As most of the offseason hot stove has cooled off in the NBA and most rosters are set, it’s about that time for preseason predictions and prognostications to start pouring in. Sportsbooks have put out future odds for all NBA teams and now sports media companies are joining the fray.
ESPN has started to roll out its expert predictions, beginning with awards and then East and West conference standings. This week they released the picks for winning the conferences and the NBA championship and the collective opinion on the Nuggets is quite interesting.
ESPN ranks Nuggets as 4th most likely to win Western Conference
The experts ranked the Nuggets as the fourth most likely team to win the Western Conference. They picked the Oklahoma City Thunder to win the conference by a wide margin, had the Minnesota Timberwolves second, the defending conference champion Dallas Mavericks third, and the Nuggets behind them.
With their points system, the Thunder received 83 points, the Wolves got 48, the Mavs had 29, and the Nuggets got just 18 points. It’s harsh but fair after the way the Nuggets petered out in the playoffs followed by an underwhelming offseason. The only other West teams to receive votes were the Suns and Lakers.
Nuggets ranked 4th most likely to win NBA championship
Then again, maybe the experts aren’t out on Denver after all. Despite picking them fourth to win the Western Conference, they also picked the team fourth overall to win the championship, second out of teams in the West.
It’s fascinating because it suggests that the experts who believe in the Nuggets, REALLY believe in the Nuggets. They were picked as the second most likely West team to win it all, ahead of the Mavs and Wolves in spite of being picked behind them to actually win the conference.
It just goes to show that Nikola Jokic is enough to make any team a contender and even though the team has lost serious talent since winning it all, they still have believers out there. This isn’t the greatest endorsement of the Nuggets, but it also shows that they have a fighting chance this season.