NBA playoffs 2023: The five charts you need to see to understand this year's playoffs

The 2023 NBA playoffs tip off Saturday with 16 teams set to compete for the Larry O'Brien Trophy (though as of Thursday morning, 18 teams were still alive, heading into the final play-in game in each conference).

The NBA postseason is always difficult to predict, but this year's version is particularly wacky, especially in the Western Conference, which failed to have a team reach a .650 winning percentage for the first time since 1978-79 — so long ago that the NBA Finalists that year were the Washington Bullets and the Seattle SuperSonics.

To get you ready for the most wide-open postseason in years, let's break down what you need to know in chart form.

Things in the East are relatively tidy. The Milwaukee Bucks won 58 games and enter the playoffs as both the No. 1 seed and the betting favorite to reach the Finals (+120). The 2-seed Boston Celtics are just behind them with +160 odds. In fact, the teams with the five-shortest odds to win the Eastern Conference are, in order, the top five seeds.

That cannot be said about the Western Conference.

Kevin Durant's sudden arrival in Arizona — and the Phoenix Suns' unbeaten record with him in the lineup — is one reason for the apparent chaos. Despite the fact that Phoenix ended the season just eight games over .500, the Suns are the clear betting favorites to win the Oscar Robertson Trophy this year.

Sure, the Denver Nuggets have reigning two-time MVP Nikola Jokic, the Memphis Grizzlies have Ja Morant, and the Sacramento Kings have De'Aaron Fox, but those players and their teams are unproven in the postseason, while the teams below them in the seeding are all led by former Finals MVPs (Durant, Kawhi Leonard, Stephen Curry and LeBron James).

There's no doubt Denver, Memphis and