Until further notice, the Western Conference seemingly belongs to the Oklahoma City Thunder and San Antonio Spurs.
The Thunder won their first-ever championship in 2025 and feasibly could have repeated last season had Jalen Williams and Ajay Mitchell not gotten hurt. The Spurs took advantage of those injuries and knocked off the Thunder in the Western Conference Finals this past season, but they ran out of gas against the New York Knicks in the 2026 NBA Finals. (Victor Wembanyama then spent part of the offseason training with a French rugby team, because of course he did.)
The Thunder and Spurs are viewed as overwhelming favorites to come out of the West heading into the 2026-27 season, but nothing in the NBA is preordained. While the East suddenly looks like the more loaded conference for the first time in what feels like forever, the West has a few legitimate threats to the Thunder and Spurs' supremacy.
After Jonathan Kuminga signed with the Minnesota Timberwolves on Wednesday, here's how the best of the rest in the West stacks up.
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There are two clear tiers in the West heading into this season. The Thunder and Spurs are in a tier of their own, the four other teams featured below are on a separate tier, and then it's everyone else.
Could you talk yourself into Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors surging whenever Jimmy Butler returns from his torn ACL this season? Sure! Could the Portland Trail Blazers' strategy of All Point Guards, All The Time work out? Maybe! Could Devin Booker and the Not-Big-Three Phoenix Suns surprise again? Why not?
We don't even have to stop there. Assuming the Los Angeles Clippers do eventually complete their Kawhi Leonard-for-Brandon Ingram trade, they have a sneaky deep roster, even if it isn't replete with top-end talent. The same goes for the Dallas Mavericks, particularly if they don't trade Kyrie Irving. The Utah Jazz could also surprise a lot of people this offseason after adding No. 2 overall pick Darryn Peterson to pair with Keyonte George, Ace Bailey, Lauri Markkanen and Jaren Jackson Jr.
The point is, there's zero consensus after you get outside of the top six of the West. (Other than that the Sacramento Kings are a war crime against basketball, that is.)
4. Los Angeles Lakers
This offseason, the Lakers added Walker Kessler, Quentin Grimes, Sandro Mamukelashvili, Collin Sexton, Cameron Carr, Jaden Hardy, Ziaire Williams, Matisse Thybulle and Kevin Looney while losing Rui Hachimura, Luke Kennard, Maxi Kleber, Deandre Ayton, Marcus Smart, Jaxson Hayes and some guy named LeBron James. In other words, we have no idea what the Lakers will look like this year.
The Lakers still have Luka Dončić, who will enter the season on the short list of MVP favorites, and Austin Reaves, who'll have more of a chance to stretch his wings this season in the absence of LeBron. In theory, the 7-foot-2 Kessler should be a dream pairing with both of them, but he played only five games last season before suffering a season-ending labrum tear.
The Lakers might be overindexed on guards and light on forward depth, but they have more financial flexibility than most title hopefuls this year to make in-season changes. If they can find a taker for Jarred Vanderbilt's $12.4 million contract, they could take back someone in the $20 million ballpark. (Granted, they have precious few draft picks to include as sweeteners.)
Since the Lakers will be incorporating so many new players into their rotation this season, they might be at risk of getting off to a slow start, impromptu Slovenian faux-training camp notwithstanding. However, Dončić already seems to be in pristine physical shape, which could presage a career year for the NBA's reigning scoring champion.
The Lakers will go as far as Dončić takes them this year, much as LeBron's teams did throughout most of his career. Luckily, having someone with career averages of 29.2 points, 8.5 rebounds and 8.2 assists leading the way should give the Lakers a fairly high ceiling.
3. Denver Nuggets
Vultures are beginning to circle over the Denver Nuggets after they sign-and-traded Peyton Watson to the Cleveland Cavaliers for distant first- and second-round picks. While Nikola Jokić's long-term future in Denver figures to be a talking point all season—particularly after he declined to sign an extension this offseason—that might just be wishful thinking from other teams hoping to pry the three-time MVP away from the Mile High City.
Losing Watson undeniably hurts the Nuggets' depth, but they still have a loaded starting five with Jokić, Jamal Murray, Aaron Gordon, Christian Braun and Cameron Johnson. They also added DeMar DeRozan, Lonnie Walker IV, Marvin Bagley III and Tyus Jones on minimum contracts this offseason while losing only Jonas Valančiūnas, Tim Hardaway Jr., Bruce Brown Jr. and Jalen Pickett.
In other words: Are we sure they're that much worse than the team which finished third in the West last season with 54 wins? Particularly considering that Braun, Johnson and Gordon each missed 25-plus games last season? Jokić also missed a career-high 17 games last year after playing in 70-plus games in nine of his first 10 seasons.
Who knows? Maybe EuroLeague Defender of the Year Alpha Diallo proves to be a hidden gem instead of just another way for the Nuggets to penny-pinch. Either way, a top six of Jokić, Murray, Gordon, Braun, Johnson and DeRozan should be formidable in the West if everyone stays healthy.
2. Houston Rockets
While plenty of other teams took a sledgehammer to their rosters this offseason—including the top-ranked squad here—the Houston Rockets sat back in relative silence. They snagged Marcus Smart with the taxpayer mid-level exception and added Bogdan Bogdanović on a minimum contract, but they're otherwise basically running back their same core from last year.
It could work out for them, too.
Fred VanVleet, who was expected to be the Rockets' starting point guard, tore his ACL right before training camp last year. That caused Alperen Şengün, Amen Thompson and Kevin Durant to be Houston's primary playmakers, but that allowed opponents to sell out defensively to stop Durant, as he told reporters after a loss to the Lakers in mid-March.
VanVleet should be ready to roll this year, as should backup center Steven Adams, who underwent season-ending ankle surgery in late January. Despite playing only 22.8 minutes per game last year, Adams was second on the team with 8.6 rebounds per game. The Rockets' badly missed his rebounding presence after he went down.
Add in internal growth from the Rockets' cadre of young players—namely Şengün, Thompson, Jabari Smith Jr., Reed Sheppard and Tari Eason—and the rest of the NBA might be sleeping on this group.
1. Minnesota Timberwolves
When the Timberwolves made the drastic decision to trade for LaMelo Ball this offseason, it cost them their top two power forwards in Julius Randle and Naz Reid. After LeBron spurned them to sign with the Philadelphia 76ers in free agency, they were seemingly low on options at that spot, particularly since they were armed with only the $6.1 million taxpayer mid-level exception.
Luckily, the free-agent market fell out on Kuminga for the second straight offseason, and the Wolves were ready to capitalize. He now figures to slide into their starting lineup alongside Ball, Anthony Edwards, Jaden McDaniels and Rudy Gobert.
The Wolves are light on proven depth outside of Ayo Dosunmu and Donte DiVincenzo, the latter of whom is recovering from a torn Achilles that he suffered in the first round of the playoffs in April. They're planning to waive-and-stretch Josh Green if they can't trade him by Saturday, according to ESPN's Shams Charania, which means they may need to throw the likes of Jaylen Clark, Bones Hyland, Terrence Shannon Jr. and Joan Beringer into the fire this year.
But the Wolves' starting five is arguably the most loaded lineup in the West outside of San Antonio and OKC. If the Wolves are right about LaMelo's potential amplifying effect on Ant and McDaniels and Gobert can hold down the fort defensively, they might have the best chance of any West squad of knocking off the Thunder or Spurs.
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