The NBA season starts Tuesday, Oct. 20, and ESPN has multiple previews to guide readers, including a ranking of the top 100 players, a look at the top players in new places and capsules on each team, with the most important stats that affect teams' win-loss records.
Now it's time for a season preview using ESPN's Basketball Power Index (BPI), which evaluates two different strength measures for all 30 NBA teams: one based on players currently available, and the other based on players who should be available during the playoffs. Then, to create preseason projections, the BPI takes into account win totals from the betting market in conjunction with each team's schedule and other factors, simulating the season thousands of times, with the results forming these projections.
Once the season begins, the BPI watches what happens in games and updates both its current BPI and its playoff BPI. There are numerous benefits to this, particularly that it adjusts game predictions on the fly when there are reports of players missing games. If Giannis Antetokounmpo is going to miss a game, for instance, the BPI marks down the Miami Heat's chance to win that game by an amount suggested by history. Sometimes, those injury reports are late or inaccurate (ahem, Joel Embiid) and it annoys us, the BPI and the league as a whole. But don't hold that against the BPI's model.
One thing the BPI isn't seeing this season is a secret prediction edge over Las Vegas. There aren't major deviations in this model's rankings from what Vegas is forecasting.
Let's dig into the projections, including how it ranks teams from 1 to 30 and which teams have the best chance to win the NBA Finals.
Jump to a section: 1-30 team rankings NBA playoff projections NBA Finals projections More takeaways
Regular-season projections
The BPI values shown are the current numbers, not the version for the playoffs. The Golden State Warriors are down at No. 20, reflecting the absence of Jimmy Butler III, who tore his ACL in January and could return around midseason. The Warriors would be No. 12 if they were at full strength.
There is only one other team with an injury causing significant deviations between their current and playoff power: Embiid and the Philadelphia 76ers. That's because we know from history Embiid is going to miss games -- he has played 41 games per season since he was drafted and has played just 96 over the past three seasons -- and he is a good enough player that it matters. With Embiid, the Sixers have the third-best playoff BPI, consistent with the expectation they are among the favorites to come out of the East.