That ranking was a complete joke.
They seriously gave Houston the best odds of beating Golden State? This is the team who's best player, literally gave up during the middle of a game during the second round against San Antonio during the playoffs. I will generously give Houston a 2% chance.
I had to read the last sentence at least 5 times, regarding Minnesota's overall chance against Golden State..."an offense projected to be better than that of all but one team: the Warriors". I think when ESPN ran those projections, that they missed a zero. I would bet their offense will be closer to 20th than anywhere close to #2.
Not to seem like a homer, but how are their 6 eastern conference and 8 western conference teams ahead of the Celtics? Obviously, any 7 or 8 seeded team would be swept by the Warriors easily. To make matters even worse, they project a western conference team that won't even make the playoffs, to have a better chance than the Celtics. At worst, I think the Celtics should have been 6th.