The NBA playoff picture is still 25 teams deep. That’s how wide open it is

Within the next week, most teams will hit their official NBA regular-season halfway mark with 41 games played. In terms of the standings, basically nothing has been decided yet, with only five out of the 30 teams totally out of the playoff picture.

That makes this a good opportunity to perform a status check on that 25-team playoff picture, segregating the race first by conference and then into tiers. This allows us to look at clusters of teams and what those teams in each tier may or may not be fighting for as we cruise through the next three and a half months of action.

There’s also the impending NBA trade deadline in early February to consider. Where teams fit into the bigger picture — or perhaps where they think they should fit — could play a major role in who buys and who sells at the deadline.

Without further explanation, here’s the NBA playoff picture at the New Year.

Raptors, Bucks, Pacers, Sixers, Celtics

Stakes:

The top five teams in the East have separated themselves, though note that we are being generous to the Celtics, who are closer to the Hornets than the Raptors in the standings as of Jan. 2. These are the five teams with believable chances at making the NBA Finals if things break right for them. They all have at least one All-NBA caliber player and they are currently at least six games above .500.

While the Raptors and Bucks are clearly gunning for the No. 1 seed at this point, the real drastic cut-off is between the No. 3 and No. 4 seeds. Whoever falls to No. 4 or 5 at the end of the season may have to beat three of the other four teams in this tier to make the Finals. That’s a very hard thing to do. The top three seeds should, in theory, have at least an easier first round.

You’ll likely need to be the No. 1 or 2 seed to have home court through the East bracket. As of Jan. 2, the East is in position to win home court in the NBA Finals, as well — the Bucks are 1.5 games up on the Nuggets.

None of these teams are at risk of slipping into a lower tier or out of the playoffs, barring a hellborn injury.

Hornets, Heat, Pistons, Nets, Magic

Stakes:

This tier is pretty straightforward. We have five iffy teams competing for three playoff spots. Charlotte is the No. 6 seed in the East at .500 as of Jan. 2, and everyone else is between one and four games under. One or two of these teams could make a run to separate themselves but it’d be unlikely to jump a tier now (minimum six-game gap). One or two could, however, drop out: all of the teams have been prone to streaky play.

It’s difficult to imagine these teams making hay in the playoffs, but you never know.

Wizards

Stakes:

It’s hard to know what to make of the Wizards, who will now be without John Wall for the rest of the season. Washington is nine games under .500 as of Jan. 2, which should consign them to the bottom of the barrel.

But that’s only 2.5 games back of the Magic, who are legitimately in the playoff hunt. If Washington goes on a run, the Wizards could absolutely join the third tier fully.

Or, the Wiz could give up and tank off with the fourth tier. Who knows what will come next for this bizarre franchise?

Hawks, Bulls, Knicks, Cavaliers

Stakes:

This is four-fifths of the NBA’s tank party. All of these teams ruled themselves out of the playoff race in either July or late October, depending on their foresight. Two of the teams have fired head coaches. The other hired coaches in the offseason looking ahead to brighter days beyond 2018-19.

Atlanta has been a little too good given the stakes here, now 3.5 games “better” than the Cavaliers as of Jan. 2. But this is all pretty fluid. All of these teams are capable of reeling off a 15-game losing streak. Any of them is also capable of winning 5-straight in the shallow, soft East. This should go down to the wire.

Nuggets, Warriors, Thunder

Stakes:

The West tiers are much less defined, but these three teams are all within two games of each other and have been clustered around the No. 1 seed for about a month now. All three should make the playoffs — the No. 3 Thunder are 4.5 games up on the No. 9 seed as of Jan. 2 — but nothing’s certain, especially if injuries come into play.

(Well, the Warriors will certainly make the playoffs. The other two? Anything is possible in the West.)

Banking wins now will make February, March, and April much easier, so that should be the goal moreso than preserving or gunning for a specific seed.

If OKC really thinks it could beat Golden State, though, shooting for No. 1 (or at least a better seed than the Warriors) might be a real target. They are tied in the loss column as of Jan. 2.

Rockets, Blazers, Clippers, Lakers, Spurs

Stakes:

This is an interesting tier. First of all, the Rockets have been really good for a few weeks now and might deserve to be in the top tier soon enough. It was impossible to justify that at this juncture given that Houston is tied in the standings with Portland as of Jan. 2, but Houston could certainly leap up.

The other thing is that if the second half of the season goes like the first, all five of these teams would make the playoffs. That lowers the stakes of needing to get better and making a late run.

That said, the next tier down is right there — the lowest team here, San Antonio, is just 1.5 games up on the top team in the next tier (Sacramento) as of Jan. 2. So it’s pretty fluid, and 1-3 teams from the third tier could jump into this one and make it a harder bet to get a playoff bid.

Avoiding the Warriors is also really hard to do because it’s nowhere near clear which seed the Warriors will be. That makes getting the No. 4 or 5 seed pretty important for this group, since that should be the only way to avoid Golden State for sure in Round 1.

Kings, Grizzlies, Jazz, Mavericks, Timberwolves, Pelicans

Stakes:

These six teams are all somewhere between pretty good and OK depending on the moon phase. As noted above, the best as of Jan. 2, the Kings, sits just 1.5 games out of the No. 8 seed, which is basically no gap at all. Yet the lowest of these teams (Pelicans) is four games out. The bottom of the second tier and top of the third tier is pretty fluid, and the third tier itself is pretty fluid, so again, it’s hard to define.

But the stakes make it pretty clear: these teams have to jump up a tier if they want to make the playoffs. That relies on being better than the other third-tier teams and at least one second tier team like the Blazers, Clippers, or Spurs. Because these top three tiers represent 14 of the 15 West teams, that usually means beating other good teams. It’s not rocket science to guess what’ll define this race.

You could ask me which team out of these six has the best chance of making the playoffs a dozen times, and I’d give you 13 different answers.

Suns

Stakes:

Phoenix is all alone in the bottom of the West. As of Jan. 2, as many games (eight) separate the Suns from the team directly ahead of them in the standings (Pelicans) as separate the top 13 teams in the conference. Phoenix isn’t fighting anyone in the West for anything. They are really only competing against the worst four East teams for the worst record overall.

While a recent winning streak pulled Cleveland into pole position, the Suns have an enormous schedule advantage: they have to play playoff-caliber teams much more frequently than the bad East teams. Based on these tiers, we have 14 playoff-ish teams in the West and 10 in the East. That means that Phoenix will play only 10 out of 82 games against fellow bad teams, while the bad East teams (including Washington here) will play about 16 games against fellow bad teams.

Conference imbalance: the gift that keeps on giving.