Ranking 5 the most likely NBA champions if season resumes

Assuming the 2019-20 NBA season isn’t canceled, which teams have the best shot at actually winning the championship? Here are the top five.

Life without the NBA just isn’t the same, and it’ll be quite some time before the 2019-20 campaign returns — if it does at all.

Novel coronavirus has put the sports world (and our world in general) on hold, and now that the United States has surpassed both China and Italy in confirmed cases, this quarantine period without NBA basketball can be expected to continue for the next few months at the very least.

The Chinese Basketball Association recently delayed its restart from April 15 to May, which would mark a four-month hiatus. Even that kind of best-case, unrealistic scenario would mean we have to wait until July for the NBA to resume play, and at some point, the league will have to consider canceling the season altogether and turning its attention to the 2020-21 campaign.

There’s a lot that will factor into that, including projected losses, how the U.S. is able to curb the spread of coronavirus over the next few months and when the postponed Olympics are rescheduled for.

But in the interest of not turning our backs on a season with so many compelling storylines that have yet to reach proper conclusions, today we’ll be focusing on the five most likely teams to win this year’s Larry O’Brien trophy if they ever get the chance to battle it out.

Honorable Mentions: Houston Rockets, Philadelphia 76ers, Denver Nuggets, Miami Heat