After the All-Star break, the NBA season officially begins. Before the All-Star break, a few teams always solidify their place in the top half of the league, but the final five to six weeks are when things really start to heat up. This time of year, every game has a slightly greater significance, particularly for clubs like the Golden State Warriors, Los Angeles Lakers, and Phoenix Suns. Despite being title contenders going into the 2023–24 season, none of these clubs have been able to regularly establish their value in the NBA Power Rankings.
The Warriors, Lakers, and Suns are currently involved in a different story. With their remarkable comeback, the Warriors have gone from being out of the playoff picture to being just a game behind the Western Conference’s sixth-seeded team. Draymond Green has significantly improved Golden State’s defense over the past several weeks, but their inconsistency on defense has been their biggest issue.
If you focus on Phoenix and Los Angeles, you will see that both cities still struggle with health issues. Devin Booker, Bradley Beal, and Kevin Durant have hardly ever played together with the Suns. In Hollywood, LeBron James and Anthony Davis are still occasionally absent from games despite consistently being listed as injured. All three of these teams have one thing in common: they have won more games lately than they have lost. In the Western Conference rankings as of right now, the Suns are positioned just in front of the Warriors and Lakers in the play-in zone.
Currently, it is difficult to envision more than one of these teams emerging from the play-in area of the standings. The West’s hierarchy isn’t going away any time soon, despite the possibility that other clubs like the Dallas Mavericks, New Orleans Pelicans, and Sacramento Kings struggle in the latter stages of the season. The teams that will make the playoffs are the Los Angeles Clippers, Oklahoma City Thunder, Denver Nuggets, and Minnesota Timberwolves. The teams captained by LeBron James, Kevin Durant, and Stephen Curry might ultimately miss the postseason as a result of this.
This season, the Western Conference is incredibly deep, which could make for some incredible basketball matchups towards the end of the season. Other than the Boston Celtics, who remain at the top of the rankings, it is still unclear which clubs, in the very competitive NBA Power Rankings, are the favorites to win the championship.
