Why These 7 Teams Can (but Won't) Win the 2026 NBA Finals

Daniel Waddleton

Oct 13, 2025

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Last week, I posted my annual “23 Teams Who Won’t Win the 2026 NBA Finals” piece, which is my yearly tradition where I go through the league’s non-contenders and explain why they’re not in the inner circle.

This week, we’re flipping it. For the first time ever I’m breaking down the seven teams I actually think can win the title, but with a twist. For all the reasons I believe they can, I’ll also give you the reason they won’t.

Let’s take this idea for a test drive, starting with the defending champs from the Midwest.

Oklahoma City Thunder

They can win because: They won last year and brought everybody back.

For the most part, Oklahoma City owned the 2024-25 season. They won 68 games, posted a +12.7 net rating (best since the ’95 Bulls), finished with a defensive rating nearly seven points better than league average, and saw their best player crowned league MVP.

They followed up that regular-season dominance with a 16-7 playoff run, capped with winning their first championship since the franchise moved to Oklahoma in 2007.

As an encore, they’re running it back. Every key piece from that 68-win roster returns, and they’ll add their 2024 No. 10 overall pick -- a crafty, pass-first point-guard in Nikola Topić who missed all of last season recovering from an ACL injury -- to an already absurdly deep rotation.

This was the youngest roster in the NBA last year, with an average age of just 24.1. There’s reason to believe internal growth alone could push them even higher. With an MVP-level offensive engine in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, elite two-way co-stars in Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren, and the most dynamic defense ever built for this modern era of basketball, there’s a real chance we see them take a Warriors 2015-16-style leap after winning their first title.

It’s no surprise they’re not just the favorites to repeat, but heavy ones: Vegas opened them as low as +220, the shortest preseason odds since the Kevin Durant Golden State Warriors in 2018.

But they won't because: The Playoff offense could still be clunky.

The main reason Oklahoma City wasn’t nearly as dominant in the postseason as it was in the regular season was the offense. Their relative offensive rating sat at +5.5 during the regular season, and that number dipped to +3.6 in the playoffs. Aside from Jalen Williams, the Thunder didn’t have a second reliable creator outside of Gilgeous-Alexander, and even offense built around their MVP bogged down at times.

The Denver series was the clearest example. The Nuggets cut off SGA's driving gaps with a zone that bent towards the Thunder's star, stressing his playmaking and daring Oklahoma City’s defensively slanted group of role players to beat them as shooters or second side creators.

This is still a defense-first team betting that Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is such a brilliant offensive on his own that he can do enough on that end to let the defense carry them home But that bet comes with real questions. Can Jalen Williams sustain his offensive consistency? Did Chet Holmgren add strength and continue to progress as a shooter? Can role players like Lu Dort and Cason Wallace punish gap help with outside shooting? Will Isaiah Hartenstein actually look at the basket this postseason? Can Nikola Topić or Ajay Mitchell add a legitimate scoring punch off the bench?

Ideally, those questions get answered positively during the regular season. If not, Oklahoma City could find itself in another pair of Game 7 coin flips next spring, and this time, they might not get the same injury luck.

. . .

Denver Nuggets

They can win because: They have the best player in the world, with a real supporting cast.

When Denver won the Finals in 2023 stars Nikola Jokić and Jamal Murray naturally grabbed all the headlines, but what flew under the radar was just how deep that team was. The other starters excelled in their roles, and bench contributions from Bruce Brown Jr, Jeff Green, and rookie Christian Braun were pivotal to their success.

In the two years since, Denver’s come close to climbing the mountain again, yet fallen short without the horses to finish the job. Ownership’s reluctance to dive deep into the luxury tax stripped the roster of its depth, and the team wore down late in the season -- first against Minnesota in 2024, then Oklahoma City last season.

Heading into this year, that no longer appears to be an issue. Denver offloaded Porter Jr. and his $38 million contract in exchange for Cameron Johnson, a player with similar size and movement shooting but a price tag roughly $18 million lighter.

With that new financial flexibility, they reunited with an old friend in Brown Jr., added Jonas Valančiūnas -- the backup center this team has lacked for years -- and brought in Tim Hardaway Jr., who provides the kind of reliable three-point shooting last season’s bench sorely missed.

The core of Murray-Braun-Gordon-Jokić posted a +15.5 net rating across more than 1,100 possessions last year, proving they’re a championship-level group. Now with a vastly improved supporting cast, Denver sits -- at worst -- as the second-best team in the NBA from where I’m standing.

But they won’t win because: Their defense won’t hold up against the wrong matchup.

Jokić is not a bad defender. He’s an elite defensive rebounder, has great hands and instincts in pick-and-roll coverage, holds up well in the post, and is one of the smartest backline communicators in the league. The Nuggets have posted top-10 defensives for entire seasons with him on the floor, which doesn’t happen by accident.

But Jokić also isn’t an elite defender, and when the anchor of your defense isn’t elite, it forces you to get creative. His biggest limitation is rim protection, an area where he’s simply not a deterrent. Last season, opponents shot 67.3% at the rim with Jokić on the floor, a number that’s far from ideal. That’s why Denver has historically paired him with forwards like Gordon and Porter Jr., players who can provide weak-side rim protection, along with Braun offering some of that support from the guard spot. Teams with relentless rim pressure (think Minnesota recently) have given Denver fits.

Issues also arise against elite pick-and-roll teams. Jokić is primarily a drop big and doesn’t offer much scheme versatility, which allows high-level creators to hunt the same looks over and over. We’ve seen players like Luka Dončić carve Denver up because he’s a maestro in that play type.

Denver has shown in the past it can string together stronger playoff defenses thna advertised through scouting, effort, and mixed in zone looks -- and it helps that they have solid perimeter defenders and secondary rim protection behind Jokić. But this still isn’t an elite, matchup-proof defense. If the Nuggets fall short this season, it will almost certainly be on the defensive end.

. . .

Cleveland Cavaliers

They can win because: This core is long overdue for a deep postseason run.

Cleveland won 64 games and posted a +9.2 net rating last season. Under new head coach Kenny Atkinson, the offense soared to heights this group had never reached before: a 121.0 offensive rating and 1.08 points per half-court possession, both league highs. Atkinson diversified the attack and as a result made this roster much harder to guard, particularly by better weaponizing Evan Mobley on the offensive end. His creativity unlocked Mobley’s immense talent while masking some of his weaknesses.

It felt like this team had a real shot at the title entering the playoffs as the No. 1 seed, but injuries -- highlighted by yet another Darius Garland setback -- derailed the run before we could see what they were truly capable of in a postseason setting. Between misutilization of their star players and persistent injury issues, it’s felt like the Cavs have been punching below their weight throughout the entire Garland-Mitchell-Mobley-Allen tenure.

They have an elite No. 1 playoff option in Donovan Mitchell (28.3 PPG for his postseason career), one of the league’s best advantage creators when healthy in Garland, the reigning DPOY with a newly found offensive punch with Mobley, and one of the best rim-to-rim bigs in the NBA in Jarrett Allen. Add an above-average supporting cast and the right coach, and it’s easy to see why the Cavs are asking themselves why not us?

If they can finally reach the postseason healthy, this core has a real chance to break through a wide-open Eastern Conference.

But they won’t because: Two-way wings win in the spring, and the Cavs don’t have any

Thinking Basketball’s Ben Taylor often refers to Cleveland's roster construction as an “hourglass” shape, a metaphor I’m always jealous of. He’s right: they’re loaded with small, dynamic offensive guards who have defensive limitations, and a collection of elite defensive bigs, but nothing in the middle.

Cleveland lacks the true two-way wings championship teams are built around, the kind who can survive any playoff matchup without bleeding value on either end of the floor. If you go down the line of past finals teams the rosters are often littered with guys that fit this archetype. Trading for De’Andre Hunter at last year’s deadline was a step in the right direction, but he’s probably a bit overrated defensively and therefore not quite the two-way solution they need.

The same issues keep showing up in May -- guards who get picked on in switches, clunky spacing when Mobley and Allen share the floor, and that lingering sense that something crucial is missing from an otherwise elite team by the numbers.

Los Angeles Lakers

They can win because: Their offense is unsolvable

It’s the year of Skinny Luka, and it’s all anyone can talk about. Luka Dončić has already put together five All-NBA First Team seasons before turning 26, so realistically, he didn’t need to change anything. And yet, the trade away from Dallas appears to have lit a fire under him, putting him in the best shape of his life. A 34-point triple-double season isn’t out of the question, and we already know he’s one of the most unsolvable playoff players in modern postseason history.

Over the past four seasons, Luka’s teams have averaged a 121.2 offensive rating with him on the floor, and he’s posted a +8.4 offensive on/off. His ability to dribble pass and shoot at that size paired with one of the highest basketball IQs in the league gives him control over the game that very few players have ever possessed.

Then you factor in the supporting cast, and it starts to feel overwhelming. Austin Reaves reset his ceiling again last season, averaging 20 points and 5.8 assists on 61.6% true shooting, slotting in as a secondary ball handler. LeBron James -- maybe the greatest player of all time and still projected as an elite offensive force in his 23rd season -- can scale back into an optimized role given his age and miles as a screener, cutter, mismatch hunter, and play finisher, while still retaining the ability to ramp up into the on-ball creator he’s been for two decades when needed.

They have advantage creation galore, spacing, play-finishing, and if any team is equipped to get the most out of former No. 1 pick Deandre Ayton as a screen and roller, it’s one with Luka, Reaves, and LeBron on the floor, and JJ Redick behind the scenes pulling the strings.

But they won’t because: Their defense is very solvable

When a roster tilts this heavily toward offense, the defense usually lags behind. The Lakers lack several pillars of an elite defense: a true point-of-attack defender who can hound opposing guards 94 feet and navigate screens in the half court; a reliable wing stopper capable of handling the league’s best scorers; and an anchor big who can either protect the rim at a high level or enable a switch-heavy scheme.

They’ll have to patch things together with scheme and effort just to survive -- and that’s a risky bet when LeBron James, who carried a heavy defensive load post-trade last season, can’t realistically sustain that level across 82 games or a full playoff run at age 40. If the offense stalls even a little, they won’t have the defensive backbone to keep them upright.

New York Knicks

They can win because: They have an hyper-talented roster is an weak conference

If nothing else, this Knicks team has talent. Their superstar Jalen Brunson is an All-NBA level offensive engine (120.8 on court offensive rating, +3.5 on/off), coming off a season where he averaged 26 points per game on over 60% true shooting. He'll share the court with elite two-way wings Mikal Bridges and OG Anunoby, the kind of players you'd typically find on nearly every championship roster. Karl-Anthony Towns gives them a stretch big unlike anyone in the conference, fresh off a season where he averaged 24.4 points, 12.8 rebounds, and 3.1 assists while hitting 42% from deep on nearly five attempts per game.

They’re also deeper than ever: Josh Hart, Mitchell Robinson, and Miles McBride return as key contributors, while Jordan Clarkson and Guerschon Yabusele bolster the bench. They can shape-shift around matchups -- go all-in on offense with Brunson surrounded by five-out spacing, or lean defense with Robinson, Bridges, OG, and Hart flying around and being super physical. There’s flexibility, balance, and firepower here.

In a weakened East, pure talent can still take you a long way, maybe even all the way to that trophy they give out in June?

But they won't because: Their two most important players are their two biggest defensive liabilities

If you’re looking for the primary reason the Knicks fell short of the Finals against Indiana last season -- despite entering the series as favorites -- it starts with their two best players. Lineups featuring Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns logged nearly 3,000 possessions last season and posted a 116.1 defensive rating. The postseason sample only reinforced it, climbing to 116.7.

That isn’t noise. It’s a structural problem.

Towns is a uniquely talented player who can provide value on both ends, but his optimization is fragile. Offensively, he’s best as a five-out center. Defensively, he’s best as a four next to a true rim protector and strong pick-and-roll defender. Whichever direction the team chooses, he becomes significantly less effective on the other side of the ball.

Brunson meanwhile, is your classic low-activity defender. He’s sturdy, competitive, and smart enough to survive certain matchups, but he’s still undersized and largely conserving energy for offense. Opponents hunt him with their best players, and the constant scrambling to protect him often fractures the Knicks’ defensive structure.

There are individual issues on film for both players, and then there’s the problem of teams attacking them together. Indiana relentlessly targeted the Brunson-Towns pairing across a variety of actions throughout the series. Brunson’s weakness as a screen navigator, combined with Towns’ limited mobility and scheme versatility on the back end -- and both players’ reluctance to switch -- turned that two-man combo into an obvious pressure point.

When your two most integral players are both viewed as defensive entry points, your championship equity is going to take a massive hit.

. . .

Houston Rockets

They can win because: They will have astronomical advantages in certain areas

Last season, Houston stumbled onto a real market inefficiency: almost nobody in the league is built to consistently keep teams off the offensive glass if you commit the personnel and emphasis to it. Ime Udoka test-drove this late in the regular season, experimenting with lineups featuring Alperen Şengün and Steven Adams. The spacing was clunky, but the theoretical payoff was domination on the glass, and the results were extreme.

Lineups with Şengün and Adams posted a +30.0 net rating per 100 possessions last season, paired with a ridiculous 50.3% offensive rebound rate. Add Amen Thompson or Tari Eason into those groups, and that number somehow climbs even higher. Houston finished the final two months of the season with the seventh-best offensive rating in basketball, and that formula carried into the postseason, where this same bruising, extra-possession offense nearly knocked off Golden State -- a team that went 23–7 to close the season after acquiring Jimmy Butler III.

The other massive edge this group has is defensive playmaking. Houston is an elite turnover-forcing team, generating live-ball steals, deflections, and chaos that lead directly to easy points on the other end. In that sense, they’re one of the very few teams in the league -- Oklahoma City being the other -- that can consistently manufacture offense without having to run half-court sets. Those two teams sit in a tier of their own when it comes to turning defense into offense.

Now Houston got a full offseason to refine this identity. Clint Capela adds another option for double-big, offensive-rebounding units alongside Şengün. Kevin Durant gives them an elite over-the-top scorer who doesn’t need traditional spacing to get his looks. Dorian Finney-Smith reinforces the turnover-forcing identity as a long defensive wing while helping stabilize spacing when the Rockets go big.

The main point you should focus on is this: this is, by a wide margin, the best offensive-rebounding team in the NBA, and most opponents simply don’t have the personnel to even attempt to combat it.

But they won’t because: They lack steady, trustworthy guard play

You’ve probably heard the term “positionless basketball” thrown around a lot, and while there’s truth to the idea that players of all shapes and sizes are doing more than ever, this sport is still, at its core, about roles. The idea of scrapping the point guard "role" entirely is taking that concept too far.

The Rockets didn’t intend to enter the season without a proven guard, but that’s where they’ve landed. Veteran Fred VanVleet was supposed to be the 30+ minutes-per-game stabilizer at the position, and now he’s out for the season with an ACL injury.

The only other traditional guard on the roster is second-year Reed Sheppard, who averaged just 12.3 minutes last season. Beyond that, Houston will be forced to distribute a massive share of its ball-handling duties to a player like Amen Thompson -- an elite downhill force with real playmaking chops, but shooting limitations and very little experience running an offense full-time.

There’s reason for optimism that the offense can keep its head above water in the regular season, especially with the fall back plan of Kevin Durant and Alperen Şengün just taking taking on even more responsibility. Durant isn’t an offensive engine, but he’s still a microwave scorer from anywhere on the floor, while Şengün is a blossoming offensive hub but still has a ways to go before entering the league’s top tier in that role. Everything else on this end will be stitched together with shoestring and bubble gum.

As a result, the Rockets will have to lean even harder into the aforementioned strengths of the roster. They can survive as a regular-season offense, but the playoffs are the real test. Spacing will be clunky -- even more so without VanVleet -- playmaking won’t be a strength, and Durant/Şengün will often be asked to make something out of nothing in a phone booth. Generating consistently efficient offense without a true offensive stabilizer -- VanVleet or otherwise -- is an uphill climb, especially when you’re asking inexperienced primary ball handlers to drive a very heavy truck.

. . .

Minnesota Timberwolves

They can win because: Anthony Edwards has best-player-in-the-world potential

Last season, Edwards lived almost exclusively at the rim or beyond the arc, the two most analytically optimal zones. His 2024-25 heat map tells the story. That shot diet helped fuel the most productive season of his career: 27.6 points per game on a career-best .547 eFG%.

Edwards 2024-25 season heatmap.

But the postseason can expose even the smallest weaknesses in your game. When elite defenses load up on your strengths and possessions slow, the very best scorers need answers in the in-between space. That’s where Shai Gilgeous-Alexander separated himself from Edwards in the Western Conference Finals last year, operating comfortably out of the midrange and with his back to the basket, forcing Minnesota to guard every inch of the floor.

Edwards has shown flashes of that game before, but it has to return -- and at higher efficiency -- if he’s going to reach the ceiling he and this team are chasing. He’s already one of the league’s most devastating downhill attackers and now a 40% pull-up three-point shooter. If he adds reliable counters in the midrange -- pull-ups, post work, floaters -- he stops being a star defenses can scheme and becomes one they can’t solve.

The other way he can become unsolvable is with his playmaking which he took real steps forward in last season, making reads out of pick-and-roll coverages he struggled with a year ago. The feel piece might always be a work in progress, but at just 24 years old, another playmaking leap is very much in play.

When you have a player entering his physical prime with legitimate best-player-in-the-world upside, every series is winnable as long as the supporting cast is serviceable. That’s the bet Minnesota is making this season.

They won’t because: They aren't a complete enough team

The Wolves’ depth took a real hit with the offseason loss of Nickeil Alexander-Walker. Jaylen Clark and Terrence Shannon Jr. are solid in-house replacements, but neither replicates NAW’s two-way reliability, and their rise in the rotation exposes how thin things get behind them. Last year, Minnesota could survive injuries or foul trouble because NAW existed. That margin is gone.

Mike Conley remains a stabilizing presence, but he’s entering his age-38 season with real signals of decline -- rim numbers, defensive impact. His heir apparent, lottery pick Rob Dillingham, still feels a year or two away from being a trustworthy playoff piece.

I bring up the point guard point because while Anthony Edwards is elite, but he’s not a traditional point guard. He still lacks some of that playmaking ability and feel for the game. This team is at its best when he plays alongside one, yet that often means taking Donte DiVincenzo or Jaden McDaniels -- two legitimate two-way pieces -- off the floor.

You can see lineup construction is difficult with this group, and nowhere more than at center. With Rudy Gobert on the floor, the defense can reach elite levels, but he’s a limited offensive five -- shaky hands, inconsistent finishing, and no spacing beyond a deep dunker spot. When Naz Reid plays center the offense breathes, adding spacing and an on-ball threat at the five, but the defense loses its safety net.

Every version of this team solves one problem and opens another. No lineup in the NBA is perfect, but the Wolves’ options often feel far from it. Combine that with a playoff rotation that realistically tops out at six trusted players, and it’s hard to see Minnesota climbing the ladder without a roster-shaking move.