As the 2026-27 NBA season starts, a consensus has built around the league’s Eastern and Western Conferences. The East is generally considered to be stronger this year, mentioned in glowing terms for the first time in more than a decade. Two teams—the Oklahoma City Thunder and San Antonio Spurs—dominate discussion in the West. After that, the lineup is considered more middling than usual, with multiple teams in line to ascend into the third through eighth seeds.
This opens a door for the ascending
Portland Trail Blazers. They might not reach the elite heights of OKC or San Antonio, but considering their promising start to the year and the relatively soft underbelly of the conference, nobody is counting them out of any potential position outside of the top two.
That brings up a question today. Having seen the start of the year and the teams assembled in the West, which opponent besides the Spurs and the Thunder scares you most? If somebody else is going to take a dominant position in the conference and force Portland into no better than fourth place, who will that be and why?
Note that it’s perfectly possible to say, “Nobody!” But even then, which team makes you doubt that declaration more than the others?
Share your nominee and reasoning in the comments below!
