Southeast Division Odds for 2025-26 NBA Season (Orlando Favored Over Atlanta)

Can the Magic win their division for a third consecutive season?

Paolo Banchero and the Orlando Magic are favored to win the Southeast Division in 2025-26. / Nathan Ray Seebeck-Imagn Images

The race to the top of the Southeast Division was fairly close in 2024-25. The Orlando Magic narrowly edged out the Atlanta Hawks by the end of the season, but only finished with a one game lead. Oddsmakers expect Magic to finish in first place again this upcoming season, and that’s not surprising given their offseason.

Orlando retained all the core pieces that made it the NBA’s best defensive team last season and addressed major weaknesses by adding guard depth and outside shooting. The Atlanta Hawks appear to be the only team with an outside shot at taking down the favorites after undergoing their own offseason transformation, but there are plenty of moving pieces that could need to develop chemistry together.

Here’s a look at the latest odds and a breakdown for every team in the Southeast Division this ahead of the 2025-26 campaign. 

Southeast Division Odds

Odds via FanDuel Sportsbook

• Orlando Magic: -170
• Atlanta Hawks: +175
• Miami Heat: +1700
• Charlotte Hornets: +12500
• Washington Wizards: +25000

Orlando’s implied probability to win the division is 63 percent as the odds-on favorite.

Atlanta’s could make a real push if its new pieces mesh well early on, though. 

Orlando Magic

The injury bug hit Orlando hard last season. Star forward Paolo Banchero missed a large chunk of games early in the year with a right oblique injury. Franz Wagner suffered the same injury shortly before Banchero’s return to the lineup. It’s never a good sign when your two best players combined to miss 56 games, but the Magic made it work and finished with a .500 record.

Orlando’s backcourt rotation was exposed when Jalen Suggs’ late-season knee injury forced to start Cory Joseph in a first-round playoff series against the Boston Celtics. The Magic have made strategic moves to avoid falling short due to lack of impactful play at point guard and shooting guard.

Tyus Jones will shore up the point guard group with his risk-averse but heady playmaking while  Desmond Bane’s elite shooting will raise the offensive ceiling of last year’s worst three-point shooting team. 

Orlando knows what to expect from its stars and built upon its stability by adding key supporting players over the offseason.

Atlanta Hawks

The Trae Young-led Hawks have gone through a massive transition. De’Andre Hunter and Clint Capela have found new homes and replacements have since arrived to boost the odds of a team that lost a play-in tournament matchup with the Miami Heat to end 2024-25.

Kristaps Porzingis can enhance the starting unit’s scoring and interior defense while Luka Kennard and Nickeil Alexander-Walker chip in with perimeter shooting and perimeter defense off the pine. 

Then there’s Jalen Johnson, who very well could’ve won the Most Improved Player award had he not suffered a season-ending shoulder injury after averaging 18.9 points, 10.0 and 5.0 assists through 36 games last season.

You could argue that Atlanta exceeded expectations given all the adversity it faced in 2024-25. Young’s ability to power top-five offenses can be lethal if he has enough defensive support. He might have just enough with last year’s Defensive Player of the Year runner-up Dyson Daniels and the aforementioned players.

Miami Heat

The Heat aren’t a terrible team on paper, but they’ve gotten considerably worse since last season. Jimmy Butler has left to join the Golden State Warriors and Miami went 24-33 without him last season. Tyler Herro and Bam Adebayo both need to make major leaps without a true closer on the roster.

Norman Powell, Andrew Wiggins and Terry Rozier are all solid role players. However this team appears to lack the star power necessary to keep up with the Magic and Hawks. Someone needs to step forward as the alpha of this Erik Spoelstra led squad.

Second place might be within reach for Miami if Orlando or Atlanta are plagued by injuries again, though.

Charlotte Hornets

The story has been the same for the Hornets for a while now. LaMelo Ball has raised his scoring average in four consecutive seasons as a do-it-all point guard, but hasn’t played in more than 50 games since 2021-22. Charlotte has won just over 42 percent of the games he’s played in since he was drafted in 2020, but that figure drops to 26.6 percent when he’s unable to suit up.

The Hornets ranked dead last with 105.1 points per game last season and don’t have the personnel to be a high-volume 3-point shooting team. Bettors shouldn’t give this team any consideration when it comes to betting on a first-place finish in the division.

Washington Wizards

The Wizards blew everything up ahead of the 2025-26 season. Their former core duo of Kyle Kuzma and Jordan Poole are with new teams. The jury is out on who their best current player is, but it’s likely a toss up between CJ McCollum and Khris Middleton.

This feels like a year in which Washington will just watch its young players develop to see who is worth building around in the future. The Wizards aren't that much worse than the Hornets on paper as a team, but have no All-Star caliber players to depend on.

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Odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.

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