With LeBron James announcing his decision to join the Philadelphia 76ers, the major expected NBA dominoes have fallen this summer. There could still be more moves to come. You never know. We have to wait and see on the Kawhi Leonard trade, but the prevailing belief is that it will ultimately go through and Leonard will be in Toronto next year. Jalen Duren is still unsigned, but that’s a money thing; he will likely be back in Detroit.
Now that we know where LeBron is playing, it’s as clear a picture as we’ve had this summer of what each team will look like. Based on that, with the understanding that a lot could still happen (will someone finally give up the three picks New Orleans reportedly wants for Trey Murphy III?), here’s our NBA Power Rankings based on current rosters, updated from the July 13 edition.
1. San Antonio Spurs
The Spurs pulled a little rabbit out of the hat against OKC. The Thunder felt, albeit by a thin margin, like the better team for most of that series.
But moving forward, the Spurs are going to get an even better version of Victor Wembanyama (needs to establish a go-to scoring zone), Stephon Castle and especially Dylan Harper, who didn’t really break out until the playoffs.
Love bringing Julian Champagnie back. That spacing is huge, and for all the talk of trading De’Aaron Fox, for now he’s a luxury the Spurs can afford while Castle and Harper are still on rookie contracts.
Injuries will happen. Having three awesome guards is not a bad thing. Fox was an All-Star last season. He had a tough Finals, but the Spurs are smart not to panic and think they don’t need him because of Harper’s admittedly electric emergence. Depth wins in today’s NBA. And Fox is still, until proven otherwise, one of the more reliable sources of half-court offense in San Antonio.
The bottom line is this: The Spurs just beat OKC in a conference finals Game 7 on the road, then held the lead against the Knicks in the Finals for over 72% of the minutes played when at this time last summer it would’ve been considered a success if they had simply qualified for a playoff spot.
Previous ranking: 1
2. New York Knicks
Before the Jaylen Brown trade, the Knicks weren’t even listed as the Eastern Conference favorite heading into next season. That’s a joke.
What more does this team have to do? New York just won 13 straight playoff games and finished on a 15-1 run after going down 2-1 to Atlanta in the first round.
Are we really making that much of the Mitchell Robinson loss? Because everyone else is back, and Andre Drummond, though not the defender that Robinson is, can do a lot of the same things Robinson did as a rebounder while serving as an actual functional free-throw shooter.
If there’s a player in the game right now that you would rather have with a big game on the line than Jalen Brunson, you’re going to have a hard time explaining yourself. The whole “Karl-Anthony Towns is soft” stuff is dead. He was probably New York’s second-best player throughout the postseason and has settled into a supportive superstar role that is a delicate needle to thread.
All the wings. All the defense and shooting and versatility. All the chemistry and depth that Mike Brown actually uses. It’s all back, and you can’t overstate the power of a team that has now proved itself that all these things it believes in, and has believed in, actually work at the highest level.
The Knicks will go into every game next season knowing they are the best team on the floor. Knowing they can dig out of any hole. Their level of confidence is through the roof, as it should be. That is a superpower.
Still, I’m putting the Spurs slightly above the Knicks because, as I just alluded to, they won 72% of the minutes in that series and the mistakes they made to close games should be learning moments for a team that still has more room to improve than New York, or any other team for that matter. It’s close, though. The Knicks and their fans have every right to believe they should be considered the top dog until someone knocks them off. I won’t argue with that assertion.
Previous ranking: 2
3. Oklahoma City Thunder
OKC has every right to believe it would’ve beaten San Antonio had even one of Jalen Williams or Ajay Mitchell been healthy, let alone both of them.
Even without either of those guys on the floor, if Facebook
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