Is it possible none of the top 7 teams in the NBA are championship contenders?

Last week I wrote an article for the "Stat Central" feature I do on HoopsHabit.com called What Each NBA Title Contender Needs For Christmas.  The hard part wasn't trying to find an area for each elite team to improve in, the difficulty was determining who the contenders are.

The top three teams in the East are Toronto, Atlanta and Washington.  But the overwhelming favorites in the conference are No. 4 Chicago and No. 5 Cleveland.

In the West it's even weirder.  Based on preseason odds, the three most likely championship candidates are San Antonio, the L.A. Clippers and Oklahoma City.  The Clippers are sixth in the Western Conference, the Spurs are seventh and the Thunder are 10th (still recovering from injuries to All-Stars Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant).  There's a very good chance everybody's preseason favorites out west will finish with the worst three playoff seeds in the conference.

Not only that, but in the fifth spot at the moment is Dallas, who just made a huge move to acquire Rajon Rondo.  The postseason is still a long way off, but we could end up with a scenario where seeds 1-4 (currently Golden State, Portland, Memphis and Houston) all lose in the first round to seeds 5-8.

At the moment the team with the best record in the NBA, the 24-5 Warriors, has only slightly better odds to win the title (pictured) than the 15-17 Thunder.

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