Surely every NBA fan thinks that their favorite teams are the odds on favorites to take home the NBA Championship this June. But unfortunately, only one team gets take home the Bill Russell Trophy at the conclusion of each and every season.
In this condensed, Lockout shortened 66 game season, we have seen a number of teams get out to great starts like Miami, Chicago, Oklahoma City, and Philadelphia. Others like Dallas, San Antonio, and Boston started slow but have come on strong leading up to the All Star break.
Especially because the season is nearly two thirds of the way to the end of the regular season, many experts have begun to offer their opinion as to which teams will finish on top once the 2012 NBA post-season is over.
Thankfully, over at John Hollingers column, they make it easy for us to project which teams have the best chance of not only making the Playoffs, but getting to the Finals, and of course, winning the 2012 NBA Title.
Taking the human element out as well as any potential injuries, a computer simulated the remaining games on the schedule and plays them out more than 5,000 times to project each team’s final record and potential in the post-season.
While it isn’t hard to imagine Chicago, Miami, and OKC winding up with the best overall record, one might be surprised to see which teams are projected to make the Playoffs as well as who has the best chance to take home the Title.
Check out some of the interesting results for each conference:
You can check out more results and an explanation of how the results were attained here.
Allen Moll has been a lifelong NBA and NCAA College Basketball fan who watches and studies games religiously, and coaches youth basketball in his native Lehigh Valley region of Pennsylvania. Allen has also provided content to Bleacherreport.com, Upperdeckblog.com, Cleveland.com, CSN Philly.com, Buckets Magazine, in addition to being a tenured NBA and NCAA columnist for TheHoopDoctors.com.
