In their latest projection, the Clippers got 26.3% of the first-place votes when it came to being picked to win the title.
To continue our theme of running down what the ESPN projections have said in recent days, the latest one has to do with the NBA championship and how teams are viewed within the title odds landscape, and the LA Clippers come out looking rosy yet again.
After coming in as the team with the second-best chance of coming out of the tough Western Conference, the Clippers are also viewed as being the team with the second-best chance of winning the title this upcoming season, according to ESPN.
ESPN’s panel gave the Clippers 26.3% of the available first-place votes, with only the Golden State Warriors, the reigning NBA champs, above them. The Warriors got 36.8%. The team that the Warriors defeated in June, the Boston Celtics, came in third at 10.5%. Safe to say, the Clippers and Warriors are far and away above the rest of the field in this regard.
The Milwaukee Bucks and Miami Heat round out the rest of the top five. The Phoenix Suns are sixth. So, it’s a pretty even split within the top six spots between the two conferences. However, the West does seem to have a pretty firm grip on being the cream of the crop as far as title contenders go thanks to both the Clippers and Warriors.
In ESPN’s projection, the Denver Nuggets and Minnesota Timberwolves were tied for seventh while the Philadelphia 76ers were ninth and the Dallas Mavericks rounded out the top 10.
The Clippers do have the makings of a team that could win the title thanks to the return of Kawhi Leonard, a (hopefully) full season of Paul George, and the added infusion of talent in the form of John Wall that can help bolster their ranks even more as the franchise hopes to win their first-ever championship.