One Question For Each NBA Team In The 2024-25 Northwest Divison

The NBA season is around the corner, and to preview the upcoming year, our group of experts has been asked to think of one question for every team.

Here it is for the Northwest division!

Denver Nuggets: Are the Nuggets’ young players actually good?

This season is going to teach us something very important about the Denver Nuggets. Are their young players actually good? Or is the team’s ownership just abhorrently cheap? Or both?

In the last two offseasons, we’ve seen the Nuggets let Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Bruce Brown, and Jeff Green walk in free agency — all of whom played important roles in Denver’s 2022-23 championship.

The logic behind these decisions was billed in an intuitive manner. Why pay aging veterans when we have younger/cheaper versions of them on the roster?

In theory, the trio of Julian Strawther (a sneaky sophomore to keep an eye on), Christian Braun, and Peyton Watson should be able to replace Caldwell-Pope, Brown, and Green. But games aren’t played in think tanks, they’re played on the hardwood.

During the Nuggets’ second-round series against the Minnesota Timberwolves, Strawther and Watson combined for a mere 11.3 minutes per game (Braun played a respectable 19.8). And it isn’t like the team didn’t need them to play any more than that. Head coach Michael Malone rode his starters so hard that the team couldn’t even cross the finish line, surrendering a 20-point lead in their Game 7 defeat.

The Nuggets’ owners better hope that these young guys are ready to leap into their new roles, or they will forever have to live with the fact that they wasted the prime of the greatest player in franchise history.

An anonymous NBA executive believes the Denver Nuggets are ‘stuck’ due to Jamal Murray declining and Michael Porter Jr. being overrated

“Denver’s second-best player is going backward. Jamal [Murray] hasn’t been the same. There is something about Jamal’s health and physical… pic.twitter.com/zBQpUOSqez

— NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) October 14, 2024

(It is too bad that the Nuggets’ 2024 first-round pick, DaRon Holmes II, will be out for the entire season with a torn Achilles, as they certainly could have used his combination of size and skill off the bench.) –Mat Issa

Minnesota Timberwolves: Does the bet on Julius Randle’s creation and playmaking prove correct?

For the second time in three seasons, the Minnesota Timberwolves are aiming to maximize a new pairing between Rudy Gobert and an All-NBA big man who attended Kentucky. Not a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice.

After dealing Karl-Anthony Towns away to the New York Knicks last month in a return package centered on Julius Randle, the Timberwolves have pivoted away from the core that drove them to the 2023-24 Western Conference Finals.

Broadly, Randle’s arrival provides significantly more consistent creation at the expense of Towns’ elite shooting. Minnesota’s sticky offense required added juice in both regards last season. Towns is a great marksman whose creation never quite proved reliable enough alongside Anthony Edwards’ steady ascent. Randle is, at best, a middling shooter, whose rugged creation and slashing may behoove the offense more than Towns’ skill-set could.

Aside from any potential financial benefits down the line, this is the main hope for the Timberwolves. It’s largely a bet that their offensive issues are better appeased with an injection of creation over whatever peaks Towns’ silky jumper can offer (Donte DiVincenzo, who shot 40 percent from 3 a season ago, also joins Randle in Minnesota by way of New York).

Barring no substantial decline from 37-year-old Mike Conley Jr. and 32-year-old Rudy Gobert, Minnesota will presumably be very good again this season. An assimilation period for Randle is required. Another 56-win campaign may not be in the cards, but the Timberwolves are aiming to build on their postseason run, not their regular season record. Randle and the differences in his arsenal from Towns are the foundation as to whether that can come to fruition. –Jackson Frank

Oklahoma City Thunder: Can their busy offseason propel them to championship heights?

Following the franchise’s best season since 2013, the Thunder continued moving the needle closer toward their first title. Josh Giddey’s lack of a spacing threat and their lack of girth on the interior were limiting last season. They traded Giddey for one of the league’s best defenders in Alex Caruso and signed Isaiah Hartenstein to increase their lineup versatility and defensive potential. But will their additions push them past the rest of the West and eventually Boston?

The Thunder returned all of their key contributors from a top-five defense last season. Chet Holmgren blossomed into a full-fledged defensive anchor as a rookie. He and Hartenstein (once he returns from a fractured left hand) should be a nightmare to score against at the hoop; the Thunder led the league in defensive efficiency at the rim last season (59.4%). Caruso, Lu Dort, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jalen Williams and Cason Wallace all range from good to elite defending the perimeter.

Head coach Mark Daigneault will tweak his offense to incorporate another non-shooting big in Hartenstein, but that unit should be potent again. Gilgeous-Alexander creates advantages and scores at an MVP level, while Jalen Williams is progressing toward stardom. In the postseason, Hartenstein should help unlock more options against bigger teams like Dallas.

Regardless of the lofty expectations, OKC should be one of the NBA’s best teams. High-end star talent, the deepest roster in the NBA and elite coaching all mark a championship-winning recipe. We’ll see if they can match up with the Celtics, or whichever squad makes it out of the East. –Ben Pfeifer

Portland Trail Blazers: Who is an integral part of their young core?

The Portland Trail Blazers are in the awkward stage of their rebuild. They have realized it was time to begin a new era, but they don’t hold a clear outline as to what their next contending core will look like. As it stands, their roster is littered with young talent, but almost every player brings question marks.

Shaedon Sharpe showed flashes of brilliance in Year Two, but injuries have made it hard to get an adequate sample size on him. Sharpe was limited to just 32 games last year, and now, it looks like he’ll be missing the start of this season, too.

Scoot Henderson was billed as a future star heading into the 2023 NBA Draft, but he followed up that praise with a bumpy inaugural season. Toumani Camara looked like the better rookie last year; however, his ceiling — because of his age (24) and shooting (33.7 percent from deep) — is pretty low.

Anferenee Simons is an explosive combo guard, while 23-year-old Deni Avdija is already among the Blazers’ best players, according to head coach Chauncey Billups. The problem with them, though, is that they may not fit the team’s current timeline and may be more valuable as trade assets, given they’re win-now players further into their careers than other members of the young core.

There’s the crowded big man room that currently features 2024 first-round pick Donovan Clingan, the frustrating Deandre Ayton, the uber-talented, injury-cursed Robert Williams III, and the criminally underrated Duop Reath.

This is all without mentioning the likes of Kris Murray, Matisse Thybulle, Rayan Rupert, and Dalono Banton.

The Blazers have completed the first step of the rebuild: accumulate young talent. Now, if they want to move on to phase two, they need to figure out which of these players are worth building around. –Mat Issa

Utah Jazz: Will one of their young players pop to become a second option next to Lauri Markkanen?

The Utah Jazz are set to have an extremely young rotation. While more known entities like Jordan Clarkson, John Collins and Collin Sexton will fill out the starting spots alongside Lauri Markkanen — can any of their litany of young players pop to become a true second option next to the All-Star big man?

Keyonte George (20), Taylor Hendricks (20), and rookie Cody Williams (19) will seemingly have large roles for a team that is in the developmental stages. George has shown flashes of dynamism as a shot creator and playmaker, Hendricks has shown off a level of versatility as a floor-stretching, shot-blocking big man that could theoretically pair well next to Markkanen, and Williams has the body of a prototypical NBA wing. They will all get their opportunity to try, experiment, fail and succeed in their own ways.

Then, there is a secondary group of Brice Sensabaugh (20), Walker Kessler (23), and rookies Isaiah Collier (20) and Kyle Filipowski (20), who will all get their opportunities throughout the season.

It’s a bit of a crap shoot to figure out which of these guys has the best chance to pop. Perhaps, George has the best chance with his ability to create off the bounce, but in order for that to materialize, he needs to improve as a shooter (33 percent from deep on six attempts per game as a rookie) and as a ball-handler (2.5 turnovers per game in 27 minutes) to truly excel.

Ultimately, it will be a game of trial and error for head coach Will Hardy and crew as they try to fit these puzzle pieces together.

The excitement, as always in a rebuild, will come from the unknown. –Es Baraheni