Around this time last year, after reviving this space with a mishmash of feelings and takes, I brought back, for a second consecutive year, my favorite season preview exercise from the preceding decade, Reading Between the Lines. At this point in the game, explaining the premise feels patronizing. So let’s just keep it movin’, huh?
Most years, including last year, this has been an East/West two-parter. The exception is the one time I actually did 30 team-specific (sadly, since lost to technology) pieces. Maybe again. One day.
This time around, I’m trying out six divisional installments. Because it appeared first in the list of NBA teams I copied and pasted to get started, the Northwest is up first.
Denver Nuggets
In 2024-25… 50-32 (#4 in the West); Lost to OKC 4-3 in the conference semis
2025-26 Win Total O/U (on October 8): 53.5
Last season, Nikola Jokić set career highs in scoring (29.6), rebounding (12.7), assists (10.2), steals (1.8), and 3-point shooting (41.7%; he shot 57.6% overall), en route to another all-time marvel of a season1. Jamal Murray, meanwhile, was largely healthy and excellent after November, when he averaged 22.3 and six assists, with 49/41/92 shooting splits. To miss the conference finals under such circumstances feels impossible.
Now, it is worth pointing out that the Nugs only bowed out after taking OKC to 7 in the second round — admittedly, they got smoked, 125-93, in that final outing, but that’s neither here nor there. More troubling going forward was a bottom-third defense (116.0 rating; 22nd in the NBA), a lack of proven depth behind their main guys, and a lack of shooting volume. Despite the fifth-best percentage in the NBA, the Nuggets attempted, by some margin, the fewest 3-pointers per game in 2024-25, at 31.9. Aaron Gordon, who was excellent when he was on the floor (and made 43.6% of triple tries), missed 31 games and only started 42. A healthier season from him should help solidify things on both fronts.
Behind Jokić, Murray, and Gordon, five guys saw at least 700 minutes of regular season action:
Christian Braun, who was excellent, averaging 15.4 points and 5.2 rebounds, with 58/40/83 shooting splits, racked up 8 Win Shares at an excellent .144-per-48 rate, and doesn’t turn 24 until April.
Russell Westbrook, who remains unsigned.
Peyton Watson, whom I remain steadfastly convinced is good, despite all statistical evidence suggesting only the opposite.
Julian Strawther, who’s been sub-replacement level through two seasons.
That last of the five was Michael Porter Jr. Young, gifted, and proven enough to yield some real assets, but glaringly indifferent to all things non-scoring — namely defense, passing — to make him expendable. For as straightforwardly excellent as his 2024-25 numbers were — 18.2 points and 7 boards per, with roughly 50/40/77 shooting splits, with a usage rate of just 20.2% — MPJ isn’t good enough at enough things (anything, really) beyond scoring to command 25% of the cap on a team with real aspirations and limited depth.
Recognizing this, interim GM Ben Tenzer elected to move on, sending Porter and the Nuggets’ 2032 first-round pick to the Brooklyn Nets, in exchange for 3-and-D wing Cam Johnson and a trade exception.
Though he’s missed quite a bit of time over the past three seasons, since 2022-23, Johnson is no worse than comparable, and in many ways has been objectively better than MPJ. Take out rebounding and last season, Johnson simply was the superior player. Not too shabby for ~55% of the cost2.
In addition to Johnson, the Nuggets brought back Bruce Brown, who was excellent during the 2022-23 title campaign, nabbed Tim Hardaway, Jr. for the veteran’s minimum, and, unfortunately for Panathinaikos, added the best backup big of Joker’s career, Jonas Valančiūnas.
In a nutshell: There’s no two ways about it: the Nuggets CRUSHED this offseason. They added depth, shooting, defense (even if only addition-by-MPJ-subtraction), experience, and financial flexibility.
OKC remains monstrous, but these guys are loaded and can give the Thunder all they want. With reasonable injury luck, it’s tough not to see this team winning 54+ games.
Minnesota Timberwolves
In 2024-25… 49-33 (#6 in the West); Lost to OKC 4-1 in the conference semis
2025-26 Win Total O/U (on October 8; all per MGM): 50.5
Despite a drop-off in regular season wins (from 56), the Wolves reached the conference finals for a second consecutive season. The 2025-26 version returns almost every key contributor. I am told, incessantly, that Anthony Edwards is not just the defining wing of this era, but a legend in his own time. Rudy Gobert is 33 and no longer at his athletic apex, but remains a game-changing defender. Jaden McDaniels is one of the NBA’s best perimeter defenders, a credible if not quite “good” shooter, and only just turned 25. Naz Reid is one of the league’s top bench contributors, only a year older. Both are on exceedingly reasonable deals through 2029. Julius Randle!
All good, right?
Well…
The Wolves were already over the second apron last year, and (understandably) just spent $225 million to re-sign Randle ($100M over 3 years; Year 3 is a $35.8M player option) and Reid (5 years, $125M). Unfortunately, to do so they had to bid farewell to one of the league’s better 3-and-D wings off the bench, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, who signed with the Hawks. Their returning starter at point guard, Mike Conley — who, like most of the Wolves’ rotation, didn’t miss much time last season — turns 38 today3. Behind him on the depth chart are soon-to-be-21-year-old Rob Dillingham, the 2024 draft’s #8 overall pick, who saw the floor for 516 minutes over 49 games as a rookie and, what, Donte DiVincenzo? Bones Hyland?
The team is apparently optimistic that beyond Dillingham, fellow sophomores Terrence Shannon Jr. and Jaylen Clark (who made 43% of his 3s and averaged 2.5 steals per 36 minutes as a rookie), and this year’s #17 overall pick, French center Joan Beringer, can bolster the depth around the veterans. Maybe. But, for a team that’s eyeing the Finals, it’s an awful lot to put on two guys who’ve played a combined 861 NBA minutes and a 19-year-old (as of November 6) rookie whose senior-level experience consists of a single season in Slovenia.
In a nutshell: This should remain a good team, but I don’t see how running back a 49-win roster minus a key role player translates to 51 wins in a division that’s loaded for bear, in a brutal Western Conference.
Oklahoma City Thunder
In 2024-25… 68-14 (#1 in the West); Won the NBA Finals
Win Total O/U (on October 8): 62.5
On the heels of one of the stress-free dominations of an NBA campaign in recent memory, there really wasn’t a whole lot for Sam Presti to do. So he spent the summer doing the stuff that needed doing. He signed reigning MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to a 4-year, $285 million contract extension that starts in 2027, and then committed to Chet Holmgren and Jalen Williams, the #2 and #12 overall picks in the 2022 draft, to the tune of five years and $526 million, starting in 2026.
OKC could get an upgrade to the rotation as the season wears, as 20-year-old Serbian point guard Nikola Topić — the #12 overall pick in the 2024 draft, who lost his rookie season to an ACL injury — looked great in summer league and at the start of camp. There’s plenty of cause for optimism, but the start of his career has once again been deferred, by 4-6 weeks, by “a testicular procedure.” Oof.
In a nutshell: The youngest and arguably the most statistically most dominant championship team in NBA history returns intact. Mark Daigneault’s rotation is still among the youngest in the NBA, and positively stacked with excellent players: Lu Dort, Cason Wallace, Aaron Wiggins, Isaiah Joe, Isaiah Hartenstein, Alex Caruso, Kenrich Williams… you’ve got to dig deep into this roster to find a lineup that’s not talented, hungry, athletic, and coherent.
These guys cruised to 68 wins last season with Holmgren and Hartenstein missing a combined 75 games. Barring a catastrophe, there’s no reason to expect them to be six games worse in 2025-26.
Portland Trailblazers
In 2024-25… 36-46; Missed playoffs
2025-26 Win Total O/U (on October 8): 35.5
I’ll be honest, I slept on the Blazers last season, even once they started playing well. What little I did watch left me excited for Toumani Camara, guardedly excited for Shaedon Sharpe, and incredulous at Deni Avdija.
I’ve admittedly not watched a ton of Avdija over his five NBA seasons, so I really don’t even know what I thought he was. But I know I didn’t think he was that. 24.9, with 10.6 boards and 5.5 assists, with 43% 3-point shooting in his final 16 games? That’s crazy. Crazier still, the Blazers have him under contract for three more years, for under $39 million, combined. Even if he can’t maintain top-line superstar production, at just 25 years-old (on January 3), he’s a foundational piece.
I’m also increasingly concerned about Scoot Henderson. It’s not great (perhaps not shocking, but really not great) that he’s still such a work in progress. I really thought he’d have popped more by now. Of greater immediate concern than Scoot’s development is his health, after a September 26 left hamstring tear that will shelve him for a couple of months and require care to avoid re-injury.
Jrue Holiday, whom the Blazers acquired from the Celtics in exchange for Anfernee Simons, will help. I really like Simons, but if you’re not completely sold on him as an increasingly pricy cornerstone piece (he’s on a $27.7 million expiring deal), there are worse outs than a plus defender, solid shooter, and quintessential pro. That the PG depth chart, even with Scoot healthy, consists of a rehabbing Damian Lillard (I’m all in on the homecoming, but not expecting much on-court this season) and people named Blake Wesley and Caleb Love, further explains the decision. Portland might have hoped to extract more from the C’s for a dynamic, 26-year-old scorer than three years and $100 million of a 35-year-old point guard, but I get the thinking.
I admittedly have even less than my usual minimal knowledge on Chinese center Yang Hansen, whose selection at #16 overall sent folks into a tizzy. I will say, concerns about overcrowding a front line that already features Donovan Clingan and Robert Williams III feel like ado about not much. While he is excellent when available, Williams has appeared in all of 61 games over the last three seasons. I’d be more inclined to test the trade waters with his $12.7 million expiring deal that plan around him long-term.
As for Yang, the little I’ve seen since suggests he’s a, if nothing else, a real player. He may need seasoning, but he doesn’t need to be a star to justify a mid-first price tag.
In a nutshell: I’m not entirely sure what this team is actually trying to be. As best I can tell, the organization, recognizing this team is too good to tank but not good enough to try to contend, is content with one more developmental season.
In the East, the Blazers would be a fringe playoff team. In the West, they’re a frisky upstart that probably approaches 35 wins, but ultimately falls a bit short.
Utah Jazz
In 2024-25… 17-65; Missed playoffs
2025-26 Win Total O/U (on October 8): 18.5
There’s an odd strain of NBA roster that’s good for a smile… until the games actually begin. The salary dump repositories. Amusing Guy hodgepodges. Peruse the roster and you initially see the bones of a competitive core. Until, that is, the reality sets in that a) it’s not six years ago anymore, b) these familiar faces probably aren’t here for a long time (or a good time, probably), and c) most are merely biding time until they morph into Theo Ratliff’s Expiring Contract4.
The 2025-26 Utah Jazz roster features: Kevin Love, Jusuf Nurkić, Kyle Anderson, Mo Bamba, Svi Mykhailiuk, and, back for a second go-round, Georges Niang. You won’t need telling that this assemblage — largely the remnants of deals involving second-round picks and swaps, trade exceptions, Colin Sexton, and P.J. Tucker — isn’t here to win games. They are roughly $47 million worth of expiring contracts, whose remaining on-court acumen is relevant to the Jazz only for its potential to garner “future assets” from teams fleeing more onerous commitments, with a couple (Slow-Mo, Niang, Nurkić) put in a few sufficiently solid shifts in Utah to attract some win-now interest.
The Jazz have been building deconstructing to this for a couple of years now. The last two drafts have yielded a couple of good young players in Keyonte George (16.8 and 5.6 assists per game in ‘24-’25) and Brice Sensabaugh (42.2% on 5.2 3s), a potentially useful role player in Kyle Filipowski, and varying degrees of angst with Cody Williams (drafted #10 overall in 2024), Isaiah Collier (#29 in ‘24), and Taylor Hendricks, the #9 overall pick in 2023, who suffered a broken fibula last November. There’s not a GUY among them. With #5 overall pick Ace Bailey seemingly at peace with playing in Salt Lake City, there’s something to dream on:
But even if Bailey is everything the Jazz are hoping for, this team needs more young, high-end talent. The cleanest path to this is a whole lotta losing. That’s why Collin Sexton became Nurk and a trade exception. That’s why Jordan Clarkson’s gone. It’s why, if things go according to plan in the standings, Lauri Markkanen, a tough, super talented 28-year-old big, could be moved in a time-aligning haul. Not that I foresee this team winning enough for it to come up, but as an added incentive to wallow in the standings, if Utah’s 2026 first-rounder falls outside the top eight picks, it goes, naturally, to OKC.
In a nutshell: 18-64 (or worse) is bad. Really bad. This team’s going to be, probably, really bad. I won’t be floored if the Jazz win 19-20 games, but, more likely, a win every five games will be too much for this group.
2005-07 Dirk gets a really raw deal. The We Believe loss was bad, sure, but the erasure of his crazy prime years feels really harsh.
I don’t even dare quantify what must be a staggering vibes upgrade.
Happy birthday, Mike!
IYKYK