It’s time to talk about the varsity.
As it has been for seemingly decades, the Western Conference is just better. It’s deeper than its Eastern counterpart, and this season it also features the two best teams in the league. All of which makes projecting it difficult because every team’s margin for error is small, except maybe the Thunder.
Let’s break down the West by Tiers.
TITLE CONTENDERS
1. Thunder
2. Nuggets
SECOND CIRCLE CONTENDERS
3. Timberwolves
4. Rockets
5. Lakers
6. Warriors
PLAYOFFS OR BUST
7. Clippers
8. Spurs
9. Mavericks
10. Grizzlies
HOPEFUL PLAY-IN TEAMS
11. Pelicans
12. Trail Blazers
13. Kings
14. Suns
LOTTERY BOUND
15. Jazz
Western Conference Finals
Denver Nuggets defeat the Oklahoma City Thunder
The two best teams in the NBA are in the West, and ultimately, it is going to come down to them — the Western Conference Finals might as well be the NBA Finals. Oklahoma City won the title last season, it’s bringing back 14 players from that roster, and its core players are just entering their prime and are still improving. Denver has the best player on the planet in Nikola Jokic, and they finally went out and upgraded the talent around him with Cameron Johnson (an improvement over Michael Porter Jr.), Jonas Valanciunas (the best backup Jokic has had), Bruce Brown, and Luke Kennard joining Jamal Murray and Aaron Gordon. I am picking Denver to win it all because of Jokic, but this would be a coin toss of a series.
After that, there are a bunch of good teams, but with questions that have to be answered — these seven teams could land in almost any order (I just trust a couple more in the playoffs, so they rank higher):
• Minnesota has made the Western Conference Finals in back-to-back years, and star Anthony Edwards is on the verge of being a top-five player in the world, but there are doubts about them taking another step without Nickeil Alexander-Walker (now in Atlanta) and an aging Mike Conley at the point.
• Houston was in my top contenders tier until Fred VanVleet was lost for the season with a torn ACL. The Rockets are an elite defensive squad with depth and improving young talent all over the roster — Alperen Sengun was an All-Star and Amen Thompson is about to be. The addition of Kevin Durant fixed their biggest need, half-court offense. However, without VanVleet, we need to see how Thompson and Reed Sheppard handle the role of initiating the offense. If it comes together, the Rockets are a legitimate threat to the Thunder and Nuggets, but VanVleet is a bigger loss than people realize.
• The Lakers are without LeBron James to start the season, but that’s not really what’s concerning (Luka Doncic is such a floor raiser it shouldn’t impact them that much). Los Angeles is going to be good, but if it is going to threaten OKC and Denver it has questions to answer: Will they defend well enough, particularly in the minutes Doncic and Austin Reaves are both on the court? Is Deandre Ayton going to consistently be the defensive presence in the paint and rim-running big man on offense the Lakers need? Do the Lakers have enough shooting around Doncic? Can the Doncic/LeBron/Reaves trio develop enough chemistry during the season to overcome the defensive issues? That’s a lot of questions.
• The analytics-based projection systems love the Warriors and the trio of Stephen Curry, Jimmy Butler and Draymond Green. Golden State undoubtedly will be an outstanding team when healthy, but with those three players all being over age 35, plus four other key rotation players — Al Horford, Seth Curry, Gary Payton II and Buddy Hield — all being 32+, can this roster stay healthy and be rested and fully charged for the playoffs? It’s a question of age with this group, and Jonathan Kuminga is not going to save them on that front (if he’s even there after the trade deadline).
• The Clippers could finish anywhere from 3-7 in the West and it wouldn’t surprise me – I don’t expect the cloud of the Aspiration/Kawhi Leonard scandal to bother this veteran team on the court. The Clippers are deep and talented, look for a bounce-back season from Bradley Beal. Tyron Lue’s biggest problem when this team is healthy is getting everyone minutes. Health is the big question though, especially for Leonard and James Harden. While I love the Clippers for the first 82 games, when it gets to the playoffs, I do not trust their health or Harden.
• Victor Wembanyama is going to have a monster year on both ends of the court for the Spurs, Dylan Harper looks like the real deal, and this is a team that — once De’Aaron Fox gets healthy — could start to come together and finish top six in the West. This season feels like the first big step to San Antonio being a title contender within a couple of years.
• The front line of Anthony Davis, Cooper Flagg and Dereck Lively is one of the best in the NBA – this is a long, athletic team across the board. Once Kyrie Irving returns midseason (think 2026, but there is no timeline), the Mavericks quickly become a team capable of making a late push up the standings, the team nobody wants to see in a playoff series.
The teams after that just have even more questions, and that’s rough in a conference this deep.
Memphis is starting the season without Jaren Jackson Jr., Zach Edey and Brandon Clarke, their top three big men, so how much of the load can Ja Morant handle on his own? A slimmed-down Zion Williamson has looked good in preseason, but he’s got to stay healthy for a season and lift up everyone around him — on a kind of mismatched roster — before we start to believe. Portland has so much athleticism, youth, and potential that they will be fun to watch, but they are not yet a good team. Sacramento has plenty of talented offensive players — Domantas Sabonis, Zach LaVine, DeMar DeRozan, Dennis Schroder, the just-extended Keegan Murray — but this is the “Island of Misfit Toys” roster and it could get ugly (plus, midseason trades of stars are coming).
I have the retooling Suns in the “hoping for the play-in” tier to start the season because Devin Booker is in his prime and elite, but this roster isn’t a threat (the Wizards hold swap rights on the Suns’ first-round pick next June, which could get strange late in the season). The Jazz are at least honest about their plans this season, and watching Ace Bailey and the other young talent will have us tuning in to see how things look.
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