NBA playoff simulation: Thunder favored, but will they win it all?
The defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder are good bets to repeat, but we ran 100 different simulations to find out what other teams could pull the upset.
Who will be crowned NBA champions for the 2025-26 season? That's the question basketball fans are looking forward to finding out as the playoffs officially got underway on Saturday, April 18. But for those who can't wait until the Finals are over in mid-June, we have some clues.
USA TODAY Sports simulated each series of this year's playoff bracket 100 different times to come up with an idea of the most likely outcomes. Starting with ESPN's Basketball Power Index figures, we built an engine with Microsoft Copilot that ran all 100 simulations at once. And here are the results.
Simulated NBA championship results The top-seeded and defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder came out on top in the majority of our 100 simulations. But it wasn't a runaway by any means. However, just four different teams were represented as champions in at least one simulation.
The final tally: Oklahoma City Thunder: 55% Detroit Pistons: 30% Boston Celtics: 10% San Antonio Spurs: 5% Not surprisingly, those four teams make up the top seeds in each conference. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: NBA playoff simulation: Here's who has the best chance to win title