A panel of NBA insiders have predict a massive change in fortune for the revamped Denver Nuggets in 2025-26.
In a survey of 20 coaches, scouts and executives by ESPN's Tim Bontemps, only two teams notched any votes to win a championship next summer: the reigning champion Oklahoma City Thunder, who notched 18 votes, and the Denver Nuggets, who earned the other two.
It should be noted that these insiders were polled even before All-Star Houston Rockets point guard Fred VanVleet's potentially season-ending ACL tear was reported earlier this week.
"It's no surprise that the Thunder, coming off winning the NBA title and having a roster with only two players over 27 years old, is the heavy favorite to win the title," Bontemps writes. "But while Denver received a couple votes, due to the combination of Nikola Jokic and that souped-up bench unit, the fact that there wasn't a single vote for an East team to win the title accurately reflects the gulf between the two conferences."
Will the West continue to reign?
Just last year, the Boston Celtics were riding high en route to their NBA record-extending 18th title, netted in a brisk five-game series against the Dallas Mavericks.
Now, the landscape has shifted.
Boston team president Brad Stevens broke up his championship starting five to cut costs ahead of an expected "gap year."
With six-time All-Star forward Jayson Tatum slated to miss most or maybe all of 2025-26 recovering from an Achilles tendon tear, Stevens traded away starters Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis, and appears poised to let free agent reserve big man Al Horford walk to the Golden State Warriors.
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This year's East representatives in the Finals, the Indiana Pacers, are without their own best player, two-time All-NBA point guard Tyrese Haliburton, and their former starting center Myles Turner, who departed in free agency for the Milwaukee Bucks.
Now, the New York Knicks and Cleveland Cavaliers appear poised to step up as the top dogs in the conference. But insiders apparently don't think much of their odds against the best of the West.
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Denver's front office reshaped the club's personnel around three-time MVP center Nikola Jokic, point guard Jamal Murray and power forward Aaron Gordon.
The team flipped starting small forward Michael Porter Jr. to the Brooklyn Nets for the cheaper, better Cameron Johnson, who'll replace him in the Nuggets' starting lineup. Wing Christian Braun, who enjoyed a breakout season in 2024-25, will round out the first five. Denver also traded to acquire a true backup center for Jokic, Jonas Valanciunas, after years of trotting out failed experiments, small-ball options, and washed-up vets at the position.
Beyond Johnson and Valanciunas, the Nuggets signed free agent guards Tim Hardaway Jr. and Bruce Brown to help fill out their bench depth. With leaps expected for young guns Peyton Watson and Julian Strawther, the Nuggets suddenly look like perhaps the biggest threat to Oklahoma City repeating this year, in either conference.
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