Earlier this week, we discussed the contenders to come out of the Eastern Conference in 2023/24, noting that many of the presumed favorites have major question marks hanging over them as training camps near.
The same is true in the Western Conference, where there’s no powerhouse poised to run roughshod over its rivals like Golden State did during the Kevin Durant years.
The Nuggets are the defending champions, and made a convincing case during their title run this spring that they’re the team to beat in the West. But they’re not bringing back quite the same roster that won the 2023 championship.
The team’s two most-used reserves in the postseason, Bruce Brown and Jeff Green, headed elsewhere in free agency, while Vlatko Cancar will likely miss the season after tearing his ACL this summer. Denver will have to rely on young players like Christian Braun, Peyton Watson, and Zeke Nnaji to take on increased roles and hope Reggie Jackson can give the club more than he did down the stretch last season.
The Suns have the most star-studded roster in the West, with Bradley Beal joining Durant, Devin Booker, and Deandre Ayton as part of an extremely talented starting lineup. But the rest of the roster is comprised of nearly entirely minimum-salary players, many of whom are newcomers, so it may take some time for Phoenix to develop chemistry. And an injury to one of its stars would seriously test the team’s depth.
The Warriors are a perennial threat as long as Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green are on the roster, and adding Chris Paul to the mix will give the franchise another experienced veteran to lean on in big moments. But all four of those players will be at least 34 years old when the playoffs tip off in the spring and may not withstand the rigors of a deep postseason run as comfortably as they would have a few years ago.
The Lakers made the Western Conference Finals last season and are bringing back a similar roster, swapping out role players like Dennis Schröder, Lonnie Walker, Troy Brown, and Malik Beasley for guys like Gabe Vincent, Taurean Prince, Christian Wood, Cam Reddish, and Jaxson Hayes. As long as LeBron James and Anthony Davis are healthy, Los Angeles is a contender, but that certainly hasn’t always been the case in recent years.
The other Los Angeles team, the Clippers, has had even more trouble keeping their stars – Paul George and Kawhi Leonard – healthy for the playoffs, but would be a legitimate threat in the West if both of those stars are at their best.
The Kings were one of the NBA’s best stories last season, with a feel-good squad that snapped a 16-year playoff drought. But their postseason run was short-lived, and it remains to be seen if De’Aaron Fox and Domantas Sabonis can be the best players on a title contender.
In the Southwest, Luka Doncic certainly looks capable of being the best player on a contender, but the Mavericks may still not have enough talent around him to seriously vie for a title. The Grizzlies have won 107 regular season games over the last two seasons, but have yet to translate that success to the playoffs, and will have to get through at least the first 25 games of the season without suspended star Ja Morant. The Pelicans looked like a potential top-four seed during the first half of last season when Zion Williamson and Brandon Ingram were healthy, but that hasn’t happened often.
Among the dark horse options, the Thunder are an exciting team on the rise, but didn’t even make it out of the play-in tournament last season and may still be a year or two away from taking a huge leap. The Timberwolves could be a legitimate threat if Anthony Edwards makes the jump to superstardom, but they still have to figure out whether the Rudy Gobert/Karl-Anthony Towns experiment will work in the frontcourt.
The betting website BetOnline.ag currently lists the Nuggets (+240) as the favorite to win the West, followed closely by the Suns (+325). The Warriors (+650), Lakers (+750), and Clippers (+900) make up the next tier, followed by the Mavericks (+1200) and Grizzlies (+1400).
The Pelicans (+2000), Kings (+2500), Thunder (+3300), and Wolves (+3500) are all longer shots, while the Spurs, Rockets, Trail Blazers, and Jazz aren’t considered likely contenders.
We want to know what you think. Which team is your early choice to come out of the West? Are you taking one of the betting favorites or is there a dark horse that you like?
Vote in our poll, then head to the comment section below to weigh in with your predictions!
I’m not a believer in the Suns, honestly. There’s so much that could go wrong and already looks shaky with them.
They have so much shot creation talent, but Beal and Durant have both missed a ton of time with injuries and Booker isn’t immune to them by far, either. I’d bet that the chemistry will be an issue all season because I sincerely doubt the team will be fully healthy for any real stretches, and the roles and rotations will get shuffled constantly because of that.
Ayton makes or breaks the team’s defense, because right now, their best defender is Durant (who is quite good on D, but he’s injury prone and aging; you don’t *want* him to be your best defender) and Ayton is extremely passive when he absolutely should not be. Eubanks is fine, but if Ayton falls apart, he will not be able to do better. If Ayton spends time pouting about not getting enough touches on offense, it could go pretty badly.
Distribution is getting overrated as a problem imo. Booker is a quality distributor, and Durant can do it also (Beal should never be the primary ball-handler, given that he’s measurably better off-ball than on-ball). Jordan Goodwin is a competent backup PG who can pull his weight on defense, so I think they’ll be fine in that regard (Saben Lee also exists, for what that’s worth).
And their fifth starter is probably Keita Bates-Diop, who I like, but isn’t exactly a starting-caliber guy, imo (also somewhat inexperienced). Maybe they end up doing a lot of mix-and-match with the fifth starter’s spot, but my Cavs showed the downsides to that strategy pretty clearly last season.
Their depth reminds me of the way the Lob City-era Clippers would always sign recognizable names, but they’d get little out of them. Watanabe, Okogie, and Gordon are about the only ones I have faith in (assuming they start KBD), with Eubanks being fine as a backup and hustle guy. They’re also just… incomplete in a lot of ways. Only Watanabe is a real 3&D guy, with Damion Lee and Gordon bringing scoring but lesser defense (Gordon used to be better, but he’s really started to show some rust on that end with age, and Lee is really only a catch-and-shoot guy with 12% on pull-ups and negative defense), Okogie bringing defense but a lack of scoring ability except as a cutter, and everyone else being varying levels of “meh” or unproven except Eubanks, who is a competent backup 5. Their rotations could get messy, fast.
So yeah. Clear and obvious talent in the starting 5, but I need to see them mesh before I have any faith in the team.
Nuggets will win the West again. Losing Brown hurts, but the starters are like a clockwork and I think Watson will make a jump. Braun has some cojones and their rookies are all on the older side for rookies, so they could give them meaningful minutes at least in the regular season.
Guys on Twitter are posting videos of Jokic drinking and partying in Serbia all summer and how he doesn’t care about basketball. But on opening night he’ll go out there and put up 26/15/12 on 85% shooting.
Jokic has never been some chiseled gym rat anyways. Probably doing to same thing he has been doing each Summer. He is one of the healthiest stars too, no major injury history. Nuggets win West so long as Murray is healthy and Porter can make a jump towards consistency.
Some people dont get it. If the Joker is happy he plays happily, and that should be the biggest fear for the rest. And if Murray takes his playoff mode into the regular season the Nuggets will even get better.
We all can see how tough it is to repeat. I don’t think the nuggets can do it especially since they didn’t replace the two important guys they lost with others who can step in immediately. Those two factors knock them down a few notches in my mind.
Aside from my amazing Warriors, I would really like to see a new team get in there like the Grizzlies, Pelicans, Timberwolves, or the Kings. Be sweet to see them in the Western Conference Finals.
I’m not a fan of the Mavericks (Doncic is fantastic but whines too much) nor the Lakers (LeBron is really fantastic but whines at the refs almost every other time down the floor.) Clippers injury issues need to be resolved before anyone has faith in them.., but they look good on paper.
Its funny because its a guessing game by everyone. 6 teams could win if they stay healthy all season long. Every team is 1 player injury away from being #1 to be team #6.
ARC that’s it. Will Durant stay healthy? Beal? Kawhi? PG? Anthony Davis? Zion? LeBron? What will happen with Morant? Which Kyrie will show up?
If i knew I would be betting on the outcome. That is how evenly matched most of these teams are this year. Even world champ Nuggets have a few question marks.
The Nuggets got Holiday and he’s capable of replacing Brown. Braun can fill in for green. They’ll be good again but part of what makes it hard to repeat is the extra wear and tear from playing more games, that being said it only took Denver 20 games.to win the championship.
I really like Braun I think he is a gamer. Pretty tough to replace Jeff green and brown though. Gritty veterans knew what to do when to do it.
The part about repeating is all the work it took to get there, sometimes you’re not willing to do that again. That $150% in January, the prep time, and practice when it’s cold outside and going from practice to the bus to the hotel. And giving 150% in those practices fine-tuning and putting egos aside for the good of the team. It’s tough to do again after doing it once.
Justin Holiday? What are they called, guys like that.., journeymen? Bounce around from Team to team.
I remember when he was on the Warriors.., he was pretty good Off the Bench, could shoot a little bit, defend a little bit, but that was 6 or 8 years ago. He’s an okay player but he’s not going to replace Brown. I think they’re two totally different guys.
Zion dips his french fries in lard.
Nuggets, Lakers, Suns, Kings, Warriors, Clippers top 6 seeds
Lakers,Nuggets,Suns,Clippers,Kings,Grizzlies
Think OKC makes the leap, makes 6th.
League trying to force injury prone or old guys to play majority is going lead them to injury anyways.
Bron & AD can’t make it through at best play 60 games.
Clips 2 can’t last the more than 60 either if that.
Suns lack depth still, still don’t know what they do with Ayton.
the kings it is.
I think it would be a great story. Fox is a superstar in the making. Love Mike Brown and the journey he’s been through. Plus they’ve built a nice roster, brought in a couple shooters, several big men, they have scoring, some defense, good coaching.., they could get there.
They have a good run under their belts from last year. We’ll see.