NBA championship odds & projected playoff bracket
Season complete · Final model projection
The 2026 season is over. The probabilities below are the model's final projection before the Finals, where each series played out thousands of times and the numbers are the share of simulated postseasons each team won the title. Kept here as a record, not a live forecast.
The Knicks beat the San Antonio Spurs four games to one, with Jalen Brunson taking Finals MVP. For the record: the model's final projection below favored San Antonio, so this one went against us at the top. Read the full season report card →
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How the model works
Each team carries two Elo ratings: one fit on the regular season, one fit on playoff-only games. The two get blended for postseason matchups, since the playoff version of the league rewards different things. Within a series, the model tracks the current state (down 0-1, leading 2-1, etc.) because trailing teams play differently. Injury news shifts ratings live. The bracket runs thousands of times; the probabilities you see are the empirical rates.
The bias correction was tuned against the 2024 and 2025 playoffs: 166 backfilled games, calibrated so the model's claimed probabilities matched the realized rates inside two percentage points on a holdout window.