The NBA season is in full swing. Some teams, like the Lakers, are shocking fans with unexpected hot starts, while others are taking their time in October to round out into elite playoff form—queue the Nuggets.
As the first couple of weeks go by, let’s look at the NBA’s hierarchy after a few games and an eventful offseason.
Writer’s note: These rankings and their reasoning are largely based on the offseason rather than the first week of play. Think of this as an opening playoff odds article.
Cream of the crop
Teams in this tier are sound in every aspect of the game. From the franchise player to the man at the end of the bench, they scare teams on both ends of the floor. Read my previous article to learn more about the teams at spots 2–4, as they were elaborated on at length in that piece.
1. Boston Celtics
Before last season, GM Brad Stevens and the Boston Celtics built a starting five that has no true peers in the last six seasons of NBA play, period. Jayson Tatum is a top-five player at his position, as is reigning Finals MVP Jaylen Brown. 7'2" Kristaps Porziņģis can make a similar argument at the center position thanks to his offensive versatility and elite shot-blocking ability while the guard tandem of Derrick White and Jrue Holiday has returned for another season of terrorizing opposing backcourts.
All five players in that starting lineup can completely disrupt an opponent’s offense at any given time and each player can get a bucket on their own. But head coach Joe Mazzulla bringing this team together is what earned them hardware in 2024. They won a league-high 64 games thanks to an all-time great offense (2nd all-time in 3-pointers made) that turned the ball over under 12 times per game and crushed the defensive glass (35 defensive rebounds per game)
2. Oklahoma City Thunder
The 2024 first-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder retained all their key pieces while adding the best perimeter defender in the NBA in Alex Caruso to their already top-five defense and one of the best true bigs in the league in Isaiah Hartenstein to improve their lacking rebounding talent.
While Hartenstein likely won’t play until after Thanksgiving (hand injury), the Thunder are out to a 3–0 start and hold a mind-boggling 90.4 defensive rating thus far. They’ll be contending for the Larry O this season.
3. Minnesota Timberwolves
The Minnesota Timberwolves, fresh off their first trip to the conference finals since 2004, made major changes to their starting five. They traded their franchise big Karl-Anthony Towns to New York for Julius Randle, Donte DiVincenzo and a first-rounder.
While losing Towns hurts their spacing in their starting five, Randle has All-Star scoring potential alongside Anthony Edwards and DiVincenzo will be in the running for Sixth Man of the Year alongside 2024 winner Naz Reid off the bench. They simply got deeper.
4. Denver Nuggets
It’s been a rough 1–2 start to the campaign, but the 2023 champion Denver Nuggets retained their championship corps, only replacing Kentavious Caldwell-Pope with Russell Westbrook — whose shooting woes may worsen a team that finished 25th in 3-pointers made last season.
Still, Westbrook’s defensive ability and experience with running an offense will help Denver survive while stars Jamal Murray and Nikola Jokić rest.
The flawed contenders
Teams in this tier have the makings of a champion in certain aspects, but a few key flaws restrict them from walking atop the league’s hierarchy.
5. New York Knicks
It’s going to take some time for this new-look New York Knicks team to mesh. The opener against Boston showed that much, as they allowed the Celtics to tie an NBA record with 29 3-pointers and got outrebounded by a decent margin.
While this team was mentioned in a previous article, former Net Mikal Bridges wasn’t touched on much. The two-way star looked uncomfortable at times shooting the ball in his debuts (2/7 3-pt), while former Timberwolves star Karl-Anthony Towns had just 12 points in 24 minutes.
Considering this team was middle of the pack in shooting the 3-pointer a year ago and thrived largely because of their ability to rebound on the offensive end, they’ll need to capitalize on their spacing dream of a starting five. After all, they let a premier offensive rebounder in Hartenstein walk.
But, with defensive pieces like top-tier hustler Josh Hart, Bridges and an elite rebounder in Mitchell Robinson (slated to return later this season), this team has the potential to be stout defensively. Perimeter and in-between threat Jalen Brunson will vy for another All-NBA selection and has proven his potential to be a number-one option on a championship team as well.
In terms of overall talent, this Knicks team falls around second or third in the east. But in a competitive upper echelon of the conference, the grace period allotted to a team that restructured its roster recently will be quite short.
As they sit at 1–2, coach Tom Thibodeau will need to solidify his eight-to-nine-man lineup in a hurry.
6. Dallas Mavericks
Yes, they made the Finals. Yes, Luka Dončić and Kyrie Irving solidified their resume as a top backcourt of all-time by flamethrowing their way through a deep Western Conference in 2024.
But every team is a few shots away from never hitting their stride. And the flaws that plague this Dallas Mavericks team will become apparent at times this season when they inevitably aren’t as hot offensively as they were last May — the same flaws that dismantled them in their five-game Finals series with Boston.
And no, signing Klay Thompson does not fix everything.
Let’s start with why they advanced to the Finals before I explain their spot on this list. Regular season P.J. Washington was not the kind of shooter he was in the postseason for example. He rose from a dismal 31% in the regular season up to a still below-league-average 34% in the postseason, but hit huge shots throughout Dallas’ run — cooling off in a major way at the end. Derrick Jones Jr., who is no longer with the team, rose from his career average of 32% to 36% in the playoffs as well.
It’s a microcosm of the Mavs’ style of success — they need to get hot in a major way to win. Their flaws, namely one-on-one perimeter defense and rebounding despite their solid bigs in Daniel Gafford and Dereck Lively, haunt this team otherwise.
They made no signings or trades to remedy those concerning weaknesses and if Luka and Kyrie don’t catch a heater again, don’t expect a repeat of a run that saw the Mavs dispense of the Wolves and Thunder.
Still, that star backcourt doing work on opposing defenses and setting the table for Thompson is going to win the Mavericks a lot of games this season.
7. Philadelphia 76ers
I’ve discussed the Philadelphia 76ers’ offseason moves in a previous article, but this big three of Tyrese Maxey, Paul George and Joel Embiid lands down at number seven because of their injury factor.
George has already been injured in the preseason and missed the first three games of the season along with Embiid. In the meantime, Maxey has established himself as a top scorer already, posting a 45-point game to sneak past Indiana Oct. 27.
But the lack of bench depth has already proven to be too much for even Embiid to survive in the past. Their first-round exit against New York last season can be attributed to the fact that Philadelphia lacked a bench scorer who averaged over 6.3 points in the series.
But, Daryl Morey did work to remedy that particular issue, signing productive big Andre Drummond (who is averaging 10 PPG and 13 RPG in relief of Embiid), solid bench scorers in Reggie Jackson and Caleb Martin and drafting a potential sharpshooter in Duke standout Jared McCain. G League phenom and two-way contract signee Ricky Council IV may figure into Nick Nurse’s rotation at some point as well, as he averaged over 24 points in 16 G League games last season.
If George and Embiid can stay healthy when April rolls around and the newcomers can play high-impact minutes, the 1–2 Sixers will surge in these rankings. As it stands, seventh is as high as they go.
8. Indiana Pacers
When a team shoots 67% from the field in a Game 7, as the Indiana Pacers did to the New York Knicks in last year’s conference semi-finals, you can’t ignore them.
Indeed, Indiana stole the show in the 2024 playoffs and there is plenty of potential for them to do the same in 2025. The Pacers finished second in pace in 2024 (the pun wasn’t intentional, but now it is), second in offensive rating, first in points per game and downed hefty competition like the Milwaukee Bucks and the Knicks thanks to unbelievable shooting displays.
Those yellow jerseys that they wore for the entirety of their playoff run were truly a bright blur most of the time.
The ’25 squad is largely the same — headlined by ’24 assist champ and two-time All-Star Tyrese Haliburton, two-time blocks leader Myles Turner and former All-NBA forward Pascal Siakam. But the others, including Andrew Nembhard, Aaron Nesmith and T.J. McConnell all shot lights out in the playoffs.
Nembhard shot a blistering 48.3% from range in the playoffs and Turner added a fiery 45.3% on threes as well (both shot just over 35% in the regular season on lower volume). McConnell was unguardable in his in-between floater game as well, as the Pacers got open looks consistently against some stringent defenses. All this came without rising star Benedict Mathurin, who missed the playoffs with an injury.
But when it came time to face the Celtics, the Pacers learned they were not built to win in late May. They scored over 110 in three of the four games they lost but never had a chance to stop the historically good Celtics offense. After all, this team finished bottom-six in defensive rating last season and doesn’t have many perimeter defenders that give head coach Rick Carlisle flexibility in game-planning.
The 1–3 Pacers, who didn’t make many offseason changes to remedy that defense, are only a fringe contender because of their startling offensive potential. But don’t get it twisted, this team can go deep again in 2025.
9. Milwaukee Bucks
The Milwaukee Bucks have the most interesting duo in the NBA right now. They’ve been one of the most consistent teams in the league since Giannis Antetokounmpo’s rise to perennial MVP contention in 2019 and the Bucks added all-time shooter Damian Lillard last year to give the Greek Freak a dynamic backcourt superstar.
The pair guided the Bucks to a third-seed finish in a weak Eastern Conference last year, but after an injury-ridden end to the campaign, the team fell to the Pacers in the opening round of the playoffs.
Antetokounmpo missed the whole series while Lillard appeared in just four of six games. But the issue was their defense.
Despite a 30–13 start to the season last year, the Bucks fired coach Adrian Griffin in his first season, citing the huge decline in defensive performance from the 2023 season to the 2024 campaign. Milwaukee decided to go with a veteran coach in Doc Rivers as Griffin’s replacement. That decision didn’t yield the turnaround the front office was looking for though.
The Bucks still finished 19th in defensive rating after a fourth-place ranking the prior season and went 19–20 in the post-Griffin finale of the season.
Yikes.
The drop was to be expected after the Bucks traded away a top perimeter disruptor in Jrue Holiday, but they didn’t compensate for that loss by securing a replacement. This year the Bucks will have Taurean Prince and Gary Trent Jr. handling tough perimeter assignments — a solid set of reinforcements.
If Lillard and Antetokounmpo can hit their stride again after averaging 24.3 PPG and 30.4 PPG a year ago, and Doc Rivers can return this team to it defensive prominence, the Bucks should be back in contention picture in 2025. They’ll have to overcome a sloppy 1–3 start to get there first.
10. Memphis Grizzlies
This isn’t just hype for a team that finished with 27 wins last season. If anything, I’m ranking Taylor Jenkins’ crew a little low considering their reputation.
This is a Memphis Grizzlies squad that finished with 107 combined wins in 2022 and 2023 and hasn’t been truly healthy since then. Star guard Ja Morant missed almost the entirety of the 2024 season, as did 2022 Defensive Player of the Year Marcus Smart. This team rostered over 30 (!!!) players throughout the season, trying to find some reliable scoring as they were dealt injury after injury.
Ultimately they never did, finishing last in offensive rating. 2023 Defensive Player of the Year Jaren Jackson Jr. and Desmond Bane were relied on when available, but Bane only suited up for 42 games and Jackson’s game isn’t conducive to being the first option offensively.
Despite having to dig into their G League roster and bring in new talent consistently to deal with the roster hemorrhaging from injuries, the Grizzlies posted a top-12 defensive rating. Bringing a defensive menace like Marcus Smart into the fold alongside a springy Ja Morant will make this an intimidating backcourt to score on.
And considering Morant is the focal point of this offense, look for the Grizzlies to surge back into offensive relevancy in 2025.
Catch up on the rest of my Grizzlies thoughts in the previous article.
11. Cleveland Cavaliers
Off to a 4–0 start this season, the Cleveland Cavaliers have quietly thrived in a weak Eastern Conference for a few years now. After trading for superstar guard Donovan Mitchell two years ago, the franchise has enjoyed 99 wins in two seasons and won their first playoff series without LeBron James since 1993.
The issue is this defense-oriented team has been outclassed in the playoffs, losing to the Knicks in five games in 2023 and getting steamrolled by the Celtics in five last season. And even after those rough exits, the pressure for this squad to perform has never been higher than it is today.
Time to go to work.
Right or wrong, their first action item was to fire J.B. Bickerstaff last May. Bickerstaff coached this team from irrelevance to a consistent playoff participant in just a few seasons.
In his place, they hired former Nets head coach and Warriors assistant coach Kenny Atkinson — whose coaching style is more attuned to developing young talent. Atkinson has expressed an interest in helping the younger guys on Cleveland’s roster to realize their offensive potential, including turning 6'11" Defensive Player of the Year candidate Evan Mobley into more of a force near the rim.
Considering this team finished 18th in offensive rating in 2024, they must develop one of their young pieces, like Mobley, into a bona fide second option. GM Koby Altman extended Mitchell, Mobley and Jarrett Allen in the offseason, leaving this team $40 million in the hole. Considering the lack of free agency moves by Altman and Co., it’s clear the Cavs believe this team can develop into a contender.
It’s do or die in the house LeBron built this year.
Play-in winners/lower seeds
These squads are either quite a few pieces away from contending, or have too much to prove in the regular season to be labeled a potential contender off the bat.
12. Los Angeles Lakers
Speaking of LeBron James, his Los Angeles Lakers seem to have bought a timeshare in the play-in — finding themselves between seeds 7 and 10 in three of the last four seasons. They’re off to a 3–1 start in the 2025 season, but there are plenty of questions to ask about this inconsistent squad.
James is in his age-40 season (and is the oldest player in the league), while Anthony Davis, off the healthiest season he’s had in years, is always an injury risk. And some other pieces of the team missed significant periods last year, like defensive specialist Jarred Vanderbilt, who played 29 games last season. And save for the drafting of University of Tennessee star Dalton Knecht, who showed great promise in the preseason, the Lakers roster has stayed practically the same.
But health concerns aside, LA was simply outmatched by the Nuggets in the first round last season, and the conference finals in 2023.
Enter J.J. Redick.
The longtime-NBA-sharpshooter-turned-podcaster-turned-ESPN-personality-and-stats-geek has replaced Darvin Ham at head coach despite having never coached so much as a high school game. The decision to move on from Ham reportedly stemmed from the team’s frustration with Ham’s aggressive lineup experimentation — meaning Redick will likely need to find a lineup he likes early on in his tenure.
He’ll also need to find an identity for this team, as they were 15th and 16th in offensive and defensive rating respectively in 2024. Redick has reportedly told his players he wants them to shoot the 3-ball more as a collective, and the good news is this team isn’t afraid to find the open man — finishing fifth in assists a season ago. They also finished above league-average at 37.7% from range (but 24th in 3-pointers made).
If the Lakers can get production from Knecht, Davis can stay healthy and Redick can utilize James as the all-time playmaker he is to find open shooters, the ceiling can be far higher than the play-in in LA — they can scare the superpowers in the west.
For now, this is a team that has finished at the bottom of the playoff picture for years now with a first-time head coach.
And plenty to prove.
13. Sacramento Kings
The Sacramento Kings missed the playoffs last season despite career years from their star duo of Domantas Sabonis and De’Aaron Fox. It seemed like a far cry from the 2023 crew that took the reigning champion Golden State Warriors to seven games in an opening-round thriller.
One crucial issue was Sacramento’s performance in “clutch” games (games where a team leads by five or less in the final five minutes of the contest). Coach Mike Brown’s team went just 20–19 in such games, which is disappointing considering the personnel he has. Fox finished 12th in clutch scoring average while Sixth Man of the Year runner-up Malik Monk finished 11th.
So, unlike a few of the previous teams in this power ranking, the Kings made a major move. They traded for Bulls star DeMar DeRozan, who finished first in clutch point average last season and has been one of the best fourth-quarter scorers in the NBA for the past three seasons.
So they have a lot of guys that can get a bucket when it matters… but what’s their identity?
Well, when they finished first in the league in offensive rating two seasons ago, the Kings made the third-most free throws in the NBA. That figure fell to 27th last year, dropping the Kings 13th in offensive rating.
Considering DeRozan finished with the fifth-highest free throw attempted average in the league last season, the move made sense for Sacramento in getting back to their roots as a high-volume free throw shooting squad.
Still, the Kings have been weak in terms of rostering multiple quality defenders at a time recently, and that has led to a mediocre performance on that end for the past two seasons. The front office neglected that side of the ball again this offseason, as they traded a promising perimeter defender in Davion Mitchell and a veteran presence in Harrison Barnes.
A repeat play-in appearance may be in the cards for the Kings — who are sure to have some entertaining finishes this season.
14. Phoenix Suns
The 3–1 Phoenix Suns have all the talent in the world to be a problem in the west, they need to show some kind of life outside of Kevin Durant and Devin Booker.
Phoenix got swept emphatically by a hungry Wolves squad last postseason and failed to win over 50 games in the regular season with Durant (75 games played, most since Achilles tear in 2019), Booker (68 games played) and Bradley Beal (53 games played) creating one of the best scoring trios the league has ever seen.
The rough finish cost head coach Frank Vogel his job, and Phoenix replaced him with another former champion in Mike Budenholzer — a move that plays to the offensive strengths of this team. While one can argue that Vogel, a defense-oriented coach, got the most out of this team on that end last season, they didn’t challenge teams schematically on offense very often. Look for Budenholzer to scheme to help Booker work in space and reinvigorate Beal.
If Budenholzer can get the most out of this talented big three, the Suns could climb. But following the sting of last year’s elimination, Phoenix is in the play-in picture.
15. Orlando Magic
If you’re bored on a Tuesday night, put the 3–1 Orlando Magic on League Pass and enjoy the show.
Third-year pro Paolo Banchero has already erupted for 50 points on the young season and the 2024 fifth-seed out east plays elite defense as well — finishing second in defensive rating in 2024.
Coach Jamahl Mosley’s team excels on that end largely because of their size and switchability. Their go-to starting lineup this season has been Jalen Suggs (6'5"), Kentavious Caldwell-Pope (6'5"), Banchero (6'10"), Franz Wagner (6'10") and Wendall Carter Jr. (6'10"). Any one of those players can guard 1–5, get in passing lanes to cause fastbreaks and the whole lineup has the potential to space the floor offensively.
League Pass.
The issue is figuring out how to initiate this offense in the half-court. The Magic finished 28th in the league in assists a year ago and had no clear floor general running the point. Banchero, a power forward, led this team in assists by a wide margin in 2024 — something that isn’t exactly in his job description. In fact, outside of Banchero, no player on this team averaged so much as four assists per game.
That has to change if this team wants to unlock Banchero as a true star forward and go from being a fun watch to a serious threat in the playoffs — as they lost in seven to a more versatile Cavs team in last year’s opening round.
For now, it doesn’t look like they’ve rostered a point guard or player up to the task of initiating and running this offense outside of fastbreaks. That will haunt Orlando again in 2025.
16. New Orleans Pelicans
The New Orleans Pelicans have had a star-studded roster for the past few seasons, and it got better this offseason.
The 2024 Western Conference 8-seed traded for former Hawk and Spur star Dejounte Murray over the offseason. It was a clear win-now move for a team that has had scoring stars like Zion Williamson, Brandon Ingram and CJ McCollum, with excellent complimentary two-way players like Herb Jones and Trey Murphy III.
Murray is something of an in-between, having averaged 20 points for the past three seasons and led the league in steals three seasons ago. Unfortunately for the Pels, Murray is expected to miss the next four to six weeks with a hand injury, dropping the 2–1 squad to the bottom of these rankings for now.
But when Murray returns and the Pelicans can throw him, Jones and Murphy at opposing perimeter threats, this seventh-rated defense from 2024 will look even scarier.
Until then, the Pelicans will stay lower in the rankings until they face some real competition — having played Chicago to open the season and Portland twice since then.
Honorable mentions: Los Angeles Clippers, Golden State Warriors, Miami Heat
I’ll keep the reasoning short with each of these honorable mentions.
The Los Angeles Clippers took home 51 wins last season thanks to reliable health from their franchise cornerstones in Kawhi Leonard and Paul George. Well, Leonard is already out indefinitely to open the season and George isn’t even in the same conference anymore. They were just 17th in defensive rating in 2024, and losing those two stoppers will precipitate a guaranteed drop in defense this season. Relying on James Harden, Norman Powell and Ivica Zubac to power your offense may lead to some highlights, but will not translate to any sort of postseason success if they make it there.
The Golden State Warriors failed to make the 2024 playoff field, losing in the play-in last season. They didn’t do much in the offseason to make a convincing case that they won’t suffer a similar fate this year — swapping Klay Thompson for Buddy Hield and grabbing two-way De’Anthony Melton as well. This team will finish top-10 in threes made, that’s almost a given this far into the Steve Kerr and Steph Curry era. But factors like Jonathon Kuminga’s rise as a scorer with more opportunities will dictate this team’s ceiling.
The Miami Heat always have a shot to knife deep into the postseason, thanks to Jimmy Butler’s uncanny ability to catch fire in April and May. But this is the early season. Butler is a mere mortal (who is aging mind you, this is his age-35 season) for now, and he’s playing with a roster that has been outpaced by the eastern conference’s superpowers. Pending the development of younger talent like Nikola Jović and Josh Christopher, this team will likely find itself in the play-in once again. They still have the potential to cause problems two years removed from a miraculous Finals run, if Butler is healthy.
As the season gets underway, this list will change. Teams will climb higher than we ever expected and some will probably fall off it completely. The only constant in basketball is change — and these teams will show us as the season wears on.
