The NBA offseason has come and gone! Mostly!
Outside of some restricted free agency nonsense, we know the shape the league is headed in next season. With that, it is time for our annual revisiting of the pecking order in the Phoenix Suns’ Western Conference heading into next season.
After covering where they land and how it could shake up in the mid-tier, it’s as stacked a top-four as the conference has ever seen.
Tier 2: Closer than you think to Tier 1
4. Los Angeles Clippers
Behold, The ‘Unction.
The oldest roster in NBA history, according to Yahoo! Sports’ Tom Haberstroh, is led by two stars who toggle between inconsistent and unavailable. Their two biggest additions of the offseason toggle between inconsistent and unavailable.
This makes it easy to discard the Clippers. I would advise against that.
Ty Lue’s pedigree has been instilled into this franchise, with last year’s iteration becoming a wonderful surprise thanks to an All-NBA-caliber jump from Ivica Zubac, an All-NBA revival from James Harden, an All-Star-caliber jump from Norman Powell and program-defining role players like Nicolas Batum, Kris Dunn and Derrick Jones Jr. filling in all sorts of gaps.
Powell got shipped out for John Collins, an acquisition that will either be a shrug or the move of the summer. While it will likely be the former for a blah defensive player and above average offensive player, Collins has never been in a situation as good as this, and replacing Powell’s minutes with Bradley Beal, Chris Paul and last year’s trade deadline acquisition Bogdan Bogdanovic is a net win.
The homecoming for Paul will transform the Clippers, because even if he’s 40 and nothing more than an effective backup at this point, he’s still going to do Chris Paul things and is a giant upgrade over what L.A. had in the past. Harden’s backups since arriving have been Russell Westbrook and Kevin Porter Jr., two incredibly volatile players who are now replaced by one of the steadiest ball-handlers the game has ever seen.
Paul gets to go about those scattering minutes running two-man game with the outstanding Zubac and Brook Lopez, a duo that has all the intricacies down Paul usually has to teach his bigs. Lopez, in particular, is a basketball nirvana level of match for Paul. Can’t wait to watch him with those centers. Mirror Paul with Dunn and/or Jones so he can be hidden on defense and you’re golden. Guess who knows how to do that way better than the basketball blog boy? Lue.
Beal’s going to be great. The effectiveness will vary based on how consistently he will stay on the court, but players like him need a proper ecosystem. And as long as he’s going there with an understanding of his role and the Clippers aren’t coddling him by foolishly putting Dunn on the bench, they should be in business. Beal just needs to be the fourth- or fifth-best player on this team. Should be easy enough, and even if it isn’t, L.A. can still be an elite team without him. A no-brainer add.
Kawhi Leonard has just about faded out of his prime, a prime where he’d reach a peak in-game of a, “Oh, wait, we forgot Kawhi is the best player in the world sometimes” type of reaction. But he’s still pretty awesome. And remember, he played 37 games and the Clippers still won 50. That was aided by Zubac, who in my opinion is a top-five center in the game, and I’d go as far as saying Nikola Jokic and Anthony Davis are the only two that are definitively better than him right now. He will be set up by Harden and Paul all season, by the way.
As long as Leonard is good for April and Harden keeps up his durability the last two years, this is a top-4 seed that will be a postseason matchup nightmare for anyone with legitimate title equity.
3. Houston Rockets
As previously covered in this space, I got a theory on this Kevin Durant fella. The best way to set him up for success is have your culture and identity set before he arrives. Instead of building it around him, have him instead assimilate into what you’ve already got cooking. This is why it tail-spinned in Phoenix and why it is going to work in Houston.
Durant only has two responsibilities on this team: fit in and fix the offense. The latter should take care of itself. It will take some time for the Rockets’ young players to figure out his tempo, how to play off him and so on, but Houston’s offensive incompetency was a consistent ceiling-limiter that was a disasterclass to watch in crunch time. Durant will get that sorted so it’s at the very least not losing the Rockets games, and then the next step will be freeing up Amen Thompson and Alperen Sengun so that duo can eventually command the offense in spurts too.
That part of the equation and the fitting in is unfortunately just going to have to be a “we’ll see” after what we watched here in Phoenix. Durant looked poised to make a run at an All-Defense team a few weeks into the season before the team’s despondent vibes were matched on the floor by no one more than him, with his frequent propensity for not making an extra defensive rotation, boxing out his man or getting back in transition. Those are non-negotiables in Houston, a standard he knows he will have to meet.
It’s been over two months and the trade is still incredibly ridiculous from the Houston side. The NBA’s best wing unit of Durant, Thompson, Tari Eason, Jabari Smith Jr. and “Oh Yeah, They Signed Him” First-Teamer Dorian Finney-Smith will more than cover the minutes out the door from Jalen Green and Dillon Brooks. It’s inarguable that the minutes are in fact much more effective now. Green’s departure naturally opens up playing time for Reed Sheppard, the No. 3 overall pick last year, who can take some of that time while spelling Fred VanVleet more frequently as well.
It’s not even clear where the No. 10 overall pick sent to Phoenix in the Durant trade could have even contributed this year or next. Backup center? Steven Adams got re-signed and Clint Capela was brought in too. More wings for some reason? The third-string depth also includes Josh Okogie, Jae’Sean Tate and Jeff Green. You could make an argument for another ball-handler, but remember that Thompson handles a decent chunk of playmaking and so does Sengun. If Sheppard is ready at all, he’s the fifth playmaker behind Durant, Thompson, VanVleet and Sengun.
Thompson is the biggest swing player in the league. Yep, the whole NBA. January was a, “Holy @*#& have you watched him?!” breakout that suggested he would end the year as a top-25 player. That jet-fueled blast off sort of fizzled out, backlogging his future stardom for the time being, especially after an expectedly inconsistent playoff debut. No one is more athletic than him right now, and some long-time experts will tell you that’s the case, like, ever, that they’ve never seen someone move like Thompson before. Because of that, he can make that All-Star jump even without a jumper.
If that happens, Thompson and Eason, affectionately known as “The Terror Twins,” will dominate the margins on a nightly basis in a culture-driving type of way that every other team is going to groan at the thought of having to face. That’s already happening in some ways, but Thompson doing so as a threat for All-NBA-type or recognition would take that into overdrive. It would make the Rockets much better, and more importantly, Durant. In turn, that would shift the entire conversation on who is the favorite in the conference.
2. Denver Nuggets
Denver has had back-to-back regular seasons emanating flaws that crumble championship aspirations, only for back-to-back postseasons of incredible defiance, including nearly taking out the champs last May with no depth, Michael Porter Jr. averaging 7.4 PPG through an injury and Aaron Gordon hardly being able to move sometimes. This was all while there was major internal turmoil resulting in a coach/general manager combo-platter firing before the season even ended.
The depth from ’23 that was eradicated due to the front office being scawed, wittle cheapskates has been replenished. Bruce Brown returns and could regain most of his form from that run. Tim Hardaway Jr. brings much-needed moxie and shot-making to the secondary wing rotation. The Nuggets finally landed a competent Nikola Jokic backup in Jonas Valanciunas, while the best development to come from the failed attempt at unproven youngsters replacing those guys was Christian Braun, who is legitimately good now.
Perhaps this is the year Zeke Nnaji, Jalen Pickett, Hunter Tyson or Peyton Watson nail down roles through competency, but it’s not necessary this time. And keep an eye on Arizona high school product DaRon Holmes II, a stretch big who missed all of last year due to injury after going in the first round of the 2024 draft. He could usurp Valanciunas by the end of the year.
The upgrade from Porter to Cam Johnson is immense. Porter deserves a ton of credit for embracing his role for a ring and was absolute nails across that time. But it was always a challenge to maximize a scoring wing sandwiched by Jokic and Jamal Murray, one that really had to be brought along from an effort and floor sense standpoint. Johnson, as you lot know, has had that from Day 1.
He’s also a better, smarter defender, as well as the type of perfect basketball IQ match for Jokic, like Gordon is with the off-ball movement and cutting. Getting to know how Johnson thinks about the game, expect him to really hone in on mastering his spacing and finding gaps early in the year, knowing Jokic is always going to find him all over the court and developing a two-man rapport for relocation kick-outs. One of the many reasons why basketball is so incredible is when you get to watch two guys play together with seamless synergy. That’ll be Johnson and Jokic.
The only hesitation is replacing Russell Westbrook. Yeah, I said it! Confidently too! Brown, in theory, should pick up where he left off as the “backup point guard” to handle offense when it isn’t Murray or Jokic. But if it isn’t Brown, a guy who is a wing most of the time and is under a different head coach in Denver now, there isn’t another trustworthy option. Murray more or less got back on track last season, but Denver still can’t position itself to be relying on him too much before the playoffs roll around and he goes supernova as usual.
This is the best team Jokic has had, assuming Gordon, Johnson and Murray can stay healthy. He is still the best player on the planet, so those two things together are quite relevant.
Tier 1: Well, yeah
1. Oklahoma City Thunder
This should be a cookie-cutter, 65-win result minimum. But let’s look for any potential regression indicators.
Injury luck? Eh. While Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (76 games played), Jalen Williams (69) and Luguentz Dort (71) avoided lengthy absences, the starting big duo of Isaiah Hartenstein (57) and Chet Holmgren (32) did not.
Individual drop-off? Eh. Gilgeous-Alexander is the best ball-handler in the world. Holmgren and Williams both rode an aggressive roller coaster of up-and-downs in the postseason but the highs showed the potential they still have left to meet. Williams, in particular, feels like a safe bet to solidify himself as a top-20 guy this year. Holmgren has the more tantalizing upside, so a big jump from an already very good player is a possibility, too. Hartenstein is only 27 years old. Dort’s 26. Alex Caruso is just 31. All three should still be ultra-dependable.
The next few guys on the depth chart are where some variance could lie. Isaiah Joe, Cason Wallace and Aaron Wiggins were all integral to the success in the regular season before playing a part in OKC’s reliable rotation, cutting in half from 12 guys to six by the conference finals. Wiggins, 26, looks like a Sixth Man of the Year candidate at his best and Wallace was a lottery pick in 2023. Joe’s too pure of a sniper to see any real shift one way or the other. They should still be rock solid but have to be better in May and beyond.
Even if there’s more volatility there that carries over from the playoffs, the reinforcements are arriving.
Nikola Topic, the No. 12 pick in last year’s draft, was out all year due to injury and could have potentially gone top-five without that ailment. As a 6-foot-6 playmaker, he and 2024 second-round pick Ajay Mitchell will factor into the rotation this year. Mitchell already showed flashes as a rookie and a whole lot will come for Topic as the third ball-handler behind Gilgeous-Alexander and Williams if he can beat out Mitchell for that job.
I’m a big fan of this draft class. OKC’s first-round pick, at 15th overall of course because of prior trades, was Georgetown center Thomas Sorber. He’s a throwback with 90s elements to his game around the basket, while his ridiculous wingspan and solid feel let him affect the game defensively. Sorber’s passing will fit in nicely and has decent mobility as a diving threat with a skillset that’s slightly different (in a good way) than the other bigs. There’s a real good shot we see some of the second-round pick Brooks Barnhizer as well. He was one of the best players in the Big Ten each of the last two years, and if his high-end intangibles on both ends would get carved into an effective role player shape anywhere, it would be here.
OKC will be the big favorite to repeat, and rightfully so. At the same time, those such as myself who were weary of treating them as such last summer were proven correct, with close calls in two different series. The Thunder were the first champion since 2013 (Miami) to have two series go at least seven games. They’ve got three teams behind them that are good enough to test them to that degree again, but those are also three teams with notable changes across the roster, while OKC can just ride the same continuity.
A fun wrinkle: Here are the teams to repeat since 1984 when the playoffs became a 16-team bracket — Lakers (1987-88), Pistons (1989-90), Bulls (1991-93), Rockets (1994-95), Bulls (1996-98), Lakers (2000-02), Lakers (2009-10), Heat (2012-13) and Warriors (2017-18). All of them were led by generational all-timers — Magic, Kareem, Isiah, MJ, Hakeem, Shaq, Kobe, LeBron, Wade, Curry and Durant.
Is SGA eventually going to be of that caliber, and it’s just sneaking up on us quickly? It’s worth considering if he runs the table again.