Battle for postseason spots, Wembanyama sweepstakes and more

April 9 ------ Unless Milwaukee goes 4-0 this week, there won't be a 60-win team in the NBA this season. And that's relatively rare. It didn't happen during Milwaukee's 2020-21 championship season, when there was a 72-game schedule — and no team had a winning percentage that year that would have been equivalent to a 60-22 "regular" regular season anyway.

After that, the most recent time there wasn't a 60-win team (or equivalent win percentage in a shortened season) was 2000-01, when San Antonio went 58-24 to lead the league. Before that, one has to go all the way back to 1978-79, when Philadelphia went 54-28 to top the standings.

WHO'S IN

East: Milwaukee, Boston, Philadelphia, Cleveland and New York have secured playoff spots. Brooklyn, Miami and Atlanta have secured no worse than a play-in tournament berth and Toronto is locked into the play-in tournament. Chicago and Orlando still could make the play-in field, though the only way the Magic get there and bump the Bulls out is if they go 4-0 while Chicago goes 0-4.

West: Denver, Memphis and Sacramento have secured playoff spots. Phoenix, the Los Angeles Clippers and Golden State can't do worse than making the play-in tournament, and all enter the final week of the regular season in position to secure playoff berths.

WHO'S OUT

Detroit, Charlotte, Indiana and Washington have been eliminated in the East; Houston, San Antonio and Portland have been eliminated in the West.

RACE FOR WEMBY

While we won't know until May 16 who gets the No. 1 pick in the draft — spoiler alert, unless some incredible trade happens, the lottery winner will select Victor Wembanyama — we do know there's a 42% chance that the top pick will go to Detroit, Houston or San Antonio.

The Pistons, Rockets and Spurs are assured of finishing in the three bottom spots of the league this season. But there's still some odds that can be "improved," in that the team that finishes with the worst record is assured of not leaving the lottery with worse than the No. 5 draft pick. Detroit is almost assured of having the worst record; the Pistons are 16-62, well "ahead" of Houston (19-60) and San Antonio (20-58).

There's a lot of jostling that will happen this week for lottery odds as well. Charlotte is locked into finishing with the fourth-worst record, but the fifth- through eighth-worst spots are all up in the air — with Portland, Indiana, Washington and Orlando all currently having either 33 or 34 wins. And the worse a team's record is, the better chance it has of winning the lottery and the Wembanyama sweepstakes.

Source: spin.ph