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Mark J. Terrill/Associated Press

After an electric All-Star Weekend in Chicago, the NBA returns Thursday with just under two months until the playoffs begin.

While playoff contenders may begin resting players more frequently to prepare for the postseason, these next eight weeks are just as important as the preceding four months, in large part because of playoff seeding.

As we rediscover each April, every game matters when it comes to seeding. The difference between a premature playoff exit and a conference finals appearance can be as simple as one extra loss that dropped a team into a first-round battle with its particular archrival opponent.

With all this in mind, here's a sampling of first-round opponents each of the NBA's premier contenders may want to avoid come mid-April. Here, we define "contender" as the 11 teams with championship-winning odds below +3,000 with Caesars Palace. They are ranked by conference in order from best to worst odds.