The Western Conference is flush with top-tier teams hoping to dethrone the Oklahoma City Thunder. Chief among them were three clear threats, however, with the Denver Nuggets and Minnesota Timberwolves being Oklahoma City's most experienced rivals, and the San Antonio Spurs being a 60-win team on the rise.
By the grace of the NBA universe, however, the Thunder have become the ultimate winners of the way the 2026 Western Conference standings ultimately settled.
The first round of the 2026 NBA Playoffs will see Oklahoma City face whichever team emerges from the Play-In Tournament as the No. 8 seed. The four teams that could secure that distinction are the Phoenix Suns, Portland Trail Blazers, LA Clippers, and Golden State Warriors.
The Spurs will face either the Suns or Trail Blazers, which will meet in the first encounter of the Play-In Tournament to crown the No. 7 seed.
The Nuggets and Timberwolves, however, have a more alarming situation at hand: A first-round encounter with one another. It's the ultimate opening matchup, as both sides have experienced remarkable postseason success with their current cores.
The winner of Denver versus Minnesota will then face either Phoenix, Portland, or San Antonio—meaning at least two of Oklahoma City's biggest threats will be eliminated by the time they could meet in the playoffs.
Thunder won't play Nuggets, Spurs, or T-Wolves until Conference Finals
San Antonio is a massive threat to Oklahoma City for two obvious reasons. For one, they went 62-20—the second-best record in the NBA. The other is the simple fact that the Spurs went 4-1 against the Thunder in head-to-head matchups between the regular season and the NBA Cup in 2025-26.
The Spurs and Thunder were never going to play each other until the Conference Finals, however, as they're the top two seeds in the Western Conference.
Denver and Minnesota, however, were potential second-round matchups for the Thunder. That would've been a daunting challenge to overcome, as the Nuggets won the 2023 NBA championship and pushed Oklahoma City to seven games during the 2025 postseason despite their injury woes.
The Timberwolves, meanwhile, have reached the Western Conference Finals in back-to-back seasons and have kept most of their core together in 2025-26.
That makes Denver and Minnesota the most experienced teams after Oklahoma City in regard to Western Conference contenders. Thankfully, by the time the Thunder have to play one of the Nuggets, Spurs, or Thunder, at least two of those teams will have been knocked out of the playoffs.
No true contender is looking to dodge the competition, but there's no way around the fact that the Thunder have a much clearer path to repeating as champions than if they'd had to face one of Denver, Minnesota, or San Antonio in the second round of the playoffs.
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