A number of operations have helped the team become a favorite to compete for the championship, and the West has become a devil s division again. The Thunder is in danger

From now on the 2025 offseason, there are also several happy and sad NBA teams. Among them, the Warriors are one of the most helpless teams. Because they don’t have much salary space, the team’s operations in the free market are very limited, and because they don’t have much hope of competing for the championship, no free agent will take the initiative to join them. At present, the Warriors have the most hope to sign Horford, but if they really sign the latter, they are likely to lose Kumingga, so the Warriors are now in a dilemma.

Especially after seeing other teams being crazy to strengthen, the Warriors seemed even more terrible. For example, the Lakers, who were ridiculed by the outside world some time ago, have at least won Ayton. In this way, at least the starting players are gathered. It is worth mentioning that the Lakers are one of the teams that pose the greatest threat to the Warriors to strengthen, because they also put their next signing target on Horford.

However, the strength of the reinforcement depends on whom. If the Lakers and Warriors compete, they have indeed done a good job. But in the West, the Lakers' intensity is still not enough. Looking at the team's reinforcement operations such as the Rockets, you will realize that the West will become more complicated next season. In addition to trading Durant, the Rockets also got Finney Smith and Capela. In this way, the team's forward and inside depth are directly full. The only shortcoming may be the back line, but considering that they are on the team building route of a defensive team, they can still accept the current shortcomings.

Not only the Rockets have achieved obvious success this year's offseason, but also the Nuggets, who have also become popular again in the championship with successive operations. First, let’s review the Nuggets’ past two seasons. Since winning the championship in 2023, they have lost core players every year. At the same time, because the starting salary is too high, the team has not made any effective reinforcements. Therefore, they have fallen in the second round of the playoffs for two consecutive years. This year, they even faced a collapse in the regular season. In the end, they had to cut off championship coach Mike Malone.

However, compared to losing to the Timberwolves in the playoffs last year, it is obviously easier to accept that this year's loss to the Thunder. After all, no one has been optimistic about the Nuggets from the beginning, and everyone sees the situation of their season. It is already very much beyond expectations for their seven games in the season when they change coaches and have a locker room crisis, especially in the playoffs, players such as Westbrook and Braun have key performances, so fans will not blame them too much.

In addition, they played against the Thunder until they tied for seven, which made the Nuggets management realize that they are not much different from the real champion team, which undoubtedly gave them the confidence to resolutely strengthen their team during the offseason. So when the management made great fuss, the Nuggets were very decisive this time. Their first operation was to send away Porter's premium contract and exchange for Cameron Johnson, who was also a shooter but had better defense. For this reason, the Nuggets also made a future first round. You should know that Porter, who had been selling for a long time, did not sell it. This time their willingness to post the first round also proves their determination to return to the top favorites in the championship.

After sending out Porter Jr., the Nuggets' operations are obviously far from over. So they signed shooter Hardaway Jr. with basic salary and 2023 champion Bruce Brown. The former can provide them with a projection threat. Brown is more comprehensive, with both offense and defense, and he is also very familiar with the Nuggets' system, so he can integrate quickly. Later, the Nuggets used Saric's premium contract to trade center Valan, and now Jokic's long-awaited substitute is in place.

After all this, the Nuggets' starting lineup will become Murray, Braun, Johnson, Gordon, and Jokic, so they are expected to regain the dominance of the starting lineup of the 2023 playoffs. At the same time, the Nuggets' current substitute lineup is even stronger than that year. The main rotations of the substitute are Watson, Valan, Brown, Hardaway Jr., Strauser, and young players like Pickett and Najib also have the opportunity to play. From these players, we can see that the Nuggets' current size, substitute firepower, and defensive strength have been strengthened, and players like Brown and Watson can even enter the final lineup of the game at some point.

Now, the only thing that the Nuggets seem to be weak is the position of the substitute point guard. Considering Murray's attendance in the regular season, this is still relatively critical. Therefore, the Nuggets should continue to strengthen next. If they really can't find a suitable candidate, they will most likely let Picket play more later. Due to the Nuggets' current lineup, their fault tolerance rate for training young players will definitely be higher than before.

After the start of the new season, as long as the Nuggets are running in, they are likely to be able to lock in a top three seats in the Western Conference in advance. This is considered that Jokic said that he was more conservative in the regular season plan and Murray rested. Moreover, the Nuggets' real strength in the playoffs will obviously improve, so next season they are undoubtedly the team that has the most hope to overthrow the Thunder. However, this is just a prediction after all, so if the Nuggets really want to revenge the Thunder, the next thing depends on their actual performance, which is also a test of the Nuggets' coaching staff. After all, this is only the first official season coached by Adelman.