NBA: Ranking teams by tiers for 2019-20 season

Tier 2: Title Contenders

Denver Nuggets, Houston Rockets, Los Angeles Lakers, Utah Jazz

Talent is the No. 1 driving force in the NBA and teams with two (or three) star players are almost always in the title picture to some level. For the Houston Rockets and Los Angeles Lakers that means a shot at the Finals if things break right in April and May.

Those teams come to their status from very different paths. The Rockets have been the foil to the Golden State Warriors for the past five years, losing four times to the Warriors (and never to anyone else).

The Lakers have been terrible over the same stretch, not once making the postseason, yet have two top-10 players and a rebuilt rotation, not to mention one of those stars being LeBron James.

Balancing out this tier are the Denver Nuggets and Utah Jazz. The Nuggets were the breakout team a year ago, with Nikola Jokic coming into his own and a deep but starless team coming together around him.

To win it all they likely need Jamal Murray to take the next step, but even with inconsistent Murray a year ago they came within a few minutes of the Western Conference Finals. Marginal improvement roster-wide and they’re in the thick of it again this year.

Utah has always been the deep team version of a contender, even as they have fallen short in recent seasons. This is in part because their best player, Rudy Gobert, is unable to create offense in the postseason.

The Jazz have flipped the script, adding Mike Conley and Bojan Bogdanovic alongside Gobert and Donovan Mitchell to ignite their offensive firepower, trusting in Gobert to defend the back line without Derrick Favors at his side.

Things would need to fall into place for any of these teams to make it to the NBA Finals, namely the Clippers stumbling. The road in the West is tough enough that whatever team makes it will have truly earned it.