With less than a month remaining in the 2024-25 NBA regular season, it’s time to start putting some old story lines to bed and begin examining the playoffs. With that in mind, The Ringer assembled four of its esteemed NBA writers—Michael Pina, Danny Chau, Kirk Goldsberry, and Howard Beck—to examine five of the biggest questions as the NBA hits its stretch run. Without further ado—and before we yank our starters in crunch time, in true stretch-run fashion—here’s what we’re eyeing the last few weeks of the season.
1. Which team in the West should the Oklahoma City Thunder be most worried about?
Howard Beck: I’m not convinced that the Thunder should worry about anyone. But if we’re wondering, Who does OKC least want to face? It’s a tie between the Los Angeles Lakers and Golden State Warriors, veteran-laden teams with championship mettle who were each revived by midseason trades—the Lakers by getting Luka Doncic and the Warriors by acquiring Jimmy Butler. Yes, the Thunder are rich in talent and depth, but they have won exactly one playoff series with this core. They cannot match the savvy of LeBron James and Doncic or the collective experience of Stephen Curry, Draymond Green, and Butler. That said, it would be beyond poetic if Shai Gilgeous-Alexander had to take down both Curry (as an 8-seed in the first round) and James (in the second round) to reach his first Western Conference finals.
Danny Chau: The Warriors. Perhaps we underestimated just how much another elite creator would help Golden State grease the wheels as they rolled Vintage Steph Curry out of the vault. Butler’s table setting; he’s locking in on defense. He’s conserving energy. “When it’s my time, you’ll know it’s my time,” he told reporters recently. We know what he means. When healthy, Butler is one of the league’s great postseason performers, an absolute minutes-eating machine. It may no longer be affixed to HEAT CULTURE, but a mystique remains around Playoff Jimmy. And now that he’s on the opposite coast, it’s time to bully some new chosen ones. The Celtics won’t be the ones he’s looking to torment. It’ll be the Thunder.
Michael Pina: To me, the Denver Nuggets—the team that, more likely than not, was top of mind for Sam Presti as he upgraded the Thunder’s roster last summer—is the only serious answer. There are reasons to doubt the 2023 NBA champs (from defensive issues, to depth concerns, to a consistent inability to stay healthy, to some questionable outside shooting), but at the end of the day, there’s no harder challenge than eliminating Nikola Jokic from the NBA playoffs.
Kirk Goldsberry: The Warriors are 14-3 since the trade deadline, and their key indicators suggest that they are great on both ends of the court. They have two offensive players who can carry a team to a playoff win. Plus, when we layer in the fact that Steve Kerr, Curry, and Draymond Green have won the West six times in the past 10 years, it’s clear that they are the most experienced playoff team in the Western bracket.
2. Has Cleveland surpassed Boston as the favorite to come out of the East?
Pina: The Celtics should still be considered the favorites despite Cleveland’s commanding lead in the standings because the playoffs are very much not like the regular season. Beating Boston four times in a seven-game series is a different beast. Rotations shrink, strengths are mitigated, and weaknesses are picked at over and over again. Cleveland still needs to overcome its huntable backcourt and survive stretches that require efficient isolation offense. How will the Cavs respond to the inevitable 3-point drought or the distinct possibility that Jarrett Allen can’t play with Evan Mobley?
Chau: Not yet, but it’s close. If the Cavaliers play to their regular-season standard throughout the playoffs, they’re a mortal lock for at least the Eastern Conference finals. But that’s not how the postseason works. Cleveland has the highest effective field goal percentage in league history, but those percentages—especially from deep—rarely carry over into a best-of-seven series. Everything gets progressively tougher. Nearly all of the best 3-point-shooting teams in NBA history saw their efficiency decline in the postseason. (Eight of Cleveland’s 11 losses this season came as a result of off shooting nights.) The Cavs are one of the two best teams in basketball right now, and they have the optimal personnel to maintain their scintillating numbers.
But playoff basketball isn’t really about seeing a team at its best; it’s about managing scar tissue and learning what you can live without. It’s about seeing what a team has in it when its optimal version can’t be accessed. The burden of proof is astronomically high. We won’t know with the Cavs until they do it.
Goldsberry: Not quite. Let’s not forget last season. Boston was clearly the best playoff team in the whole league, and it rolled through the Eastern Conference. Assuming the Celtics get Porzingis back, this is pretty much the same group, and they still deserve favorite status. This doesn’t mean Cleveland doesn’t have a chance; it just means it’s easier to trust the proven commodity.
Beck: The raw data—win-loss record and net rating—would say yes. My instinct says no (with apologies to the Cavaliers). The Celtics are defending champions and still have every key member of the team that seized the title last June. Despite a mild championship hangover, they’re still on pace for 59 or 60 wins. And Boston, with a wealth of top-flight perimeter defenders—Derrick White, Jrue Holiday, Jaylen Brown, and Jayson Tatum—is uniquely suited to throttle Cleveland’s All-Star backcourt.
3. Which team has the bleakest future: the Dallas Mavericks, Phoenix Suns, or Philadelphia Sixers?
Chau: The Mavericks. Look, Phoenix won’t have full control of its first-round pick for the next seven seasons because of shortsighted win-now ploys, and Philly’s road map as a contender may have gone up in smoke, but those teams represent levels of mismanagement that still fall within a recognizable range on a spectrum. Dallas violated a social contract with its fan base, and we probably haven’t seen the full extent of the ramifications. The Suns and Sixers could fuck everything up, and it would only reinforce their fans’ unique relationship with those respective teams. What the Mavs have done has fundamentally denatured the fans’ relationship with the team. There’s NBA bleak, and then there’s existentially bleak.
Beck: It’s absolutely the Mavericks. The Suns aren’t stuck—they can replenish their draft capital by trading Kevin Durant or opt for a total reset and trade both Durant and Devin Booker for a boatload of stuff. The Sixers could bounce back quickly if their creaky stars get healthy. They also have a blossoming star in Tyrese Maxey and control of most of their draft picks. But the Mavs? Ack. Kyrie Irving, their top scorer and playmaker, has a torn ACL and will be 34 years old (or close) by the time he plays again. Anthony Davis, their best two-way player, is 32 and can’t stay healthy, either. The Mavs have just two tradable first-round picks in the next seven drafts. And in the wake of the Doncic trade, it’s hard to have much faith in their decision-making.
Pina: Unless Mat Ishbia changes his tune and realizes Phoenix can’t take a step forward until it takes several steps back, it’s the Suns. Even if they’re able to get a massive haul for Kevin Durant (unlikely given his age, contract, and leverage), there’s still so much cultural rot that needs to be scrubbed clean. Their payroll is historically bloated. Their cupboard of movable draft picks is nearly bare. They have the third-oldest roster in the league. If they don’t trade Devin Booker—a common-sense move that’s opposed by Ishbia—there’s no path to being competitive for the foreseeable future or having a future beyond that to look forward to.
Goldsberry: The Mavs do. Pro basketball is a business, and this ownership group just alienated its fan base in a profound way. Not only is the roster in shambles, but this organization will also have a tough time winning back customers for a while. TV ratings will plummet. So will jersey and ticket sales. There is a real animosity between the fan base and the owners, and that’s not great for business … or culture.
4. For the real sickos, what is the best (or worst?) tank-related story line?
Beck: It’s the Sixers. No other tanking team has as much at stake. To review: Philadelphia keeps its pick only if it lands in the top six. Otherwise, it goes to Oklahoma City. Losing the pick wouldn’t be catastrophic—just a final indignity for a team that went from title contender to tire fire in a matter of months. All the Sixers really need to regain respectability is a healthy Joel Embiid. But keeping their pick would be a massive bonus, giving Philly another young prospect in the rotation—or a glitzy trade chip.
Pina: For a moment, imagine being the Sixers and living through an all-too-realistic scenario in which you lose your first-round pick in this year’s draft and then, soon after or before, learn that knee surgery will take Embiid off the board for the 2025-26 season. It’s fair to say that no team’s fate is more dependent on the lottery’s ping-pong balls than Philadelphia’s.
Chau: I just want to take this time to shout out Raptors two-way player A.J. Lawson, pride of Brampton, Ontario, for a recent three-game stretch in which he averaged 26 points, shooting 49 percent from the field and 46.4 percent from 3 on 9.3 attempts per game. The Raptors won all three of those games, which induced a foreign emotion I’m not sure I know how to articulate. The Dallas Mavericks, who are on the verge of forfeiting games because of injuries, waived Lawson just before the season.
Goldsberry: Cooper Flagg is the obvious choice, but I’m going with Philly keeping its pick. This has been the season from hell for the Sixers, but if they can get a good pick in this strong draft, they have a real chance to have a young core of Maxey, Jared McCain, and another great young player. That would be a huge boon for a franchise staring at the Embiid and Paul George contracts.
5. What is your dream first-round NBA playoff matchup?
Goldsberry: I know everyone else will probably choose a glamorous Western Conference matchup, but I’m yearning to see Beef Stew and the fellas in the Garden. I love the Pistons’ tough-nosed brand of defense and physicality, and it would be basketball heaven to see Cade Cunningham get a star turn in Manhattan this spring. Plus, we’ll be desperate for a good first-round series in the East, and this could be a great one.
Pina: Given the fact that one team sacrificed its future so that the other could dominate the present, Clippers vs. Thunder would be incredible. Not even I would pick an upset here, but I can’t help but acknowledge that OKC couldn’t possibly run into a less enjoyable first-round opponent. Kawhi Leonard has yet to consistently look like the world-beater he was a few years ago, but with James Harden and Norm Powell, one of the stingiest defenses in the league, and a bunch of options to throw at Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, his team is way overqualified to be a pushover in the opening round.
Chau: Rockets-Timberwolves. In some ways, it’d be a meeting between the Wolves and their former selves: Houston has taken the mantle of brash newcomer, powered by an elite defense and forcing its way into the upper rungs of the West’s hierarchy. In others, the two teams couldn’t be more different. The Wolves are one of the most prolific 3-point-shooting teams in the league, while the Rockets are one of the least. Despite its personnel, Minnesota has become a rather pedestrian defensive rebounding team, whereas Houston is one of the best offensive rebounding teams in more than two decades. The two teams exemplify two distinct pressure points in every playoff series: winning the possession battle and widening the margins with 3-pointers. It’s a matchup that would feature a handful of the best athletes in basketball history. The season series is tied at 2-2, with a total point differential of two points, in favor of Minnesota. I could go for another seven games.
Beck: Sign me up for another Knicks-Pacers showdown. Their second-round clash last spring was tense, riveting, occasionally edgy, and bursting with nostalgia, with the Knicks bringing in their ’90s alums to sit courtside and Reggie Miller calling games from the sideline. Tyrese Haliburton (the “fake All-Star,” per Knicks employee Wally Szczerbiak) went toe to toe with Knicks All-Star Jalen Brunson. And the series went the distance, with the Knicks losing bodies along the way and the Pacers taking Game 7 at Madison Square Garden. True rivalries require repetition, so let’s see these two do it again.
