But can they win it all?
After a 20-year drought in both scoring titles and MVPs won, Joel Embiid and Jokic have reclaimed glory for the center position. Big men dominated the league for its first 40 years or so, but after Shaquille O'Neal won the MVP and the scoring title in 1999-2000, no center won either award again until the 2020s. Jokic has now won the past two MVPs and Embiid has won the past two scoring crowns, but unlike O'Neal, neither has extended their domination into the Finals.
Between 2000 and 2002, O'Neal won three straight Finals MVPs; we haven't seen a center come even close to that postseason accomplishment since. These playoffs are a major opportunity for Embiid and Jokic to prove their greatness is more than just a regular-season phenomenon.
A Nuggets-Sixers Finals wouldn't just pit the league's two top MVP candidates against one another, it would be a symbolic statement that centers are back at the top of the best basketball league in the world.