The streak continues - no regular season 7 seed has failed to make the playoffs in the play-in era. However, this year's iteration came at great cost to the respective teams, both losing arguably their best player - Zion Williamson for New Orleans and Jimmy Butler for Miami appear to be looking at lengthy absences.
But the playoffs are set, and there is one very clear favorite - Boston, with their dominant regular season, is almost 50/50 to win it all - more than the next 3 teams combined (Denver, OKC, and Minnesota).
Denver feels too low, even though they coasted through much of the regular season. And I think if you talk to just about any Boston fan, even with their historic season to date, they would agree Boston feels too high. Miami has the chance to do the funniest thing ever and beat Boston without Butler (10% chance).
Home court also matters! Note I have Philly rated higher than New York, but the Knicks are still a slight favorite in the first round.
The above reflects a lot less parity than last year, with only 4 teams with > 5% chance of winning the Finals (Boston, Denver, OKC, and Minnesota). Last year I had 8 teams meet this threshold - the lowest of which was Denver, who looked pretty unbeatable on the way to the championship.
Any other result other than these 4 teams would be surprising - combined, they raise the banner 88% of the time.
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