2024-25 NBA Power Rankings: Every Team’s Starting Position + a Wild Preseason Stat

After going 48-34, finishing fourth in the East and winning a first-round series, the Cleveland Cavaliers are running it back in 2024-25.

They extended Donovan Mitchell, re-signed Isaac Okoro and brought back each of their top 12 players in total minutes from last season.

It’s certainly a different approach than what most teams have done in recent years. And, given the overlap between Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland in the backcourt and Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen inside, it may have come as a bit of a surprise to some.

But incoming coach Kenny Atkinson is a creative offensive mind who may be able to better stagger those four. There’s also value in continuity.

It might be hard to group Cleveland with the likes of the Celtics, Knicks, Sixers and Bucks, but at the very least, the Cavs should be competitive every night.

After making their first Western Conference Finals since 2004 with a jumbo roster that seemed tailor-made to at least bother Nikola Jokić, the Minnesota Timberwolves made a bold trade this offseason to turn Karl-Anthony Towns into Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo.

It could very well be little more than a cost-cutting move. Wanting to get out from under Towns’ contract, which is set to pay him $61 million in 2027-28 (when he has a player option), is understandable.

But the front office can sell this as something more than that (even if not everyone is buying that).

Julius Randle doesn’t fit as well as KAT. He’ll take ball-handling possessions from Anthony Edwards, and his jump shot could have the floor pretty cramped when Rudy Gobert’s on it. But he does make the presumed starting five a bit more nimble and switchable on defense. And he’s long been an underrated creator and distributor.

Perhaps just as important, Donte DiVincenzo should be a huge boost to a bench that already features Naz Reid. He can back up either Mike Conley or Edwards, takes and makes threes at a high rate and competes on defense.

The Timberwolves should still be considered a contender (even if only a fringe one).

On one hand, the masses seemingly cooling on the Milwaukee Bucks is understandable.

They’ve been knocked out of the playoffs in the first round in each of the last two years. They went out in the second round the year before. The defensive identity spearheaded by Jrue Holiday left when he did. The coaching situation was a mess last season. And Damian Lillard, Khris Middleton and Brook Lopez are all past their primes.

Even if Milwaukee is still good, it’s fair to think they may be lagging behind the Knicks, Sixers and (more obviously) Celtics.

On the other hand, Giannis Antetokounmpo (one of the 3-5 best players in the world) is still in his prime. And for the last six years, having him on the floor has almost always led to winning minutes.

There’s still plenty of championship equity here, and adding Gary Trent Jr. and Delon Wright on the cheap should help, too. The Bucks are still on the contenders’ tier, even if they’re sliding toward the edge of it.

The Phoenix Suns were a bit underwhelming last season, but injuries limited the star-studded trio of Kevin Durant, Devin Booker and Bradley Beal to just under 1,800 possessions (or around 18 full games).

With Beal only appearing in 53 games and the rest of the team struggling to jell after major roster shakeups, going 49-33 may have been a little better result than we remember.

Simply getting better health for him (which may be a lot to ask, at this point in his career), should make the Suns better, but they also managed to upgrade some key rotation spots this offseason.

After trying sort of a “point guard by committee” approach with Beal and Booker, they now have two of the steadiest 1s in the league in Tyus Jones and Monte Morris. Mason Plumlee is better than last year’s backup 5, Drew Eubanks, too.

The expectations for this Phoenix squad may have just been a year early.

The New York Knicks’ front office could’ve easily justified sitting back and getting ready for the 2024-25 campaign after landing Mikal Bridges from the Nets.

They already have an MVP candidate in Jalen Brunson, and surrounding him with three of his Villanova teammates and another gritty defender in OG Anunoby made them a fringe contender.

But the departure of Isaiah Hartenstein and an injury to Mitchell Robinson made New York thin up front. So, it moved Julius Randle and one of those Wildcats for one from Kentucky.

Now the Knicks have one of the best shooting bigs of all time on one end of their starting five, Brunson on the other and three gritty, switchable wings and forwards in between them.

Depth is a real question mark now, but this starting five—with Brunson, Josh Hart, Bridges, Anunoby and Karl-Anthony Towns—has a chance to be the best in the NBA.

After a surprise run to the NBA Finals in 2024, the Dallas Mavericks didn’t really make any huge changes.

Their three most important players for 2024-25—Luka Dončić, Kyrie Irving and Dereck Lively II—were all on the roster last season.

But they did make changes. And if each of the three incoming wings turns into a marginal upgrade over their predecessor, Dallas should still be in the mix for a championship.

Klay Thompson is a bigger and more reliable shooter than Tim Hardaway Jr. Naji Marshall is a stouter defender and more reliable three-point shooter than Derrick Jones Jr. Quentin Grimes is steadier than Josh Green.

(Or at least, that’s what Dallas is hoping from those three swaps.)

But ultimately, of course, the height of the Mavericks’ ceiling is entirely dependent on their all-time great playmaker. As long as Luka is healthy, Dallas will have a shot to beat just about anyone in a series.

There’s a lot of projection and optimism in this ranking.

Joel Embiid could be done playing in back-to-backs for the rest of his career. Paul George is 34 and is already dealing with a knee injury. And the supporting cast for those two and Tyrese Maxey will be learning to play together on the fly.

But if (and yes, I know that’s a massive if) Embiid, George and Maxey are all healthy for a postseason run, the Sixers can win the championship.

Maxey is a budding superstar who can get to the paint against just about anyone and has somehow quietly become one of the league’s more reliable high-volume three-point shooters (he’s a career 39.6 percent shooter from deep). Embiid is one of the most prolific scorers and foul-drawers in NBA history. And George, with his three-point shooting and multipositional defense, seems like a perfect gap-filler for those two.

Consider this placement of the Denver Nuggets some mild disagreement to the general reaction to the loss of Kentavious Caldwell-Pope.

Yes, the Denver Nuggets lost a starter, but Christian Braun is better suited to defend wings and forwards and is almost a decade younger. More minutes alongside Jokić could make his individual numbers look more like KCP’s, too.

More importantly, Jamal Murray, Michael Porter Jr. and Aaron Gordon are all still there. Russell Westbrook, now that he’s adapted to being a reserve, will be an upgrade over Reggie Jackson. And Dario Šarić will almost certainly be an upgrade over not really having a backup 5 at all in 2023-24.

Yes, the Oklahoma City Thunder will still be among the younger teams in the league. Yes, this core has only won one playoff series together.

But FanDuel giving them the shortest title odds in the West makes sense.

Youth means inexperience, but it could also mean plenty of development is on the way for Chet Holmgren, Jalen Williams and maybe even Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.

And after getting the top seed in the conference last year, the Thunder shored up two of their only weaknesses with veterans.

Isaiah Hartenstein is one of the NBA’s more versatile centers and the kind of rebounder who could completely change OKC’s fortunes in that area of the game. And beyond being one of the league’s best perimeter defenders, Alex Caruso is a better and more willing three-point shooter than Giddey.

The Thunder could push for 60 wins this season.

One of the more obvious picks for the No. 1 spot in years, the Boston Celtics played like a juggernaut all last regular season, went 16-3 in the playoffs, won the Finals and brought back their entire rotation for a title defense.

Boston is like a supercharged version of the 2003-04 Pistons; a superteam without a superstar (depending on your definition of that last term).

Jayson Tatum may not be a top-five player, but he starts with four other top-50 players. He and Jaylen Brown make up one of the league’s more dangerous combinations of defensive forwards. Both score in volume. Derrick White and Jrue Holiday are the best defensive backcourt and are steady-handed guards who are willing to defer to the shoot-first forwards. Kristaps Porziņģis is the perfect, rim-protecting, floor-spacing 5 to keep defenses spread out and help the other four attack wider driving lanes.

If there’s any concern over the Celtics right now, it may be KP missing the first few months of the season recovering from an injury, but this is also one of the deepest rosters in the league. They’ll still win the overwhelming majority of their games with a center rotation that includes Al Horford, Xavier Tillman and Luke Kornet.

Barring something dramatic in the early portion of the season, it’s hard to imagine any team but this one being the title favorite for the foreseeable future.