The NBA Finals are 10 months away, but it’s never too early to start to recognize potential roster holes or franchise concerns.
The Oklahoma City Thunder won the Larry O’Brien Trophy this year, but what under-the-radar factor might derail a potential repeat? The Houston Rockets landed Kevin Durant in the offseason, but how will he fit in with a young, talented roster? And after injuries decimated the Eastern Conference playoff picture, what will the conference’s biggest contenders have to overcome to celebrate in mid-June?
From the Cleveland Cavaliers‘ injury concerns to the Denver Nuggets‘ defense, our NBA insiders break down the biggest under-the-radar concerns for 10 NBA teams with the best odds to win the title.
All odds provided by ESPN BET
0:46
Shumpert watching for OKC’s championship swagger
Iman Shumpert is looking forward to seeing how the Thunder respond after winning the NBA title.
NBA championship odds: +225
It’s hard to find holes in the Thunder’s hopes of repeating. Oklahoma City will have as much continuity as any defending champion ever has, returning every player from last season’s roster with one exception: Dillon Jones. The rookie played sparingly before the Thunder traded him to create a spot for Thomas Sorber, a big man from Georgetown who was the No. 15 pick in this year’s draft.
Oklahoma City’s core continues to consist primarily of ascending talent, led by 27-year-old reigning scoring champion, MVP and Finals MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. The only players on the roster older than 27 are reserves Alex Caruso and Kenrich Williams.
A so-called championship hangover isn’t much of a concern for a team that needed guidance to figure out how to pop the champagne bottles in the locker room after their title-clinching victory. But the Thunder, who just a few years ago were an under-the-radar franchise in the midst of a rapid rebuild, will have to deal with the pressure that follows a championship parade.
There will be a target on their backs after a summer of discussion about a potential dynasty blooming in Bricktown. Oklahoma City is now the measuring stick for the rest of the league, meaning the Thunder will get the best shot from opponents on a nightly basis. That will be a test of what coach Mark Daigneault frequently refers to as the “uncommon maturity” of his young team. — Tim MacMahon
NBA championship odds: +700
Denver entered the summer with two glaring issues: depth and defense. There is no doubt the Nuggets are a deeper team after acquiring Jonas Valanciunas, Tim Hardaway Jr. and 2023 title contributor Bruce Brown. A strong case can be made that Denver will have its best bench of the Nikola Jokic era, which is a pretty low bar to clear.
It remains to be determined how much the Nuggets have improved their defense. Denver ranked 21st last season, giving up 115.1 points per 100 possessions, the worst among the teams that qualified for the playoffs. There will always be challenges constructing a contender-caliber defense around Jokic because of his athletic limitations as a rim protector, but the Nuggets need to at least be average, as was the case when they ranked 15th in defensive rating during their 2022-23 championship season.
The Michael Porter Jr.-Cameron Johnson swap — a salary-slashing trade that also cost the Nuggets their 2032 first-round pick — was a defensive upgrade. But Aaron Gordon‘s health might be the most important factor in the Nuggets’ defensive improvement. He sustained a series of soft-tissue injuries last season, limiting him to 51 games and affecting his explosiveness. For Denver to make drastic defensive strides, Gordon has to be available and at his disruptive best. — MacMahon
NBA championship odds: +800
For as brilliant as Cleveland’s season was last in 2024-25, it ended in the same manner that the previous two did: a disappointing exit from the playoffs in five games.
And though Cleveland’s core four — Donovan Mitchell, Darius Garland, Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen — are all under 30, history has told us that injuries, even for a young roster, are something to monitor once spring arrives.
Mitchell played brilliantly for the Cavaliers the past two seasons before wearing down during the playoffs — and that was with relatively short postseason runs. This season, the Cavaliers will be satisfied only if they return to the NBA Finals for the first time since LeBron James led them there for the fourth straight time in 2018.
That’ll require Mitchell to hold up physically through the rigors of a deep playoff run — one that will require a lot of offensive creation from him and backcourt mate Garland, especially after Ty Jerome left in free agency. (But Sam Merrill is a quality third guard.)
Health on the wing is also a potential pitfall. Dean Wade is a talented player who has regularly been sidelined by injuries. De’Andre Hunter has never played more than 67 games and has played fewer than 60 in three of his six seasons. And Lonzo Ball, while a terrific fit on the court, has had well-documented injury issues and can’t be counted on for a heavy game or minutes loads. — Tim Bontemps
0:46
Mike Brown emphasizes trust in first Knicks news conference
New Knicks coach Mike Brown talks about a “winning culture” as the foundation for building a championship team.
NBA championship odds: +800
When the Knicks begin training camp with new coach Mike Brown, a few questions will be at the fore.
Will he opt to alter the club’s starting lineup, which was outscored during the second half of the season and throughout the playoffs? And will he find a way to plug the defensive issues that existed when opposing clubs focused on Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns?
Center Mitchell Robinson, who rehabbed for most of the season before rejoining the Knicks for the final month and a half of the regular season and the playoffs, could help answer both questions. He’d seem to be the most likely of the Knicks’ reserves to enter the starting five (he became a starter in the playoffs during the conference finals matchup with the Indiana Pacers), and his strength as a rim protector addresses New York’s biggest issue on defense.
Still, there are flaws in assuming Robinson can clean up everything. The Knicks need to be careful in extending his minutes given his injury history. Even when he starred for them this past postseason — at times he looked like the Knicks’ most valuable player in the Celtics series — New York was still ultimately outscored, surrendering a whopping 117.3 points per 100 possessions in the 98 minutes Robinson shared the court with Towns and Brunson.
The datapoint suggests Brown would have his work cut out in blending things for the 2025-26 season, and that he’ll need to strike the right balance in using Robinson throughout the regular season. — Chris Herring
NBA championship odds: +850
We haven’t witnessed any notable drop-off in play in recent years, but Rockets’ new addition Kevin Durant turns 37 heading into the season after coming off consecutive campaigns in which he played 62 games or more for the first time since the 2017-18 and 2018-19 seasons. Houston plays a physical style that will test the veteran’s durability. But the Rockets are deep on the wing after adding veteran Dorian Finney-Smith in free agency to replace Dillon Brooks in a group that includes Tari Eason and Jae’Sean Tate.
Durant will fill the scoring void left by last season’s leading scorer, Jalen Green, who was traded to Phoenix. But there are concerns regarding whether Houston will be able to lean on consistent offensive production in the backcourt from Fred VanVleet, Amen Thompson and Reed Sheppard, who will take on a more prominent role this season after averaging nearly 13 minutes as a rookie. VanVleet stepped up his production in the postseason, averaging 18.7 points and shooting 43.5% from 3 after hitting 34.5% from deep during the regular season. The Rockets are also looking for rising star Thompson to make a leap as a shooter in his third season.
Consistent perimeter marksmanship that complements Durant’s firepower also poses a slight concern. Finney-Smith should help there, though; he has averaged 39.8% or better from 3-point range in each of the past three seasons. — Michael C. Wright
NBA championship odds: +1500
Orlando seeks to fix its most obvious issue — 3-point shooting, as the team ranked last in 3-point makes and accuracy last season — with the addition of Desmond Bane from Memphis. One minor downside of the Bane deal is that the Magic traded two guards (Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Cole Anthony) for one. And though Orlando signed Tyus Jones in free agency, the team also lost Cory Joseph and Gary Harris from last season’s rotation. In the wake of those transactions, the Magic look extremely thin on the perimeter, which could be concerns as they use bench lineups and in the event that last season’s injury issues reoccur.
If Orlando wants to make a real run at the top of the Eastern Conference standings, it will need a few youngsters to make a leap in 2025-26. Is Anthony Black ready for a bigger role? Can Tristan da Silva build on a decent rookie season and boost his jumper (33.5% on 3-pointers) to where it was in college (39.5% in his final two seasons)? Is Jett Howard an NBA-caliber player? Might Jase Richardson contribute as a rookie, or Jonathan Isaac be able to play more than 15 minutes per game? — Zach Kram
1:33
Why Dennis Jr. doesn’t expect much from the Lakers next season
David Dennis Jr. details why he does not see the Lakers being close to challenging for an NBA championship for a long time.
NBA championship odds: +1600
Nothing the Lakers do is under the radar, so this potential pitfall might seem more obvious than the other contenders’ concerns. But until proved otherwise, L.A. is soft in the middle.
After coach JJ Redick went away from Jaxson Hayes in the Lakers’ first-round series against Minnesota (he played no more than nine minutes in any game and was benched in the final game), the Lakers signed a new starting center in Deandre Ayton.
The cost — a two-year, $16.6 million deal after Ayton was bought out of the $35.6 million he had coming to him from the Portland Trail Blazers — was a bargain. And the 2018 No. 1 pick with career averages of 16.4 points (on 59% shooting), 10.5 rebounds and 1.0 blocks is only 27.
On the other hand, he has hardly played in any games that have mattered since the 2023 playoffs with the Phoenix Suns, when he sat out an elimination game with a rib injury. He was traded from Phoenix to Portland soon after, despite having been a starter on the Suns team that made the Finals in 2021.
The Lakers’ other options at center are Hayes, who was brought back as a backup, Maxi Kleber, who played just one game with L.A. because of a right foot fracture after being acquired in the Luka Doncic deal, and Jarred Vanderbilt, their small-ball center option who has missed 99 games the past two seasons because of injuries. — Dave McMenamin
NBA championship odds: +1800
With the additions of Bradley Beal and Chris Paul this summer, plus Bogdan Bogdanovic at last season’s trade deadline, the Clippers have largely overhauled their perimeter rotation beyond James Harden and Kawhi Leonard. The problem is that Leonard is the only one of those veterans who’s a plus defender at this point; the rest are all extremely offense-first contributors.
Conversely, the Clippers’ best guard and wing defenders next to Leonard are incumbents Kris Dunn and Derrick Jones Jr., but coach Tyronn Lue doesn’t want to play that duo together because of how they compromise LA’s offensive spacing — Jones and Dunn shared the court for only two total minutes in the playoffs last spring.
The result is that the Clippers could face too many offense-vs.-defense tradeoffs throughout the course of games, as they’ll play multiple poor defenders almost all the time while being unable to fix that problem without tilting too far in the other direction, with Jones and Dunn together. New Clippers power forward John Collins will face a lot of pressure to ramp up his defensive energy, which would give Lue another reliable two-way player on the perimeter. (This won’t be an issue at the center position, as Ivica Zubac and Brook Lopez are solid on both ends.) — Kram
1:04
What is the ceiling for Anthony Edwards?
Dave McMenamin breaks down why the sky is the limit for Anthony Edwards in his NBA career.
NBA championship odds: +1800
When playoff run for the was over for the Minnesota Timberwolves in May, embarrassed by a 30-point blowout in Game 5 of the Western Conference finals, coach Chris Finch assessed the gap between his team and the eventual champion Thunder.
“I think the [way the] league is,” Finch said, “the more handlers you have, especially with all the switching … you have to have guys who can go somewhere, break the paint, make a play.”
In the next breath, Finch said he already had ample cadets in his locker room to deploy at opposing defenses in waves. “We got a lot of good young players on our roster here that didn’t necessarily get the run that maybe they should have this season,” Finch said.
But those players — namely 20-year-old Rob Dillingham, 23-year-old Jaylen Clark and 25-year-old Terrence Shannon Jr. — will not only be additional options for Finch this season.
With Nickeil Alexander-Walker leaving after signing a four-year, $62 million deal with the Atlanta Hawks, and Mike Conley regressing (the 37-year-old averaged just 6.0 points on 30.2% shooting and 3.3 assists in the playoffs, all career lows), the young core becomes essential rather than extra.
Which raises the question: Are they ready for prime time? The Wolves are coming off back-to-back conference finals appearances. Anthony Edwards, Jaden McDaniels, Naz Reid and Donte DiVincenzo are all on the ascent. Julius Randle and Rudy Gobert are proven veteran stars. Can Minnesota realistically expect Dillingham, Clark and Shannon to help take the team to the next level? — McMenamin
NBA championship odds: +2800
Jimmy Butler III will turn 36 before training camp. Draymond Green will turn 36 in March. Stephen Curry will turn 38 before the playoffs. Al Horford, the free agent the basketball world has ticketed for the Warriors, will turn 40 during next June’s NBA Finals.
That’s four projected starters attempting to fight off the aging process against a league exploding with young and improving talent. Any incremental decline from any of the four would put a dent in their already long shot title odds.
But the last time we saw all four, they were still highly productive. Curry finished as a second team All-NBA guard. Green finished third in Defensive Player of the Year voting. Butler joined the Warriors and, when paired with Curry, helped them close the regular season with a 22-5 record. Horford was a vital part of the Celtics’ playoff run.
But the season is a marathon. Rivals wouldn’t be lining up to face a rested Warriors team in a playoff series, but the challenge will be getting through 82 games intact and revved up enough to actually threaten.
They’ve run out of gas the past few years because of how hard they’ve had to push for seeding in March and April. The internal belief is Curry’s hamstring strain in the Minnesota series was a wear-and-tear issue following a sprint into and out of the play-in followed by a seven-game first-round series against Houston. They’ll need a notable leap from the younger layer of their roster this season to maintain firm playoff positioning while giving their veterans time off. — Anthony Slater
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