There is no championship favourite. See who is playing well in the last 4 rounds before finals to identify favourites. Even then, you'll probably be wrong (think 2014-15 36ers).
15W-13L will probably make playoffs in a season as even as this. 14-14 may well make it with splits becoming important. Adelaide are the only team with a winning record on the road (6W-3L). The next best are Brisbane (4-4) and Sydney (5-5).
Adelaide now have a winning record at home, as well (4W-3L), courtesy of the 7 game winning streak.
Adelaide have the split on Sydney (3-0) and are likely to end up with the split on Cairns (2-0 and +29 at the moment). They're ahead with Brisbane (2-1 +3) and even with Perth (1-1 +3) and Melbourne (1-1 -3). Adelaide will probably lose the split with Illawarra (0-2 -45).
So if Adelaide can go 5-7 or even 6-8, they have a very good chance of playing finals. The issue might be whether they can maintain their pre-Christmas form after the 10-day break between next Thursday (vs Perth, in Adelaide) and New Year's Day (in Melbourne).
Whatever happens, I was going to be happy if they won 10 games this season. They've cracked that and will get more wins. I'm stoked with how Wright has managed to get them to this level so quickly.
I also get a bit of a kick out of the irony that the top team has scored less points for the season than their opponents have scored against them!
