Western Conference Power Rankings, Part 1: Dubs, Pels and Grizz bring intrigue at the bottom

Welcome back to another NBA season! In about six weeks!

In order to recap the offseason and gauge where the Phoenix Suns land in the Western Conference, it’s time for the honored tradition of content creation: power rankings!

The series will be divided into three parts, covering five teams each, and splits the conference into five different tiers.

Up first are the two bottom tiers that have more exciting potential than they should.

Tier 5: I get it but no

15. Sacramento Kings

The Kings are in the middle of a reset while still waiting to finalize said reset. In other words, they are going to be trash again.

Zach LaVine ($49 million) and De’Andre Hunter ($25 million) are on expiring contracts. Domantas Sabonis has two years and $94 million left on his deal. Sacramento presumably tried to trade all three, and honestly, part of the wait on this power ranking project through August was to see if it would get a bite on Sabonis. So far, nothing.

Malik Monk, who has had one of the most bizarre career stretches the last few years, transitioning from elite sixth man to apparently unplayable, has two years and $42 million left (with a player option on Year 2).

Besides the Keegan Murray extension just kicking in this year, a painful five years and $140 million, the Kings are just about there when it comes to moving on from a failed era. Perhaps this next thought comes from the long-term effects of brain rot and the unknown consequences of staring at screens for over 10 hours a day, but it seems like Sacramento has wised up and knows what to do from here.

Darius Acuff Jr. was the best player on the board at No. 7 in the draft and has All-NBA upside. You know what you don’t have to worry about in a prospect when that is the case? Their other flaws! Like defense! The Kings need a star. Acuff has a great chance at being one, and I can’t wait to watch him for the next decade.

Sacramento hit on Maxime Raynaud in the second round last year. He was productive en route to a Second Team All-Rookie nod, while the psychopaths who watched a lot of Kings basketball said all the love for Nique Clifford in the pre-draft process started to bear fruit in the tail end of the season.

Alex Karaban is similar to Clifford, a heady and balanced older prospect who might not ever start for Sacramento but has a pretty good shot at sticking as a rotational wing who can shoot, pass and score. Emanuel Sharp was nails at Houston in college. I’m not sure if he’s a pro, but I like the swing on a dude who plays super hard, showed zero fear in big moments and knew how to win.

This is a year away from being a real basketball team, and I mean that as a compliment. If Acuff ascends quickly, Raynaud is a starting-caliber center and that’s the case on the wing for Clifford or Karaban too, we’ve got something here as a solid base. Here’s hoping Kings fans catch a break with these new lottery rules.

14. New Orleans Pelicans

New Orleans pissed off a lot of front offices this summer. A roster littered with impactful pieces that would do wonders on a contender is being held hostage by the latest tour de force from the notoriously polarizing Joe Dumars, whose reputation as a front office executive is getting tested once more with how he seemingly shut down his two phones across the offseason. He’s not ready to bail on a group of guys in their mid-to-late 20s, even though 47 combined wins through two seasons suggests it’s time to blow this thing up.

It feels like my fingers on the keyboard are separating from the control my mind wields over them as I clank away at this following statement, but I kind of get where he’s coming from?

This is a good roster that has had horrible injury luck recently. I’m not just talking about Zion Williamson, who quietly stayed healthy for the most part in his previous campaign. Dejounte Murray, who I still believe in as an All-Star-caliber guard, ruptured his right Achilles midway through the 2024-25 season to miss most of that one and nearly all of the next one. Marquee 3-and-D player Herb Jones has played in 76 games the last two years. Trey Murphy III, the young player many experts tab as a second-team breakout candidate, sat out an average of nearly 25 games over the last three years.

Bennedict Mathurin at under $10 million a year was a bargain. His shooting foul percentage, the percentage of shot attempts he was fouled on, is one of the highest in the league and he’s got a fantastic rim rate too. He’s too volatile to be trusted as the first or second option offensively, but it’s a great fit here within this group behind Murray and Williamson as the rim pressure leaders. Second-year guard Jeremiah Fears has some sizzle to his game, and it’s a big year for him to go from the mundane status of, “Hey, I like that Fears kid” into a true pillar for the organization.

Murray near or at his best combined with 65% of what Williamson was in his prime (a terribly sad reality when he just turned 26), plus those four other aforementioned perimeter players and two energetic young bigs in Derik Queen and Yves Missi that provide entirely different traits is a starting-off point that shouldn’t be written off as a team that can potentially sniff around that top-10 play-in line.

Unfortunately, though, we have to take this situation for what it has been in the past. Until we see that Murray is all the way back from that serious injury on both ends of the floor, until we see Williamson back in his bowling-ball bag, until we see a big jump from Fears or Queen, and until we see this team stay healthy, you’re better off just placing them in this range. Here’s hoping that immediately changes, because all these guys are really fun to watch.

Tier 4: No need to look past the red flags

13. Los Angeles Clippers

When we look at a basketball roster, we naturally analyze how good it is and how it all fits together without even realizing it, almost immediately. We just did it with New Orleans.

Over the years, I’ve found it helpful at times to really zoom out and think by using a scoring scale for a roster’s talent, followed by a separate score for how the puzzle pieces snap together, an effort to expand the analysis while keeping it simplified too. I won’t go into those specific numbers, but I’ve also learned that there are three mostly unknown factors that can prove those two scores insignificant. Those three great equalizers are the locker room dynamics, the head coach and the buy-in to the culture/identity from the team.

Our own squad here in the Valley last year was a nice example. For those two scores of talent and fit, the Suns should have checked in lower than almost anyone. And yet, the lads got along great, it turned out Jordan Ott is really good at his job and he got unbelievable buy-in to build a culture up. Think about the opposite in regard to how the two years before that went.

All of that was a mystery for a whole new operation in Phoenix. In some places, though, we know some of these factors already. For example, we know that Ty Lue is a great coach, and we know that more often than not he gets his guys to play his way. I feel the need to preface that, because part of my brain wants to avoid easily discarding the Clippers toward the bottom tier of the West.

That part of the equation has some serious work to do, because this roster lacks high-end talent and doesn’t click together too much. I think Brandon Ingram is good and can be really good with the right team. I think Darius Garland is really good and can be great with the right team. This is not the right team for either of them if they are playing together.

But! The rest of the roster has something to it.

I’m a huge Keaton Wagler guy. Write off the No. 5 overall pick because he fails to create separation or dunk at your own peril. At worst, he’s a high IQ connective off-ball guard that shoots the [expletive] out of it. At best, his ginormous playmaking jump at Illinois from little-known freshman reserve to “oh the entire offense runs through him now” in just two months time has some real juice to it in how Wagler projects as a head honcho. The Tyrese Haliburton similarities in terms of how under-recruited he was, the reasons why, the mental aptitude/toughness combination you see every game and his emergence from playmaking combo guard to top guy are strong. He’s going to figure it out, one way or another.

2025 second-round pick Yanic Konan Niederhauser has a clear path toward becoming a top-15 center. He rules, and the momentum he was building up fast midseason got cut short by a season-ending injury. The Clippers found at least one rotation-caliber wing out of the Jordan Miller (who could be out till the All-Star break) and Kobe Sanders pair, potentially two. Baba Miller is an exciting prospect that becomes even more enticing when you consider what Lue and assistant coach Jeff Van Gundy did defensively with the toolsy draft profile of Konan Niederhauser.

Rui Hachimura is solid. So are Derrick Jones Jr. and Kris Dunn. I like Max Strus, the one Cavalier who seemed to give a [expletive] when they were putting forward embarrassing performance after embarrassing performance in last year’s postseason. He should click in nicely with the shooting need. Bradley Beal has to get healthy. If he is, even limited contributions of rim pressure and great catch-and-shoot corner work are ancillary attributes Garland will need alongside him in the backcourt.

I just named a dozen players! And I didn’t even mention are-you-fully-washed-now Brook Lopez! Or maybe-the-second-team-does-the-trick for Grady Dick! I think two-way signing Nick Martinelli could be a guy too! This is a deep team!

Garland can unlock it. If he stays healthy and Lue can find a way to have the offensive scheme bring out the Nash-ian qualities of Garland’s game that I love, his free-flowing and inventive floor general work that makes everyone better inside a style fun to play, then this is a top-8 seed. It probably won’t be, but we’ve watched Lue in L.A. squeeze 40-plus wins out of less talented bunches than this one, and he’s got a ton of options to tinker with.

But in the spirit of the tier’s label, that optimism is looking past the questionable Garland-Ingram fit, the injury woes for that pair and the absence of top talent. For now, those qualities reign supreme.

12. Golden State Warriors

For an organization with the best backbone when it comes to a culture, style of play and the immediate continuity that materializes from it, the Warriors are the owners of a crackling one.

They are averaging 44 wins a year over the last four seasons. Nothing amazing, but pretty good! Across that period, however, Jimmy Butler is missing an average of 27 games a year. It’s roughly 20 for Stephen Curry and 16 for Draymond Green. Butler turns 37 years old in mid-September while that’ll come for Green in March. A few days after that milestone for Green, Curry will be celebrating his 39th birthday. That’s before getting to starting center Kristaps Porzingis, who played 74 games the last two years.

There is no way to think the Warriors will finish above .500 unless you believe that one of those three guys will play over 65 games, and crucially that they can get Butler for an engaged 60, not the nonsense where he lallygags through a majority of the regular season due to either disinterest or injury.

Since the surprise championship in 2022, the next few years were going to be defined by if Golden State would develop enough premium young talent to support its aging core. James Wiseman is out of the league, the duo of Jordan Poole and Jonathan Kuminga burned out, while Brandin Podziemski’s eclectic decision-making seems as out of place as Poole was. Moses Moody was the biggest success story as a reliable supplementary wing, but just as he was solidifying that this past season, he had to have knee surgery near the end of last season.

Golden State’s last grasp and best chance at this lies with Yaxel Lendeborg, the 11th overall pick who enters the league currently seven months younger than Jalen Green, who will be going into his sixth NBA season. Michigan’s players pompously referred to Lendeborg as a collegiate version of LeBron James, and while that’s way off base, it more speaks to his physical dominance at his size while being able to do pretty much everything on the court. Lendeborg comes into the league already at a rotation-caliber level as an on-ball defender, rebounder, team defender, passer and finisher.

If Lendeborg’s well-roundedness allows him to be the Warriors’ fourth-best player immediately, they’ll have a shot. Well, that is as long as his unfiltered personality does not result in Butler or Green creating the latest piece of video footage TMZ is desperate to track down.

It is a dynamic really worth honing in on here. A young guy with Lendeborg’s bravado, and honestly, mouth, could bring the best out of those two enigmatic locker room leaders to mold Lendeborg into the Warriors’ next face of the franchise. Or, they will grow tired of him fairly quickly and disengage, something the on-court product will tell us sooner rather than later.

There is too much middling depth here to think otherwise on the importance of Lendeborg. Al Horford, De’Anthony Melton and Gary Payton II are fine at this stage of their careers. Will Richard was a good second-round find last year, but more as a guy on the edge of the rotation like Gui Santos.

It’ll be on those top five guys to carry this operation, and you cannot rely on any of them for a full season.

11. Memphis Grizzlies

Look man, I get that having an All-Star is pretty pivotal when it comes to being a good-to-great team. Memphis will not have that, and it is admittedly a bit of a trope for some analysts to see a roster full of useful 4th-9th guys in a rotation and overlook how it is without the 1st, 2nd or 3rd option in the name of, “Hey, I like that guy! And that guy! And that guy! That’s a lot of guys I like!”

With that said! This roster kind of rocks.

A play-in appearance is entirely contingent on someone out of Cameron Boozer, Cedric Coward or Zach Edey being a top-50 guy. And here’s the thing — there’s a chance more than one is! Coward looked great as a rookie, with major two-way flashes to back up all the draft nerd hype. Edey looked even better, with major two-way flashes to back up the college basketball nerd hype. And Boozer could put together a first-year campaign that shines brighter than either of those glimpses.

They’ve got to separate themselves from that group that includes Ty Jerome, Scotty Pippen Jr., Cam Spencer, Walter Clayton Jr., Jaylen Wells, Jerami Grant, Isaiah Stewart, Taylor Hendricks, Olivier-Maxence Prosper, GG Jackson and Quenten Post. If half of those guys have good years, that’s a full rotation. Again, totally plausible. All are proven or have upside.

Grant and Stewart, in particular, should be great if they play the way they did last season. Some proven glue in the 3-and-D group and big man mix is exactly what was missing before. Add on Jerome in that same facet for the ball-handlers. He’s been legitimately awesome when healthy the last two years. Spencer showed a whole lot through an irrelevant season last year in the ways that Pippen, Wells and Jackson did two years ago. Prosper might be a find. Memphis will hope Hendricks or Clayton is from the Jaren Jackson Jr. trade. Post is a useful stretch big in a limited role, the one he will be asked to play here.

Boozer is the swing piece. He could win Rookie of the Year and will make all of his teammates better right away. He’s got that special sauce that will elevate everyone around him now and even more in the future, both on offense and defense. Who knows if that’s more in a supporting fashion as a rookie, or if he can do it as one of the main focal points. If it’s the latter and the Grizzlies get relatively decent injury luck, this is a playoff team. Yeah, I said it.

But in the same vein of these other teams, we’ve seen the Grizzlies slog through waves of injuries and there are still lots of unproven elements. No need to get too excited just yet.