In structure, at least, the Western Conference so far in the 2024-25 season looks quite a bit like it did a season ago. There are a few standout teams at the top, but a jumbled mess of flawed contenders in the middle. A season ago, the No. 4 seed and No. 10 seed in the West were separated by just five games. Right now, we're on pace for similar parity.
The difference, for now, lies in who is actually occupying those top spots. Sure, we have the same top seed. Unsurprisingly, the youngest top seed ever, last year's Oklahoma City Thunder, are just as strong a year later. But after that? We have two lottery teams from a season ago, the Houston Rockets and Memphis Grizzlies, occupying top seeds.
Meanwhile, the 2023 champion Denver Nuggets and 2024 Western Conference runner-up Minnesota Timberwolves find themselves in the lower half of the standings. So do the star-studded rosters of the Los Angeles Lakers and Phoenix Suns. So far, only the Jazz and Pelicans have likely played their way out of the postseason hunt. Everyone else is fighting its way through the crowd.
Some teams expected to be there. Others thought they'd be better or worse. So with one quarter of the season now in the books, let's go team-by-team and grade everybody in the Western Conference on their first six weeks of basketball. Our fellow CBS Sports colleagues graded the East teams earlier in the week.
Dallas Mavericks: B
- Record: 14-8
- The basics: 4th in offense, 10th in defense, 7th in net rating (+6.1)
- One reason for optimism: Dallas has won nine of its last 10 and sits top-three in the West despite Luka Doncic having a down shooting start to the season and missing nearly a quarter of the team's games.
- One reason for pessimism: Doncic, by his standards, hasn't been great with his lowest true-shooting percentage since his rookie season and way too many defensive lapses, sometimes in hilariously apathetic fashion.
Despite Doncic's largely detrimental defensive presence, the Mavericks are still a comfortable top-10 defense with him on the floor. They really defend the 3-point line, allowing the seventh fewest 3-point attempts per game and the fifth-lowest opponent 3-point percentage, and they also do a near top-10 job protecting the rim. Kyrie Irving, flirting with a 50-40-90 season, has been exemplary. Klay Thomson is hit or miss, but he's given the Mavericks what they hoped for in an evergreen spacer who is still a threat to hit five 3s any night. I see no long-term reason for pessimism with the Mavericks other than the fact that they're in the Western Conference, where at least a couple really good teams are going to end up having to fight through the play-in. -- Brad Botkin
Denver Nuggets: B-
- Record: 11-8
- The basics: 6th in offense, 19th in defense, 13th in net rating (+1.7)
- One reason for optimism: Nikola Jokic is making even his three MVP seasons look pedestrian by comparison to what he's doing this season. This team isn't perfect, but there isn't a better reason for optimism than having the best player in the world by a long way.
- One reason for pessimism: Everything goes to hell when Jokic sits. Without their MVP, the Nuggets are being outscored by almost 18 points per 100 possessions, per Cleaning the Glass, with a positively pathetic 96.4 offensive rating.
Reports of Denver's demise have been slightly exaggerated. They're not a bad team. In fact, they're a very good team. Michael Porter Jr. is quietly having a terrific season. Christian Braun has been great, as has the ever-perfect fit Aaron Gordon, who has only played in nine games. You could argue that Gordon is Denver's second-best player and he has played in fewer than half the games, and they're still well above water in the West. The problem is the super thin bench and Jamal Murray, whose 42/33 shooting splits are not going to cut it for a team in desperate need of second-star production to cover for the lacking bench and non-Jokic minutes. They're one hot Murray month away from being a top-four team. -- Brad Botkin
Golden State Warriors: A-
- Record: 12-8
- The basics: 9th in offense, 5th in defense, 8th in net rating (+5.7)
- One reason for optimism: Even with De'Anthony Melton done for the season, this is one of the league's deepest teams, which Steve Kerr has showcased with a rotation that goes 12, sometimes 13, deep. With Stephen Curry and Draymond Green still near the peak of their powers, they now have a supporting cast to sustain winning.
- One reason for pessimism: All that depth and still no reliable closing five. The Warriors are 22nd in the NBA in clutch efficiency, losing seven of their 12 qualifying games.
Ah, how different the sentiment would have been if this was written a couple of weeks ago, before a rough five-game losing streak wore the luster off a brilliant start to the Warriors' season. Kerr can take solace in the fact that, for the most part, everything Golden State needed to go right this season has gone right -- the defense is vastly improved, the new pieces have fit well, Andrew Wiggins is back to something resembling his 2022 postseason form and Curry and Green have been mostly healthy. That being said, Kerr has yet to find a reliable unit to put around his two veterans, and the deep rotation has seemed more desperate than strategic of late. Despite those issues, however, the Warriors have a net rating of plus-12 with Curry and Green on the court together. They'll certainly take that moving forward. -- Colin Ward-Henninger
Houston Rockets: A
- Record: 15-7
- The basics: 15th in offense, 3rd in defense, 5th in net rating (+7.4)
- One reason for optimism: Defense, followed closely by depth, both positionally and overall. This team might actually be too deep, which makes me even more optimistic about their playoff prospects as they're ripe for a consolidation trade.
- One reason for pessimism: Shooting, or lack thereof. Houston makes under 12 3-pointers per game. Only six teams make fewer, and among those six only the Lakers are above .500. It's a tough math hole to dig out of of even with an elite defense come playoff time. Fred VanVleet and Jalen Green, Houston's two most voluminous 3-point shooters, are at 32% and 33%, respectively, from beyond the arc.
Any criticism you have of the Rockets is splitting hairs. They are way ahead of schedule and chock full of really good players. The decision to sign vets like Dillon Brooks and VanVleet to support the young guns looks brilliant, as does the hiring of Ime Udoka, who has created maybe the clearest defensive identity in the league. Tari Eason and Amen Thompson are a spectacular defensive duo, and they both do more offensively than you hear about. To that point, even though Houston offense doesn't look great on paper, it doesn't lack punch. Green, though he's all gas and no brake, and Alperen Sengun can dominate games offensively, and VanVleet is a rock. Jabari Smith, Eason, VanVleet, Green, Reed Sheppard, Brooks, all these guys can make 3s even if they don't yet do it consistently, and it makes the Rockets very dangerous on a given night when the defense is always there as a foundation. -- Brad Botkin
Los Angeles Clippers: B+
- Record: 14-10
- The basics: 24th in offense, 4th in defense, 11th in net rating (+2.5)
- One reason for optimism: The defense has been phenomenal, and while there could be some regression to the mean in terms of opponent 3-point shooting, this is a tough, physical team that's difficult to score against. That's not something that just goes away.
- One reason for pessimism: The offense has been really bad, and that's with Norman Powell having a better scoring season than could have reasonably been expected. It's hard to ask the defense to keep pitching shutouts every game to give yourself a chance to win.
With Kawhi Leonard would be out indefinitely to start the season and Paul George in Philadelphia, it was fair to wonder whether the Clippers even had enough left to even compete for a Play-In spot. Well, here we are a quarter of the way into the season and they're four games over .500, one game out of the No. 3 seed. You'd think that in order for that to happen, James Harden would have to be putting up a monster offensive season -- he's averaging 22 points and shooting 38% from the field. This team has won with stout defense and timely scoring, and it's safe to say that the Clippers have far surpassed expectations to this point. -- Colin Ward-Henninger
Los Angeles Lakers: C+
- Record: 12-10
- The basics: 13th in offense, 27th in defense, 23rd in net rating (-4.7)
- One reason for optimism: JJ Redick has introduced far more ball-movement to the Laker offense, as they have jumped from 25th to 10th in passes per game this season.
- One reason for pessimism: LeBron James is scoring fewer points per game than he has in any season since he was a rookie.
JJ Redick did such a good in his first month or so coaching the Lakers that the basketball largely world forgot what a flawed roster he inherited. He took over a roster that literally did not add a single veteran last offseason, introduced pace and ball-movement, and suddenly the Lakers were humming again. Unfortunately, a 10-4 start was followed by a 2-6 stretch once the schedule got harder and the injuries piled up. Now Redick needs to figure out how to maximize a roster built around a visibly aging soon-to-be-quadragenarian, a guard rotation that can't stop a nosebleed and a total lack of size outside of Anthony Davis, who has regressed significantly from his MVP-caliber start due to a foot injury. Redick has held this poorly conceived mishmash of role players together with duct tape so far this season, but if their four 25-point losses in the past 12 days are any indication, he may not be able to do it much longer. -- Sam Quinn
Memphis Grizzlies: A
- Record: 14-8
- The basics: 5th in offense, 7th in defense, 4th in net rating (+7.5)
- One reason for optimism: The Grizzlies have the NBA's fourth-best net rating with Ja Morant, Desmond Bane, Jaren Jackson Jr. and Marcus Smart playing a grand total of 25 minutes together (+17 net rating in those minutes, by the way). If they ever get healthy, championship contention is not unreasonable.
- One reason for pessimism: In order to find Memphis in the clutch net rating rankings you must keep scrolling ... and scrolling ... and scrolling. They rank 29th, just ahead of the paltry Washington Wizards, in clutch efficiency at minus-32.5 per 100 possessions. Of course part of that is injuries, but that's a drastically bad mark for a team this good, and therefore worth keeping an eye on.
I'm not into Harry Potter, but Taylor Jenkins must be a magician or wizard or something. It doesn't matter who's on the floor, the Grizzlies just win basketball games. They're one of four teams in the top-10 in both offense and defense despite all of their major pieces except Jackson Jr. missing significant time, as players like Scotty Pippen Jr., Jaylen Wells and Jay Huff have become rotation mainstays. Jenkins will play anyone, anywhere, any time and so far he's pushed all the right buttons. It will be scary to see what this team can do if they're ever fully healthy. -- Colin Ward-Henninger
Minnesota Timberwolves: B-
- Record: 11-10
- The basics: 17th in offense, 6th in defense, 10th in net rating (+3.5)
- One reason for optimism: Anthony Edwards leads the NBA in made 3-pointers after spending his first four seasons as a roughly average shooter.
- One reason for pessimism: Their three highest-paid perimeter players outside of Anthony Edwards are shooting a combined 38.3% from the floor and 33.3% on 3s.
Adjusting to life after Karl-Anthony Towns has been… difficult. Anthony Edwards has done his part, increasing both his 3-point volume and efficiency to elite levels to make up for the spacing lost without Towns. Of course, even with Julius Randle shooting relatively well on jumpers, Edwards isn't getting to the rim nearly as much, and it would help if any of the other perimeter Timberwolves could make a single shot. After a slow start, the defense is at least back to playing at an elite level. No defense has been better over its last eight games than Minnesota's. Eventually the role players will start making shots, but Minnesota's success or failure this season will be determined by the Edwards-Randle partnership. Edwards is making the best of a bad situation, but defenses just don't guard Randle the way they did Towns. He's not getting to the rim nearly enough to compensate, nor has his playmaking been as much of a boost as they'd hoped. Now that his 3 is going cold as well, the Timberwolves are going to have a hard time scoring if they can't figure out how exactly to utilize their new power forward in conjunction with Edwards, not just alongside him. -- Sam Quinn
New Orleans Pelicans: F
- Record: 4-18
- The basics: 29th in offense, 28th in defense, 29th in net rating (-12.9)
- One reason for optimism: Their top six players (Zion Williamson, Brandon Ingram, CJ McCollum, Trey Murphy, Dejounte Murray and Herb Jones) have missed 81 of a possible 132 games.
- One reason for pessimism: No team has started a season 4-18 and made the playoffs this century.
I landed on the injuries as a reason for optimism solely because they mean things can't possibly get worse. They're slowly becoming an NBA team again as opposed to a G-League outfit dressing up like one. But the math suggests their postseason hopes are already over, and that's before you consider how little we know about Williamson's current timeline. There's talent here, and the emergence of Brandon Boston and Yves Missi as viable, long-term role players could mean a great deal if the Pelicans ever do manage to get their entire roster off the injury report at the same time. Until then, things remain dark. An Ingram trade would still feel inevitable if there was evidence that anyone wanted to pay a fair price for him, in terms of both a contract and a trade. McCollum is another year older. Williamson has another injury on his resume. A team only has so many chances to meaningfully contend. This could have been one of them. Injuries ensured that it wouldn't be, and now the Pelicans have to decide how they should proceed with perhaps the NBA's brittlest roster. -- Sam Quinn
Oklahoma City Thunder: A
- Record: 16-5
- The basics: 8th in offense, 1st in defense, 1st in net rating (+10.8)
- One reason for optimism: Their defense is every bit as invulnerable as they hoped. The Thunder currently lead the NBA in defensive rating, steals, deflections and opponent's field goal percentage allowed. They led the league in blocks before Chet Holmgren's injury.
- One reason for pessimism: The Thunder led the NBA in 3-point percentage a year ago, but have fallen to No. 21 this season.
The Thunder very much look like a reigning No. 1 seed that added two perfect role players without losing a thing. Their defense is dominating the league despite Holmgren and Isaiah Hartenstein not yet playing a single game together. Speaking of Hartenstein, the Thunder, who ranked 28th in rebounding rate last season, are rebounding better than anyone but Houston with him on the floor this season. They're so deep that players who might otherwise be cornerstones in normal rebuilds, like Cason Wallace and Aaron Wiggins, see their playing time vary quite a bit on a game-to-game basis. The one concern here is the shooting. A lot of Oklahoma City players, starting with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, out-shot expectations last season. Some, including Gilgeous-Alexander and especially Alex Caruso, have regressed significantly this season. The Thunder offense relies on making all of the open 3s Gilgeous-Alexander creates. If everyone starts shooting like they did a year ago, Oklahoma City becomes the heavy Western Conference favorite. -- Sam Quinn
Phoenix Suns: B+
- Record: 12-8
- The basics: 14th in offense, 15th in defense, 16th in net rating (-0.3)
- One reason for optimism: They are 11-2 with Kevin Durant on the floor.
- One reason for pessimism: Durant just suffered his second injury of the season and is now expected to miss at least a week.
The Suns generally look great… when they have everyone. Tyus Jones has solved the point guard problem. Ryan Dunn's early-season shooting might not have been real, but his perimeter defense is a boon for a team that had none of it a year ago. Center is still a real concern here. Jusuf Nurkic and Mason Plumlee might as well roll out the red carpet for drivers as immobile drop-coverage big men. But with very limited resources, the Suns have taken meaningful steps towards fixing two of last year's three core issues. The whole thing has just come tumbling down whenever Durant is out. That makes sense. This is a guard-heavy team with very few forwards, and Durant provides badly-needed secondary rim-protection in addition to his legendary scoring. You never quite know how healthy the Suns will be on a given night, but when they have their best players, they can compete with just about anyone. -- Sam Quinn
Portland Trail Blazers: D+
- Record: 8-14
- The basics: 27th in offense, 23rd in defense, 27th in net rating (-8.1)
- One reason for optimism: Donovan Clingan is the real defensive deal. In a world where Victor Wembanyama didn't exist, Clingan would project as a multiple-time DPOY winner. Clingan has recorded at least one block in all 17 of his games this season, the fourth longest such streak to begin a career in history. Scorers are making just 44.9% of their shots against him inside six feet. Only Chet Holmgren tops that mark among bigs who are defending at least four such shots per game, and even that comes with the caveat that Holmgren has played in just 10 games.
- One reason for pessimism: Forget a second-year leap, Scoot Henderson isn't even taking a step forward. It's obviously still very early in his career, but he just doesn't look like anything special. At this point, the No. 3 overall pick in the 2023 draft doesn't even project as a starter on a decent team when he was supposed to be a franchise guy worthy of taking the reins from Damian Lillard. This looks like a major miss.
Portland has registered a handful of nice wins, including one over the Clippers, Hawks and Rockets and two over the Timberwolves. The Blazers show occasionally strong signs defensively, both nothing that is consistent. Shaedon Sharpe's bucket is still fairly full of potential and he's becoming a pretty poised passer in tight quarters as an initiator, but if he can't shoot any better than what we've seen his ceiling is far lower than the Blazers want to think; the guy is 8 for 43 on pull-up and step-back 3s and 29% overall. Jerami Grant shouldn't be on this team. It's hard to give any kind of honest assessment of where the Blazers are heading because not one player besides Clingan looks like a lock to be around for the long haul. They've been decently competitive against the ninth-toughest schedule, but that's still a pretty low bar. -- Brad Botkin
Sacramento Kings: C
- Record: 10-12
- The basics: 7th in offense, 18th in defense, 14th in net rating (+1.1)
- One reason for optimism: Only the Hornets and Pacers have played in more clutch games than the Kings, who have found themselves within five points or fewer, one way or the other, with under five minutes to play 13 times this season, but they have won just five of those games. That means they're are right there in the hunt almost every night, and they are supposed to be a great closing team with De'Aaron Fox and Demar DeRozan. These close games could start swinging their way any any moment.
- One reason for pessimism: The defense just isn't there. Forty-two percent of the shots Sacramento allows are 3-pointers, and opponents are hitting those 3s at a 38.8%, per Cleaning the Glass. Those are both the second-worst marks in the league to Atlanta, not exactly good defensive company. Now take Sacramento's inability to make 3s on their own end (11.6 per game, 26th in the league), and they are struggling to climb out of a 10.5-point hole in the 3-point margin, on average, every night.
Here's some good news, perhaps: Sacramento started the season by playing 15 games in 25 days, and maybe the fatigue is taking its toll right now with losses in six of the team's last eight games. Also, teams are making a seemingly unsustainable 47% of their long mid-range shots against them, and Sacramento is forcing a fair bit of those shots, which should, eventually, swing the defensive tide a little more their way. Sacramento is a really talented team; Kevin Huerter and Keegan Murray are a good bet to improve on their identical 28.7% 3-point marks. If the clutch games swing, I still thing the Kings can be in the mix for a top-six seed, although the play-in obviously feels like a more realistic goal in a frankly unfairly stacked Western Conference. -- Brad Botkin
San Antonio Spurs: B+
- Record: 11-10
- The basics: 20th in offense, 12th in defense, 17th in net rating (-0.6)
- One reason for optimism: Victor Wembanyama's last 10 games -- 28 points, 11 rebounds, five assists, three blocks on 51/40/79 shooting splits. He's 20 years old. If that's not enough reason for optimism, I don't know what is.
- One reason for pessimism: Small sample size, to be sure, but the Spurs have a hideous minus-25 net rating in 80 minutes with Wembanyama and Devin Vassell on the floor together. Vassell is coming off an injury, but it just highlights how desperate San Antonio is for a No. 2 offensive option that has thus far been elusive.
The question before the season was whether Wembanyama could make a big enough leap to turn the Spurs into a playoff team, and so far the answer has been a resounding yes. In addition to the aforementioned offensive exploits, Wembanyama is the front-runner for Defensive Player of the Year, and he might remain there for the next 12 seasons. Chris Paul has been as perfect an addition as could be expected, schooling young Spurs every second of every game while performing well on the court -- San Antonio has a plus-8.6 net rating in over 450 minutes with him and Wembanyama on the floor together. Add in that Stephon Castle already looks like a seasoned veteran despite his offensive struggles, and there's plenty of reason to be excited in San Antonio. -- Colin Ward-Henninger
Utah Jazz: F
- Record: 4-17
- The basics: 26th in offense, 30th in defense, 28th in net rating
- One reason for optimism: John Collins is averaging 18 points on legit 50/40/90 shooting splits, which means that someone might fork over a decent asset for him before the deadline! That's ... about it.
- One reason for pessimism: Despite excellent efficiency, Lauri Markkanen is averaging just 19 points per game, down from 23 last season and 26 the year before that, and he's taking three fewer shots than he did last season. Will Hardy has expressed a desire for Markkanen to be more selfish at times to take control of the offense, and it doesn't appear that's happening yet.
The numbers speak for themselves here -- this team has been really, really bad. It's not like their injury issues have been that significant either, as most of the high-minute rotation players have been relatively healthy. The record would be fine if the young core was showing significant signs of improvement, but Keyonte George is shooting just 38% from the field and Taylor Hendricks is out for the year after a horrific injury, while rookies Cody Williams and Isaiah Collier have been dreadfully inefficient. Utah has been known to figure things out and go on winning streaks, but right now it's hard to see that happening with this group. It finally seems like it may be time to cash in whatever trade assets they can (Collins, Jordan Clarkson, Collin Sexton) and embrace the tank. -- Colin Ward-Henninger
