Big NBA Questions: Who Earns The No. 1 Seed in the West?

The All-Star break is over and we've hit the stretch run of the NBA season. But there's so much left to figure out over this final third of the season. Let's break down the biggest questions in the NBA this season and how to bet them. We'll start with the most competitive high-leverage race in the league.

Who gets the No. 1 seed in the West?

The Timberwolves lead the Western Conference by one game in the loss column over the Oklahoma City Thunder after OKC's win over the Clippers on Thursday. The Nuggets are three games back in the loss column but play Minnesota three more times.

This is a monster question because it's going to decide not only who gets home-court advantage in various rounds but the No.1 seed will have an impact on MVP voting and for teams trying to make a run from the play-in tournament like last year's Lakers or Heat teams.

Let's start with a quick tiebreaker breakdown:

Minnesota split the season series with the Thunder, and the division record tiebreaker is going to be really tight. The Thunder are 10-4 with two to play and the Timberwolves are 8-2.

The Timberwolves lead the Clippers 2-0 head-to-head with two to play and the Nuggets 1-0 with three to play. Oklahoma City has clinched a tiebreaker over the Nuggets and Clippers.

With less than 28 games to play, every win and loss will be incredibly important. The Timberwolves absolutely need to win these upcoming games against the Nuggets to secure that Thunder tiebreaker.

I have the teams power-rated as follows (how much they should be favored vs. an average opponent on neutral court):

• Thunder -8.75
• Timberwolves -6.75
• Clippers -4.25
• Nuggets -2

(Denver never grades out well by my power ratings. In related news, the Nuggets are 24-31-2 ATS this season.)

I have the finishing win totals projected, predictably, as:

• Thunder: 60.2
• Timberwolves: 58.3
• Clippers: 53.9
• Nuggets: 53.4

My educated guess on how the standings finish is:

1. Thunder
2. Timberwolves
3. Nuggets
4. Clippers

What's at stake in the West? The No. 1 seed will likely face a tough opponent in either Luka Dončić and the Mavericks, a dangerous Pelicans team, LeBron James and the Lakers or Stephen Curry and the Warriors. But they will have home-court advantage throughout the playoffs, and will at least not face the team that wins the first play-in tournament game in the 7-seed vs. 8-seed matchup.

The oddsmakers, though, firmly understand the difference in the playoffs and regular season.

Here are the odds at DraftKings to win the No. 1 seed — and to win the Western Conference:

So Denver has the best odds to win the conference and the third-best odds to win the No. 1 seed, while the Timberwolves have the second-best odds to get the top seed but the worst odds of the four to win the title.

Matchups are everything in the playoffs — but experience matters as well. The Thunder have not made the playoffs with this core, the youngest team on average in the NBA this season. The Timberwolves made the playoffs with this team last year, sans a few players because of injury. Will those teams shake if they have to stare down James or Curry in a 1-8 or 2-7 matchup?

We know Denver won't.

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But this also needs to be noted: No team beyond a 3-seed has won the NBA title since the 1995 Houston Rockets, and only five teams since 2003 have made the NBA Finals as lower than a 3-seed out of the 44 finalists in that span. History says you need to be a top-three seed, so this battle is meaningful, even if the No. 1 seed doesn't necessarily mean as much. (Note: 66.2% of NBA titles have been won by one of the No. 1 seeds.)

There are some derivative elements to consider from this outcome.

If the Thunder win the No. 1 seed, the odds of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander winning MVP (+250 at DraftKings) increase considerably to the point where I believe those two numbers should be equal. In other words, the odds for Oklahoma City to win the 1-seed and SGA to win MVP must be even. You can think the Thunder aren't the favorite to make the 1-seed, and in that case, Gilgeous-Alexander is not the favorite to win MVP. But the odds of Oklahoma City finishing with the No. 1 seed and Gilgeous-Alexander not winning it is low, based on conversations I've had with voters or voter-adjacent folks around the league.

Likewise, if the Thunder are not at a minus number to win the No. 1 seed, Mark Daigneault should not be -135 — as he is in the market — to win Coach of the Year. If Oklahoma City doesn't finish at the top, there is a good chance that Joe Mazzulla will be rewarded for winning what will likely be 65-plus games.

The NBA title won't be decided by who gets the No. 1 seed in the West, but it is a market in flux and in contrast to the Western Conference odds.