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The Western Conference is the big leagues in today’s NBA. While both conferences have 15 teams, the West has far more competitive teams, ready to compete for an NBA championship. […]
The Western Conference is the big leagues in today’s NBA. While both conferences have 15 teams, the West has far more competitive teams, ready to compete for an NBA championship. As such, win totals are tempered as teams in the West have to play against each other all season, and playoff seeds are decided by paper-thin margins. This year will likely be no different.
Starting at the top, reigning NBA MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the Oklahoma City Thunder will look to follow up an incredible season where they finished 68-14 in the regular season and won the 2025 NBA Finals in seven games over the Indiana Pacers. With their young core back in full, the Thunder are the favorites to win the NBA’s best conference once again.
Behind them, the 2023 NBA champion Denver Nuggets have re-tooled after back-to-back second-round exits in the playoffs, shipping out Michael Porter Jr. in favor of Cam Johnson and adding other veterans to create a deeper roster.
Then, a slew of fringe contenders emerges. The Houston Rockets finished second in the West last season, but will the transition from Jalen Green to Kevin Durant as offensive focal point go smoothly? The Los Angeles Lakers have one of the best one-two punches ever in LeBron James and Luka Doncic, but is there enough talent around them?
The Golden State Warriors, Los Angeles Clippers, and Minnesota Timberwolves also look to continue some sustained success.
Bubbling up under these teams, the Dallas Mavericks are set to make some serious noise behind three first overall picks: Anthony Davis, Kyrie Irving, and 2025 first overall pick Cooper Flagg. The San Antionio Spurs have been building around their back-to-back Rookies of the Year (Victor Wembanyama and Stephon Castle) and look ready to compete for a playoff spot.
Read on for my 2025-26 NBA Western Conference Standings Predictions, and if you’d like to debate or discuss any predictions, join the conversation with Sakmann Sports on Twitter/X, on Facebook, or by commenting directly on this post!
Eastern Conference, Western Conference, Playoffs and NBA Finals
The Utah Jazz missed out on the Cooper Flagg sweepstakes, and will be building from the bottom up with fifth overall pick Ace Bailey. Jordan Clarkson, John Collins, and Collin Sexton all left town, so it will be a very different looking Jazz team this season.
Is skinny Zion Williamson going to will the New Orleans Pelicans back to playoff contention? With his current supporting cast and health history, probably not. Jordan Poole and Jeremiah Fears could be interesting additions, but the Pelicans just don’t have enough gumption to make noise in this crowded Western Conference.
Damian Lillard returning to Rip City in the twilight of his career is a cool story: but the veteran point guard will be lucky to see much of any action this season. Until then, Jrue Holiday simply doesn’t have enough help across the rest of the starting five. Mainstays Anfernee Simons and Deandre Ayton are also no longer with the Portland Trail Blazers.
Finishing 12th in the West feels brutal, but the competition in the West is brutal. I’m projecting the Phoenix Suns to win 36 games for the second straight season: but yes, they can do just as well as they did last year without Kevin Durant or Bradley Beal on the roster. Between Devin Booker and the spoils of the Durant trade (including Jalen Green and Dillon Brooks), the Suns should be a fun team. If they were in the Eastern Conference, they would earn a Top 8 seed: but once again, the West is just too deep.
Just like the Suns: the Sacramento Kings aren’t a bad team, but playing the majority of their games against Western Conference opponents keeps their win total down. Malik Monk, Zach LaVine, DeMar DeRozan, Keegan Murray, and Domantas Sabonis are a solid core, and the Kings could sneak into the Play-In Tournament. But with two straight years of decline after 2022-23’s impressive run at the third seed in the Western Conference doesn’t bode well for this season in Sacramento.
The Memphis Grizzlies have also been on the decline despite some great talent. After back-to-back seasons finishing second in the West, the Grizzlies finished 13th and 8th in the conference over the last two seasons. Having Ja Morant in the fold for a full season will help, but Memphis also traded Desmond Bane for draft capital over the offseason: signaling it might not quite be win-now mode anymore.
At first, I thought projecting a playoff spot for Cooper Flagg and the Dallas Mavericks might be premature, until I remembered this team somehow squeaked in to the Play-In Tournament last season amidst all the chaos of the Luka Doncic trade.
Cooper Flagg, Anthony Davis, and Kyrie Irving form a nasty, talented Big Three if they can stay healthy on the court together this season. With Klay Thompson, D’Angelo Russell, Dereck Lively II, and Daniel Gafford to complement them, the Mavericks even have a ceiling as high as a 6th or 5th seed in the West. Health will play a big factor in the Mavericks’ success.
I thought the San Antonio Spurs would take the leap last season, but injuries kept them 13th in the West with a 34-48 record. Veteran Chris Paul is no longer around to be the steady mentor at point guard, but that’s okay, as the team is still built to compete around centerpiece Victor Wembanyama. De’Aaron Fox, Stephon Castle, Devin Vassell, Harrison Barnes are ready to go, alongside 2025 second overall pick Dylan Harper and free agent pickup Luke Kornet.
The Spurs have been bubbling upwards since drafting Wembanyama, but this could be the season San Antonio makes a firm playoff push.
Every time it feels like the Golden State Warriors should start falling off, they stick around for a little longer. Acquiring Jimmy Butler from the Miami Heat has saved Steph Curry’s Warriors from being an obscure play-in level team to a mid-level, dark horse contender in the Western Conference.
Curry and Draymond Green, along with head coach Steve Kerr, bring the legacy from the Warriors dynasty years. Butler brings a new energy and chemistry to the starting five. Very late free agent pickup Al Horford could still be a solid center.
The Warriors aren’t especially deep, but Curry and Butler should be able to keep Golden State in the playoff mix for yet another season.
Even in the later stages of their career, having James Harden and Kawhi Leonard on your team is an incredible way to start a roster. The Los Angeles Clippers have consistently been right there in the middle of the Western Conference playoff picture, which is no small task. Fifth, fourth, and fifth place finishes in the West over the last three seasons isn’t a sign of mediocrity: in a tough conference, it means they’ve been one of the best teams in the NBA over the last three years.
The playoffs have been the Clippers bugaboo, with three straight first round exits, but these are regular season predictions, and I predict Los Angeles to be a strong team through 82 games once again.
Bradley Beal and Brook Lopez are solid veteran pickups, and while I have the Clippers finishing sixth in the West, please note they finish just three wins behind the third seed: anything could happen, as is custom in the West.
I have just three wins separating the sixth through third seed on this list, so I want to be very clear: these teams could finish in any order, and the Minnesota Timberwolves specifically could finish as high as third or even second in the Western Conference. Minnesota has been leveling up year-by-year around 2020 first overall pick Anthony Edwards, and no one in the West wants to see the Timberwolves on their schedule.
Edwards, Ruby Gobert, Julius Randle, Mike Conley, and Jaden McDaniels round out a strong starting five, with Donte DiVincenzo and Naz Reid representing a strong punch off the bench. After that, Minnesota could be deeper.
The Los Angeles Lakers have a one-of-a-kind roster, and are essentially in Finals or bust mode after emptying their asset bank to acquire Luka Doncic, and with future Hall of Famer LeBron James nearing the end of his career.
But it starts there: Luka Doncic and LeBron James are on the court together for the time being, and the result is pure basketball nirvana. As to be expected, there isn’t a lot of money left to go around to build a particularly deep roster, but Austin Reaves and newcomer Deandre Ayton are good complements.
Kevin Durant wasn’t exactly a savior for the Phoenix Suns, despite being paired up with Devin Booker and Bradley Beal. Now, the 15-time All-Star joins his fifth team in his career.
If Durant had just been plopped on last year’s Houston Rockets squad, Houston would have been one of the best teams in the NBA. The Rockets finished second in the West last season with a 52-30 record. But obviously, acquiring Durant came at a price: bye-bye Jalen Green (thought to be a cornerstone moving forward) and Dillon Brooks.
Still, Houston has four young first-round picks (all 2021 or later) to surround Durant with in the starting lineup, and veteran talent like Clint Capela and Dorian Finney-Smith coming off the bench. Instead of giving Durant ball-dominant guards to play next to, the future Hall of Famer gets young, athletic, versatile ballers. Offensive opportunities will almost create themselves for Durant and company.
Could things go wrong? Of course. I have the Rockets coming out on top in a hyper-competitive six-through-three seed mix, but if things head South, falling to a fifth or sixth seed would be the next level down for this potential contender. Anything further down than that is possible, but would be considered a freefall.
The Denver Nuggets have the best player on the planet in Nikola Jokic. But over the last three seasons, the Nuggets have finished 1st, 2nd, and 4th in the Western Conference: a perennial powerhouse, but trending in the wrong direction.
If the Nuggets did virtually nothing in the off season and ran back the same roster (the only addition would be DaRon Holmes II, the Nuggets’ 2024 first round pick who missed all of last season), then Denver would still be right in the mix for another 3rd or 4th seed in the West.
But the Nuggets championship window is closing, and Jokic isn’t getting any younger (though he somehow continues to get better.) Denver’s front office re-tooled in a big way this offseason. The key move was shipping out hot-and-cold shooter Michael Porter Jr. to the Brooklyn Nets in exchange for Cam Johnson: a similar player with better fundamentals. The Nuggets also added Jonas Valančiūnas, Tim Hardway Jr., and brought back veteran Bruce Brown.
Russell Westbrook remains a free agent, and as polarizing as he is, he did help the Nuggets win games last season.
But overall, the net effect of losing Porter Jr. and Westbrook but gaining Valančiūnas, Hardaway Jr., Brown, and getting Holmes II back should be a positive one for the Nuggets, who should outpace every team in the West other than the reigning NBA champions.
The Oklahoma City Thunder were nearly flawless last season. Sure, they allowed both the Denver Nuggets and Indiana Pacers to push them to seven games in the playoffs, but besides those two series, the Thunder just couldn’t be beaten no matter how hard anyone tried.
From a 68-14 record in the regular season to a 16-7 record in the playoffs, NBA MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the Thunder just kept winning. The Thunder are running back virtually the same team, with young players on team-friendly contracts meaning it should be another strong season for Oklahoma City.
Lu Dort, Jalen Williams, Chet Holmgren, and Jaylin Williams were all drafted by the Thunder, helped them bring home their first NBA championship, and will have them right in the mix for another one in 2025-26.
Naturally, I projected four less wins for Oklahoma City this season: it’s hard to have that much success two seasons in a row. But I still have the Thunder with an 11-game lead for the best record in the West: so some of these losses could come from resting starters late in the season with homecourt advantage throughout the playoffs locked up early.
The Oklahoma City Thunder are the favorites to win the West, have the best record in the NBA, and win the NBA Finals in 2026. No pressure or anything.
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