NBA power rankings 2026-27 place Knicks, Spurs and Thunder in top tier heading into new season

Preseason NBA power rankings are back, and this first release frames the 2026-27 season as a set of championship tiers rather than a simple, flat list. In the preseason edition published Monday by NBC Sports through Yahoo Sports, the Knicks, Spurs and Thunder are positioned at the top end of the tiered power picture, setting an early tone for who is expected to contend for the title from the start of the year.

The ranking approach matters because it is designed to sort teams by realistic playoff and championship proximity, not just recent form. Instead of emphasizing one-week streaks, the preseason framework treats roster construction, overall team quality and likelihood of postseason impact as the organizing principle for where each club belongs when the regular season begins.

New York’s placement in the upper tier gives the Knicks another entry into the “championship-tier” conversation as the league moves into a fresh campaign. For New York, the practical significance is that the rankings build expectations around consistent postseason performance rather than treating the playoffs as a long-shot exercise.

San Antonio’s appearance alongside New York and Oklahoma City in the top tier also indicates that the Spurs are being treated as a serious title contender rather than a developmental story. In NBA terms, that kind of preseason labeling generally means the team is viewed as closer to contention than to the first steps of a rebuild.

Oklahoma City’s presence in the top three reinforces the Thunder’s continuing reputation as one of the league’s pace-setting teams. A preseason tiered ranking like this tends to amplify how opponents may view OKC in early matchups, especially if the rest of the league sees it as a team built to survive the variance of a playoff run.

Beyond the top tier, the article’s key idea is that teams are placed into tiers that can change as the season progresses. That structure sets up an ongoing storyline for the rest of the year, including which clubs rise into the “contender” group once rotation patterns, offensive identity and defensive consistency reveal themselves.

What to watch next is how quickly the rankings reflect reality on the court. Preseason tiers often come with uncertainty, so the first month of games matters most for separation, specifically whether teams placed in the upper tier can sustain performance against both elite competition and the league’s depth of strong playoff-level opponents.