The NBA is not traditionally kind to franchises trying to break into its championship club for the very first time. Before the Toronto Raptors won their first NBA title in 2019, a group of just 11 teams had monopolized all of the previous 39 championships dating back to 1980 -- of which only six (or 15%) represented a franchise winning its first ring.
But little did we know at the time that those 2019 Raptors would signal a big shift in the NBA's competitive environment going forward. In the six seasons from 2019 through 2024, six different teams won the Larry O'Brien Trophy -- joining 1975 to 1980 as the only six-year stretches in NBA history featuring six different champions. The recent crop wasn't all first-time winners -- only Toronto in 2019 and the 2023 Denver Nuggets fit that qualification -- but it was indicative of just how much had changed compared with the league's usual dynastic history.
That, in turn, gives unprecedented hope to the 10 active NBA franchises trying to finally find their own championship breakthrough: the Brooklyn Nets, Charlotte Hornets, Indiana Pacers, LA Clippers, Memphis Grizzlies, Minnesota Timberwolves, New Orleans Pelicans, Orlando Magic, Phoenix Suns and Utah Jazz. With that in mind, we have ranked which teams from that group were most likely to be next -- if any indeed do win a title over the next six seasons.
To estimate each team's chances, we start by using a team's preseason Las Vegas odds (for which we have data stretching from the 1984-85 season through the current campaign). We then augment it with factors such as the team's current average roster age (weighted by each player's recent Wins Above Replacement) and the age and recent performance of its best player (again, using WAR). After using this method to calculate each team's probability of winning the title in each of the next six years, we can simulate that stretch thousands of times to track how often a first-time champ was crowned -- and who the lucky team was when it did happen.
Based on all 2,500 of the simulations, there is roughly an 80% chance that at least one new champion etches its name in the record books by 2030. (This is pretty consistent with NBA history: Looking at things in six-season blocks from 1953 to 2024, only two of the 12 blocks failed to produce at least one new champ.) Using the subset of simulations where we got at least one new first-time champion, let's run through who has the best odds of being that team.
Jump to a team:
BKN | CHA | IND | LAC
MEM | MIN | NOR
ORL | PHO | UTA
