Bold Predictions for Each Northwest Team

The NBA season is right around the corner and as the schedule is slowly released, excitement is beginning to build for the regular season. The Boston Celtics will begin their title defense atop the Eastern Conference while the Western Conference is as wild as it has ever been. With so much parity and volatility in the league, anything could happen, seemingly at any moment to any team. One of the constants, though, is that the Northwest Division is still widely considered to be the best division in the league. With that, here are bold predictions for each team in the division for the 2024-25 season.

Portland Trail Blazers: Two Award Winners

Amongst the teams in the Western Conference, the Blazers seem to be the only team that isn’t in any real competition for a playoff or play-in spot this year. That doesn’t mean, however, that they won’t have an impact on how things shake out. They figure to be active in the trade market, trying to move veterans to recover draft capital as well as clear minutes for their younger players. If they pull that off with any success and the young pups are allowed to flourish, the Blazers have intriguing candidates for both Rookie of the Year and Most Improved Player in Donovan Clingan and Scoot Henderson, respectively. Henderson showed flashes of improved play and could be in line for the all familiar second-year leap while Clingan’s game makes him more NBA ready than many of his draftmates, giving Blazers fans much to cheer for even though the team might not be winning as much as they have in years past.

Utah Jazz: Kessler’s DPOY Bloom

When looking at the Utah Jazz roster, the overarching thought is that the team would play best out on the run in a fast-paced scheme, similar to the Indiana Pacers. However, when they played slow last year, they put up good defensive numbers, especially with Kessler on the floor as the anchor in the paint. John Collins appears to be playing his way out of the starting center role for the Jazz, which could lead to opportunities for Kessler to get extended windows of playing time. His per 36 defensive numbers put him up amongst the best rim protectors in the league and if he is given time on the court, he could translate those projections into reality. After extending Lauri Markannen this offseason, the Jazz seem locked into this team, meaning that they’ll need to improve internally if they want to enter postseason play. A defensive leap from Kessler is a massive step in the right direction.

Minnesota Timberwolves: A Regression to the Mean

The Timberwolves burst onto the scene this year, playing dominant basketball for long stretches, ending with a long playoff run into the Western Conference Finals. Many are projecting them to stay near the top of the standings again this year, but for teams led by young stars, maintained success is elusive, as it was for Ja Morant and the Memphis Grizzlies in recent memory. Now, Anthony Edwards doesn’t have any of the off-court concerns that encircled Morant, but teams will see ANT coming and put together more complete gameplans against him, exploiting his weaker playmaking skills. The Wolves are well-rounded enough to keep themselves in the playoff race, but Edwards is going to need more assistance from his teammates. Look for Jaden McDaniels and Naz Reid to continue improving in order to pick up some of the slack.

Denver Nuggets: The Joker Takes Home More Hardware

No player handles an increased offensive load better than Nikola Jokić in the past decade, and he’s going to have more on his plate this year with the departure of Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. Jokić has flirted with it in the past, but this could be the year where the Serbian superstar joins new teammate Russell Westbrook and Oscar Robertson as the only players in NBA history to average a triple double for an entire season. The Nuggets still figure to play a large part in how the Western Conference shakes out this year, but now they have to deal with increased confidence from their opponents who saw that, finally, the Nuggets can be had. More than likely, however, the Nuggets will continue to be quietly dominant if they can stay healthy throughout the season behind Jokić’s leadership. He remains the best player in the entire NBA and by season’s end, might have one more award to prove it.

Oklahoma City Thunder: A Trio of All-Stars

With as many successful seasons as the OKC Thunder have had where they’ve been near the top of the Western Conference, you’d think that one year a third player joined Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook in the All-Star game. The team, however, has never had a year in which they have sent three players to the All-Star team, until maybe this year. Assuming health, the Thunder are now one of the deepest teams in the entire NBA with the additions of Alex Caruso and Isaiah Hartenstein, but they are also extremely strong at the top of their roster. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is almost a guarantee to head to San Francisco, but both Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren are candidates to join him if they show continued improvement. There wouldn’t be a lot of surprise around the league if this ends up being the case for the OKC Thunder, who would need to be the undoubted #1 seed in the conference at that point.