Offseason Power Rankings: Spurs and Thunder rule the West

The Spurs and Thunder battled through a contested seven-game series in the 2026 Western Conference Finals.

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The Eastern Conference may be the deeper when it comes to teams that could finish with winning records in the 2026-27 season. But the West still has the San Antonio Spurs and Oklahoma City Thunder.

Over the last two seasons (and including playoffs), the Thunder have outscored their opponents by an amazing 11.2 points per game. Simply, they’ve had two of the best seasons in NBA history. But they met their match last season, with the Spurs winning eight of the 12 head-to-head matchups, including Game 7 of the Western Conference finals in Oklahoma City.

The Thunder have had to shed some of their depth, but they should be getting more games and minutes from Jalen Williams than they did last season, while seeing some improvement from their young core. Speaking of young cores, the Spurs’ Dylan Harper, Stephon Castle and Victor Wembanyama are just 20, 21 and 22 years old, respectively.

So it looks like we’re going to get another epic battle between Oklahoma City and San Antonio, both in the regular season and in the playoffs. But is there a third Western Conference team that can challenge the top two? Can a Play-In or Lottery team from last season climb into the top six?

Here’s a crack at how the Western Conference stacks up as we enter the month of August, with some offseason business still to be done.

Note:

For these offseason rankings, we’re looking at each conference separately, with

the Eastern Conference rankings

having been published last week. All stats refer to the 2025-26 regular season unless otherwise noted. Last week’s rank is based on how team’s finished in the playoffs, Play-In and regular season.

Previously…

May 18:

Playoff Power Rankings: How the 4 conference finalists stack up

This time last year:

Offseason Power Rankings: Thunder clear favorites to repeat in West

The archive:

NBA.com Power Rankings

OffRtg

:

Points scored per 100 possessions (League Rank)

DefRtg

Points allowed per 100 possessions (League Rank)

NetRtg

Point differential per 100 possessions (League Rank)

The league averaged 114.8 points scored per 100 possessions and 100.2 possessions (per team) per 48 minutes last season.

NBA.com’s Power Rankings, released every Monday during the season, are just one man’s opinion. If you have an issue with the rankings, or have a question or comment for John Schuhmann,

contact him via Bluesky

.