Zach KramCloseZach KramZach Kram is a national NBA writer for ESPN.com, specializing in short- and long-term trends across the league’s analytics landscape. He previously worked at The Ringer covering the NBA and MLB. You can follow Zach on X via @zachkram.Kevin PeltonJan 20, 2026, 07:00 AM ET
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We’re halfway through the NBA season, as every team except the Houston Rockets has played at least 41 games so far. But the championship race is getting more muddled, thanks to recent slumps from the preseason favorites in each conference.
Yesterday, ESPN’s Kevin Pelton gave all 30 teams a midseason grade — with some of the preseason favorites failing at the halfway mark.
Jump to a question: Are the defending champs vulnerable? Who’s the favorite in the East? Who’s lurking as a surprise contender? What’s wrong with Paolo Banchero?
Kram: In looking ahead to the postseason, the NBA’s most important story of the past month is the Oklahoma City Thunder’s slide from seeming invincibility to evident mortality, starting with their loss to the San Antonio Spurs in the NBA Cup semifinals. The Thunder started 24-1 with a plus-17.2 net rating, ranking first on defense and fifth on offense, but they’re only 12-7 with a plus-6.4 net rating since, ranking third on defense and an unimpressive 14th on offense in that span.
There are several natural explanations for the Thunder’s relative swoon. The first is a shooting slump, as Oklahoma City ranks 28th in that span with a 32.5% mark from 3-point range. The schedule has also gotten tougher, as three of those seven losses came against the Spurs, though the Thunder got a measure of revenge with a win last week.
Even if the champs’ chances of setting the all-time wins record are all but gone, advanced metrics still believe that Oklahoma City is an overwhelming favorite to repeat: ESPN’s Basketball Power Index gives the Thunder a 61% title chance, with no other team in double digits. Do you feel similarly? Or do you think there’s more signal than noise in their past month of good-but-not-great play?
Pelton: It’s not just Oklahoma City’s shooting slump that has caused them to drift off historic pace. Opponents have also shot 38% on 3s during the 12-7 stretch, fourth highest in the NBA.
If we look at GeniusIQ’s quantified shot probability (qSP) measure of shot quality, which factors in the location and type of shot, distance to nearby defenders and shooter ability, the Thunder rank third on offense since Dec. 13 and second on defense. That’s more or less the same as during their fast start, when they were second on offense and forced the toughest shots in the league defensively.
The difference is all shotmaking, something that tends to be far more random from game to game — as well as within monthlong stretches — and therefore less predictive going forward.
DraftKings has Oklahoma City’s odds at plus-115, meaning the field is still favored to win over the Thunder. Would you agree with BPI that Oklahoma City is better than 50-50 to repeat?
BPI gives the two powerhouses a 45% chance of meeting at some point in the playoffs, the highest odds for any matchup in the league. That wouldn’t be an easy series for Oklahoma City, which needed seven games to beat a Nuggets team with much less depth last season.
Cade Cunningham shines as he leads the Pistons past the Knicks in a blowout win.
Pelton: Although the Thunder aren’t favored over the field to win the title, they do have better than even odds to win the Western Conference. The situation is different in the East, where New York (plus-275) has the best odds to reach the Finals, but BPI simulations favor the top-seeded Detroit Pistons.
A month-plus later, New York is now six games back of the Pistons and has fallen behind the Boston Celtics for second. The Knicks are actually closer to starting the playoffs on the road than they are to being the No. 1 seed. Worse, their underlying metrics aren’t favorable. New York’s plus-3.5 point differential ranks third in the East behind both Detroit and the surprising Celtics.
Should the Knicks still be the clear favorite to win the East? Or should we now consider them as part of the same tier as the Pistons and Celtics?
The Knicks, of course, have their own glaring wart: a 17th-ranked defense that places them right next to the Indiana Pacers in the league’s defensive ranking. Is that as big a playoff concern as it appears on the surface?
Pelton: I don’t think it’s a fatal flaw. After all, last year’s Eastern Conference finals matched the No. 13 team in defensive rating (New York) against No. 14 (the Indiana Pacers). Like last regular season, the Knicks have seen opponents shoot a high percentage from 3-point range, something that didn’t translate into the playoffs until the Pacers caught fire in that series.
It’s also worth remembering New York and Indiana made those runs as the No. 3 and No. 4 seeds in the East, so the Knicks having a top-two seed isn’t necessary. But unlike a month ago, it no longer seems like swapping out Tom Thibodeau and Mike Brown has New York better equipped to make a deep playoff run, leaving the East wide open. I’m not sure who I’d pick today.
James Harden moves ahead of Shaq on NBA all-time scoring list
James Harden passes Shaquille O’Neal for ninth on the NBA career scoring list.
Pelton: This time a year ago, the Minnesota Timberwolves were behind both the Dallas Mavericks and Sacramento Kings in the West standings, a half-game better than .500. Although Minnesota’s playoff run hardly came out of nowhere given the Timberwolves had reached the conference finals the previous season, it’s still rare to see a team emerge as a contender as late in the season as they did.
If we look at teams currently in the play-in spots of their respective conferences or below, does anyone stand out to you as a likely candidate for a long playoff run?
More importantly, Kawhi Leonard once again looks like the two-way superstar who appeared near the top of MVP ballots a decade ago. Since he returned to the court on Nov. 23, Leonard is averaging 29 PPG on 50/40/94 shooting splits, while ranking first in total steals. Just during the 12-2 stretch, he’s all the way up at 32.7 PPG, which leads the league.
But in the 18% of simulations where the Clippers rise all the way to the 7 vs. 8 play-in game — plus the 3% of simulations in which they land a top-six seed — they could put a real scare into a championship contender. It was just last year, after all, that a team with most of the same players pushed the Nuggets to seven games in the first round.
Pelton: OK! I considered the Clippers but ran into the play-in issue, plus the fact that I’m more confident in the West’s top seeds holding serve in the first round. To me, that leaves an opening for Cleveland to still make a run in the East. Maybe I’m cheating a little since the Cavaliers are tied for sixth in the East, but they’re behind the Magic by percentage points and it feels like they’ve been written off prematurely in the excitement over newer contenders.
To go back to GeniusIQ’s measure of shotmaking over expected shot quality, the Cavaliers rank 26th on offense. Based on their track record, we should bet on Garland (36% on 3s), Lonzo Ball (26%), De’Andre Hunter (30%) and Dean Wade (32.5%) to all shoot better than they have thus far.
Well, since that debate, the Hawks have slid to play-in territory and traded Young for a meager return, while the Magic recently alternated wins and losses for 14 consecutive games, and sit in seventh place in the East with a 23-19 record. At least Banchero hasn’t been traded!
Still, Banchero is a former No. 1 pick who made the All-Star team in his second season. So is there any hope for a turnaround?
Pelton: By my “any chance” rule, the answer is undoubtedly yes. Banchero’s struggles in December coming back from a groin strain are already starting to fade. He’s averaging 22.8 PPG, 9.5 RPG and 6.1 APG on league-average true shooting percentage in January, as compared to 18.9 PPG on 42% shooting from the field in December.
When we discussed Banchero’s future offline last fall, I cited the example of Kevin Durant’s poor adjusted plus-minus early in his career. Heading into Durant’s third NBA season, former Dallas Mavericks consultant Wayne Winston used that track record to conclude on TrueHoop that he would not want Durant on his team. Durant went on to finish second in MVP voting that season, when the Thunder were a mere 17 points per 100 possessions worse when he went to the bench.
Cade Cunningham, the No. 1 pick a year before Banchero, is another example of a scouting darling whose early inefficiency led statistical analysts to question his value. That history had me skeptical of a hasty judgment on Banchero, particularly given the Magic’s offense hadn’t supported him with much playmaking or spacing before this season.
If we extend that criteria to four consecutive seasons of the team having a worse plus-minus with the player on the court to start their career, the sample shrinks to 10 other players with no other All-Stars. Just one player in that group has a positive career impact in Jerry Engelmann’s 30-year sample of RAPM adjusted plus-minus: Landry Shamet.