When the NBA’s 2025-26 regular season resumes from its All-Star hiatus later this week, the Houston Rockets (33-20) will be in the No. 4 spot in the Western Conference standings.
Just one game earlier, the Rockets were in the No. 3 spot. But they’re also only a half-game up on the No. 5 and No. 6 seeds, and only two games back are the No. 7 Suns — currently in line to play in the West’s play-in tournament for the 2026 playoffs.
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At the All-Star Game in Los Angeles, Kevin Durant — Houston’s leading scorer and best player — was asked about the competitive nature of the West, and specifically how tight it is between No. 3 and No. 7.
It’s a crazy conference, man. You can look up and drop down two spots in a night and rise up two spots in a night. It just goes to show you how much great talent there is in the league, great coaching, great GM-ing in the league to put together these good teams… teams that you didn’t think would be in the running. Like Phoenix, who nobody thought would be this good and going out there and looking like a contending team. San Antonio.
A lot of teams each year have gotten better and made this conference even tougher. The Clippers are on their way back up. If you have a bad little stretch, you can drop in the standings, and that’s always tough. But it’s great competition throughout the whole league.
Last year, the Rockets clinched the West’s No. 2 seed with nearly a week left to play in the 2024-25 regular season. In turn, that made the final three games in early April largely irrelevant.
Based on the strength of the 2025-26 West, that appears unlikely to be the case this season.
Per Tankathon, Houston has the easiest remaining strength of schedule of those five teams between three and seven (Denver Nuggets, Rockets, Los Angeles Lakers, Minnesota Timberwolves, and Phoenix). That might help, but it’s likely to be a significant challenge nonetheless.
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This article originally appeared on Rockets Wire: ‘Crazy conference’: Rockets star Kevin Durant on West playoff race