Neil PaineOct 23, 2025, 06:30 AM ET
- Neil Paine writes about sports using data and analytics. Previously, he was Sports Editor at FiveThirtyEight.
As we noted in this space last year, the NBA has been notoriously stingy about letting new teams into its championship club. Before the Toronto Raptors broke through in 2019, only 11 different franchises had combined to win the previous 39 titles (dating back to 1980) — and just six of those crowned a first-time champion.
In a league long defined by dynasties, parity seemed like a distant dream for so long. But that 2019 season turned out to be a pivotal point, with seven different teams hoisting the Larry O’Brien Trophy in as many seasons since — the only seven-year stretch in league history that featured seven unique champions.
Granted, only two of those seven — the 2019 Raptors and 2023 Denver Nuggets — were true first-time winners. Even the 2025 Oklahoma City Thunder, whose franchise lineage goes back to the Seattle SuperSonics and their lone title in 1979, are technically multitime champions. But the pattern still underscores how much the NBA’s power structure has loosened in recent years.
That’s good news for the 10 franchises still searching for their first ring.
NBA titles are never easy to win, but the path to one seems more attainable now than it was for decades. To find out which of those 10 teams is most likely to break through, we built a model that projects every franchise’s title chances over the next six seasons. The framework starts with each team’s preseason odds since 1985 (including for this season at ESPN BET), then layers in two key ingredients: the weighted average age of each roster — based on recent regular-season wins above replacement — and the age and performance of each team’s best player (again based on WAR).
Using those factors, we can estimate a probability of winning the title for each team in each of the next six seasons, then simulate that stretch thousands of times to see how often a new name joins the list of champions, and who is most likely to be “next in line.”
Across 2,500 simulations, there’s roughly a 75% chance that at least one of those 10 ringless teams finally captures a title by 2031, which makes sense historically, as most distinct five-year blocks in league history have produced at least one first-time winner. So, which team will it be? Let’s see who the model says is due to make some history for its city and fans.
Notes: “Odds to be next” are a team’s chances of becoming the next ringless franchise to win a championship by 2031. “2025-26 title odds” are based on preseason lines.
Jump to a team:
ORL | MIN | LAC | IND | MEM | PHX | NO | BKN | CHA | UTAH
Odds to be next: 24.0%
Average roster age: 25.6 (youngest)
2025-26 title odds: +1800 (4.2% implied chance)
Closest they’ve come before: Lost NBA Finals (1995, 2009)
The Magic seemingly have been on every short list of “next contenders” in recent years, as they snagged Franz Wagner and Paolo Banchero in consecutive drafts and began to forge a cohesive path toward contention under coach Jamahl Mosley. Now, after a couple of first-round playoff exits — with their full ascent put a bit on hold last season because of injuries to Wagner and Banchero — the Magic seem as ready as they will ever be to take the next step.
Though they lost a fair amount of talent over the offseason, Desmond Bane and Tyus Jones join Wagner and Banchero as part of the league’s youngest roster by weighted WAR in recent seasons. ESPN BET gives the Magic the ninth-highest title odds at +1800, their highest since opening the 2010-11 campaign at +1000. The model also accounts for their overall youth, plus the dynamic young pair of Wagner (24 years old) and Banchero (23) when looking ahead to what could be a bright future.
Franz Wagner and Desmond Bane anchor a youthful Magic roster. Fernando Medina/NBAE via Getty Images
Odds to be next: 20.5%
Average roster age: 29.0 (22nd)
2025-26 title odds: +1600 (4.7% implied chance)
Closest they’ve come before: Lost Western Conference finals (2004, 2024, 2025)
Despite their slightly higher odds to win the 2026 title, the model gives the Wolves a slightly lower chance at becoming the next first-time winner than the Magic because of age. Although top star Anthony Edwards (24) is right in line with the Magic’s leading duo, the rest of Minnesota’s core is older. That doesn’t mean the Wolves have missed their window by any means; they have been knocking on the door of a breakthrough for a while now. A pair of five-game conference finals losses could be read any number of ways — are they due, or just plateauing? — and they were one of the teams that lost the most in an otherwise quiet offseason. But Minnesota is the closest to being the next inaugural champ this season, even if Orlando has a better chance over the entire six-year period to come.
Odds to be next: 15.5%
Average roster age: 33.2 (30th)
2025-26 title odds: +1600 (4.7% implied chance)
Closest they’ve come before: Lost Western Conference finals (2021)
There are some factors no statistical model can account for — and the alleged Kawhi Leonard salary-cap circumvention scandal that LA currently finds itself embroiled in is near the top of the list, if the league’s investigation leads to penalties the way previous instances of cap manipulation have, though it’s worth noting that Leonard and the Clippers have denied any wrongdoing and the league’s investigation is ongoing. But, as of writing, the Clippers’ roster, age and championship potential still give them a decent chance at becoming the NBA’s next breakthrough franchise.
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Los Angeles is actually tied with Minnesota for the league’s seventh-highest 2025-26 title odds (+1600), meaning the Clippers are tied with the Wolves for the best chance to be a new winner in 2025-26. The Clippers also have one of the top players of any would-be first-time champion in Leonard, who was still one of the league’s best on a per-minute basis when he did play a season ago. On the downside, the Clips project to have the league’s oldest roster: Leonard is 34, James Harden is 36, Brook Lopez is 37 and Chris Paul is 40 (!). And Leonard followed one of his more durable seasons in 2023-24 with another injury-plagued campaign in 2024-25.
For a franchise desperate to win before the window closes, three straight first-round exits is enough to make you wonder if it has already slammed shut.
Odds to be next: 13.1%
Average roster age: 27.5 (13th)
2025-26 title odds: +8000 (1.0% implied chance)
Closest they’ve come before: Lost NBA Finals (2000, 2025)
The Pacers likely would have been No. 1 if not for the heartbreaking loss of Tyrese Haliburton to a torn Achilles tendon in Game 7 of the 2025 NBA Finals. The injury cost him not just the biggest game of his career, but also the entire 2025-26 season, derailing the momentum Indiana had built toward the first NBA championship in the history of a franchise that was an ABA dynasty and has come close in the NBA but never quite managed to get over the hump.
Haliburton, the best player on our list of first-time championship candidates by recent WAR, will have more chances to lead a team with a unique NBA title blueprint after this season. But the model gives a lot of weight to a team’s chances in the upcoming season because uncertainty typically only grows as more time passes — and that’s bad news when your franchise cornerstone is sidelined for the foreseeable future.
Odds to be next: 6.9%
Average roster age: 27.1 (11th)
2025-26 title odds: +10000 (0.8% implied chance)
Closest they’ve come before: Lost Western Conference finals (2013)
Despite coming off a much better season in 2024-25 (48 wins) than in 2023-24 (27 wins), the Grizzlies had longer odds of becoming the next new champ a year ago than they have now. What gives? Well, going into last season, Memphis was still full of the potential that it could claim from back-to-back 50-win seasons in 2022-23 and 2023-24, particularly with Ja Morant returning from a lost season. But the Grizzlies stalled at good-not-great status, Morant didn’t play like a full-blown superstar, they fired their coach and were swept by an average of 19.5 points by the Thunder in the first round. Memphis then traded Bane to Orlando for Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Cole Anthony, four unprotected first-round picks and one first-round pick swap.
Ostensibly, those moves were made to set the Grizzlies up for a quick rebuild around Morant and Jaren Jackson Jr., but they left their current title odds remote (+10000) and injected far more uncertainty into their long-term outlook.
Odds to be next: 5.3%
Average roster age: 27.8 (16th)
2025-26 title odds: +50000 (0.2% implied chance)
Closest they’ve come before: Lost NBA Finals (1976, 1993, 2021)
Editor’s Picks
2 Related
Speaking of potential first-time winners with odds trending in the wrong direction, no team on last year’s version of this list lost more championship potential since last fall than the Suns. As hard as it is to remember, there was still some shred of belief that their big three of Kevin Durant, Devin Booker and Bradley Beal could stay healthy and lead them on a playoff run. Instead, they crashed out to 36-46 and missed the playoffs before KD and Beal were sent packing as part of a franchise reset.
What’s left over isn’t without intrigue — Booker is not yet 30 and remains one of the league’s most potent scorers, and newcomers Jalen Green and Dillon Brooks have had their moments in Houston over the past few years. But the Suns have a long way to go, and they are too far away from the destination right now to rank any higher.
Odds to be next: 4.6%
Average roster age: 26.1 (fifth)
2025-26 title odds: +50000 (0.2% implied chance)
Closest they’ve come before: Lost Western Conference semis (2008, 2018)
For all the noise around other disappointing teams such as the Sixers and Suns, the Pelicans were arguably the biggest flop in the NBA last season, falling from 49-33 in 2023-24 to 21-61. Now, they are arguably the biggest wild card on this list, with uncertainty throughout the roster.
That starts with Zion Williamson, who is still only 25 years old and has the talent to lead a franchise but has played 30 or fewer games in two of the past three seasons. Add in a bevy of players hoping for bounce-backs (Herbert Jones, Dejounte Murray, Saddiq Bey) plus a chaos agent in Jordan Poole, and this team’s future is impossible to predict — though it would be shocking if the Pels, who have never even made a conference final, cut in front of any of the other teams waiting in this first title line.
Odds to be next: 4.4%
Average roster age: 25.9 (third)
2025-26 title odds: +100000 (0.1% implied chance)
Closest they’ve come before: Lost NBA Finals (2002, 2003)
The Nets showed up on our list of teams that added the most net WAR talent this past offseason, thanks in large part to the acquisition of Michael Porter Jr. But that came as part of a summer of upheaval in Brooklyn, which also saw the Nets say goodbye to Cameron Johnson and D’Angelo Russell and draft four players in the first round. They will be one of the youngest teams in the league, which helps their probability here, and they have given themselves a chance to build a winner if any of their prospect lottery tickets hit. Still, the odds are we won’t see a parade outside of Barclays Center anytime soon.
Odds to be next: 2.9%
Average roster age: 26.4 (seventh)
2025-26 title odds: +100000 (0.1% implied chance)
Closest they’ve come before: Lost Eastern Conference semifinals (1993, 1998, 2001, 2002)
If this ranking was about which teams would have the most exciting guards and wings, the Hornets — with LaMelo Ball, Collin Sexton, Brandon Miller and Kon Knueppel — would surely be higher. But we’re talking championship potential in the next six years, and that’s something that must be seen out of Charlotte to be believed.
The Hornets have never made it as far as the conference finals in their history, and it’s now been 23 years since their last second-round appearance. Just getting back to the playoffs at all for the first time since 2016 (which carries +900 odds per ESPN BET) would be nice; they will cross the bridge of worrying about championships down the road, if it ever actually comes to that.
Odds to be next: 2.9%
Average roster age: 27.8 (15th)
2025-26 title odds: +100000 (0.1% implied chance)
Closest they’ve come before: Lost NBA Finals (1997, 1998)
A couple of years ago, it looked like the Jazz had the key players around whom to build something interesting, between budding star Lauri Markkanen and dynamic running mate Sexton. But both players fell off in 2024-25, and Sexton was shipped to the Hornets in June, leaving the Jazz deep in rebuilding mode again. Although No. 5 pick Ace Bailey has the talent to help Utah move forward and Markkanen is coming off a strong EuroBasket showing eager to bounce back in his NBA numbers as well, Utah is next to Charlotte in the basement of the future rankings for now.
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