Dallas superstar Luka Doncic is producing yet another stellar season, but is doing more of the heavy lifting this time around. Photo: Getty Images.

With each and every NBA team having played at least 25 games to this point, it’s high time we looked at how the sides are travelling so far.

Today it’s time to look to the West, after our Eastern grades came out last week.

The remaining seven teams from the West will be published later this week.

**A note that these grades are made in relation to a team’s pre-season expectations.

Dallas Mavericks (14-14 record at the time of writing)
Grade: C

I’m positive that the Mavericks hierarchy hoped for more than this.

Luka Doncic’s season thus far has earned an ALL CAPS A+ but his teammates haven’t really come along for the ride.

Big off-season acquisition Christian Wood has been a per-minute monster, though coach Jason Kidd doesn’t trust his admittedly spotty defence enough to play him big minutes.

JaVale McGee is already nothing more than a sunk cost, Spencer Dinwiddie has been at times brilliant but remains maddeningly inconsistent, while designated shooters Tim Hardaway Jr, Dorian Finney-Smith and especially Reggie Bullock have struggled mightily.

On a positive note, young Australian wing Josh Green has looked the part as he becomes a regular in the Mavs rotation.

Dallas might be a team that has a mid-season move in it. Another playmaker, maybe? Perhaps the team underestimated the impact that the departed Jalen Brunson had on them.

Denver Nuggets (17-10)
Grade: B+

Given Denver was always going to have to cautiously reintegrate Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr back into its set-up, sitting third in the West at the time of writing can’t be seen as anything other than a success.

The Nuggets’ key off-season additions of Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Bruce Brown have both fit seamlessly into Denver’s schemes, Aaron Gordon was designed in a lab to play alongside Nikola Jokic and Bones Hyland continues to impress as a microwave scorer off the bench.

Despite the positives, so much of what Denver does still relies on the almost omnipotent Jokic.

When the reigning two-time MVP is on the floor Denver looks like a genuine contender, able to take down anybody. When he sits … yikes!

The Nuggets bench ranks 28th in the NBA with a -4.3 net rating; Murray is showing periodic flashes of his old brilliance but is understandably very inconsistent; and Porter is playing at about 75 per cent of what he was in his breakout 2021 campaign.

Defensively, Denver is as poor as you would expect, though interestingly it is currently the best clutch defence in the league – that is unlikely to last.

Perhaps most worryingly for Denver, to this point it has played one of the softest schedules in the league. It will be interesting to see if the continued reclamation of Murray and Porter can offset the more difficult fixture that awaits.

Golden State Warriors (14-15)
Grade: C

The Warriors had to make a call at some point.

Their brains trust decided that this would be the season where we would see whether their much talked about ‘next generation’ would sink or swim. So far, the results have been mixed.

James Wiseman has been an unmitigated disaster every time he sets foot on the court, Moses Moody has been hit-and-miss, Jonathan Kuminga has looked better of late after a woeful beginning to the season and Jordan Poole looked off-kilter (with reason, it has to be said) to begin the year, though he has started to come around recently.

The Warriors are poor defensively, especially in the clutch, and turn to water away from the safe confines of the Chase Centre.

There is one rather bright beacon of hope, however: the starting five.

Golden State’s regular starters (Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, Andrew Wiggins, Draymond Green and Kevon Looney) are by any measure the best five-man unit in basketball.

Their +23 net rating is miles ahead of the next best unit (Milwaukee’s starting five) who have played more than 100 minutes together.

When the playoffs come and rotations tighten up, the Warriors and their veteran core cannot be discounted.

Houston Rockets (9-18)
Grade: C+

This grade could be higher if you expected the Rockets to tank another year away, or lower if you thought that their young, exciting core could start to coalesce a little.

I’m in the former camp, not imagining Houston to be up to much this season.

So why the middling grade then? Well, I’m just a bit disappointed with what I’ve seen.

In Jalen Green, Alperen Sengun, Jabari Smith Jr, Kevin Porter Jr and veteran Eric Gordon, I at least thought that Houston would put points on the board (whilst gleefully handing them back at the other end), yet Houston ranks just 26th in the NBA in offensive rating.

As much as Green has improved as a facilitator, the team doesn’t seem to be gelling on the court, leading to some on-court ‘debates’ (check out Gordon’s ‘I’m too old for this shit’ face in the video below).

The Rox are on the right path, but perhaps not as far as along that path as they would have liked.

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Los Angeles Clippers (17-13)
Grade: B-

The Clippers are, by design, a ludicrously deep team.

When your tentpole superstars in Kawhi Leonard and Paul George have all the physical resilience of a wet tissue, you need to have options.

Despite Paul and especially Leonard – both dynamite defenders – missing substantial time thus far, the Clippers have done remarkably well to remain atop the league in defensive rating.

Much of that comes down to the shockingly underrated Ivica Zubac (averaging a career high 10.8 boards and 1.6 blocks) covering for his teammates.

The Clips’ offence, however, is just plain offensive. They rank 28th in offensive rating, take the second-fewest shots in the paint and are 27th in passes per game, aligned with mediocre jump-shooting.

Offence doesn’t have to be quick all the time; it can be deliberate and meticulous. But the Clippers’ offence is simply slow and isolation heavy.

John Wall gives them a nice injection of pace when he plays, but otherwise this team is too reliant on its superstars to make something happen.

With an expensively assembled roster and an outstanding coach, they should be better than this.

Los Angeles Lakers (11-16)
Grade: C+

The Lakers proved very difficult to grade.

Their early-season form deserved an F; the front office deserves whatever is worse than an F.

Yet, the Lakers have spent the past few weeks rounding into form, winning five of six before an Eastern road swing saw them lose three straight.

Much of the Lakers’ revival has come from the resurgent Anthony Davis who’s leading the team in scoring and his career-high 12.4 rebounds leads the league.

His jump shot has recovered to a semi-respectable 31 per cent from deep, whilst shooting a blistering 56.6 per cent overall and 83.2 per cent from the stripe.

Defensively, Davis has been a monster, able to smother literally any opponent that dares attack him, and he might be the clubhouse leader for Defensive Player of the Year at this point.

Rookie head coach Darvin Ham has had an immediate impact.

He has seemingly convinced Davis to embrace playing the five on a full-time basis with outstanding results, Russell Westbrook looks to have begrudgingly accepted that he is an impact sixth man at this stage of his career and he’s been able to get a tune out of the talented but maddeningly inconsistent Lonnie Walker where even Gregg Popovich couldn’t.

That said, this roster as a whole is just too poorly constructed to be anything more than perhaps a sixth seed in the loaded West, no matter how good Davis and LeBron James are.

Memphis Grizzlies (18-9)
Grade: A

Memphis just keeps rolling on.

No Jaren Jackson Jr to start the season? Watch the Santi Aldama train roll into town.

Lose Desmond Bane for a month? John Konchar steps in to fill the breach.

Ja Morant goes down? The perennially underrated Tyus Jones only goes and posts a casual 28 points/10 assists and 22 points/11 assists in his past two starts.

The Grizz are young and exciting; they’re also a remorseless basketballing machine.

Now, with Jackson back on the court, Memphis is protecting the paint superbly after struggling in that department early doors.

Morant has returned and once Bane comes back – expected to return before the end of December – Memphis will again be the deepest and perhaps most exciting team in the NBA.

Minnesota Timberwolves (13-15)
Grade: D-

It just hasn’t worked, has it?

The expensive acquisition of Rudy Gobert was supposed to give the Wolves a defensive identity whilst also spacing the floor vertically and allowing Karl-Anthony Towns to flash his wonderful jumper more regularly.

Instead, Gobert’s defensive identity came at the cost of the Wolves’ previous defensive identity, where Jaden McDaniels, Patrick Beverley and Jarred Vanderbilt would hustle and switch relentlessly.

Gobert has necessitated Towns’ permanent move to the four, where he is no longer a match-up nightmare.

Towns struggles to defend on the perimeter and opposing fours, with their superior speed, can guard him a little closer, thus nullifying that deadly jumper.

The twin towers alignment has also clogged up all of those driving lanes that Anthony Edwards used so spectacularly last campaign, leading to a sharp drop in production and some outward frustration.

On the flip side, D’Angelo Russell has looked good alongside Gobert, who in fairness is the perfect offensive partner for him.

There are mitigating circumstances that might buy the Wolves a little time as Gobert didn’t have a pre-season with the team due to Eurobasket commitments and Towns missed large chunks of the camp through yet another COVID diagnosis.

That said, this is not anywhere near what the Wolves had in mind.

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