The defending champs always start the season on top of these NBA Power Rankings (unless someone goes full Mark Cuban and blows up a champ for no good reason), but it almost feels like the Thunder should be on their own tier to start this campaign. It’s OKC and everyone else is chasing. Let’s break it all down by tiers.

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1. Oklahoma City Thunder

(Last season 68-14)

No Jalen Williams to start the season as he still recovers from offseason wrist surgery, but on a deep Thunder team they just plug in another guy — Cason Wallace — and barely miss a beat. This feels like a team that is not going to suffer the championship hangover most teams do, expect a fast start out of the gate.

Watch that fast start as the Thunder begin defense their title in the season opener agains

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