The 2025-26 NBA regular season is nearly here, with less than a week until games start to impact the playoff race. In preparation for the year ahead, the Sportscasting crew teamed up to highlight one key stat for every team that could have significant implications for their success or lack thereof this year. Up next is the Pacific Division.
Let’s get to it.
Read our one key stat for teams in other Divisions: Central / Atlantic / Southeast / Northwest
Golden State Warriors: 36.75
The Golden State Warriors are led by an old group, with the average age of Al Horford, Stephen Curry, Jimmy Butler and Draymond Green being 36.75. They’ll be the first team to start four players 35 years or older this season.
The Warriors will be the first team EVER to start four players over 35+ on opening night:
Al Horford – (39)
Steph Curry – (37)
Jimmy Butler – (36)
Draymond Green – (35)(h/t @TheWarriorsTalk) pic.twitter.com/nsxjLyFr47
— Legion Hoops (@LegionHoops) October 2, 2025
Is age just a number?
In all seriousness, age brings a few concerns. For starters, injuries could limit the Warriors’ potential of this group because they’re so reliant on older players to lead them. And secondly, they leaned on defense as their identity after trading for Butler last season. How much of that translates to this season with an older team?
Horford and Green seem to be a match made in heaven on both ends of the floor; Horford’s floor-spacing will allow Green to work more as a playmaker without the pressure to score and both are highly versatile when healthy on defense. But how many games can the Warriors bank on those two playing together?
If anything, this older group puts pressure on the younger players — Jonathan Kuminga, Brandin Podziemski and Moses Moody — to become consistent rotation players who help win minutes. And they’ll need to do exactly that on nights any of those older guys rest.
Golden State has the talent to turn into a contender this season. But does it have the longevity to play an 82-game season and make a deep playoff run? That’s why the age of this group matters. -Es Baraheni
Los Angeles Clippers: 25.1
The prevalence of offensive rebounding and double-big lineups was a major storyline last season, with many teams reverting away from the small-ball conventions of the late 2010s. No team prevented offensive rebounding in 2025 like the Los Angeles Clippers, with their defense posting the lowest opponent offensive rebounding rate (25.1 percent) in the NBA.
A top-three Clipper defense relied on rangy perimeter defenders and aggressive coverages for its success but controlled the possession battle on the glass. The Clippers’ rebounding engine is Ivica Zubac, who placed 10th in defensive rebounding rate (30.1 percent) and only trailed Domantas Sabonis among regular starters.
Beyond his improvements as a rim protector and pick-and-roll defender, Zubac vacuums in rebounds, overwhelming most NBA bigs with his gargantuan frame and strong hands. When Zubac hit the bench, opposing offenses rebounded 3.8 percent more of their misses compared to his minutes, placing in the 94th percentile league-wide.
Adding John Collins and Brook Lopez to the roster in the offseason should remove some of the rebounding load from Zubac. Lopez hasn’t been a productive rebounder in years but Collins ranks in the 80th percentile or better for defensive rebounding in all but one of his seven NBA seasons. The Clippers look poised to maintain this aspect of their defensive identity and repeat as one of the league’s premier units. -Ben Pfeifer
Los Angeles Lakers: 61
The finest season of Deandre Ayton’s career came in 2020-21, when he helped anchor the Phoenix Suns’ defensively and paired with Chris Paul to form a harmonic pick-and-roll partnership. That year, a career-high 61 percent of his shots occurred at the rim while a career-low 36 percent of his shots were from midrange, per Cleaning the Glass.
Since then, Ayton’s shot profile has lost its way, nosediving in 2023-24 (35 percent rim frequency, 64 percent midrange frequency) and landing at a 42-51 split in 2024-25, both far cries from the welcomed balance of 2020-21.
Now, Ayton is a member of the Los Angeles Lakers, back with a pick-and-roll savant in Luka Doncic and flanked by another brilliant facilitator in LeBron James (whenever he returns to the floor). There’s no doubting some of Ayton’s migration away from the hoop is his own doing. To a fault, he’s never been a consistently imposing player, more content to lean on his ethereal touch for fadeaways, push shots or turnarounds. But it’s undeniable that Paul’s decline, which largely began in 2021-22, and Ayton’s eventual departure to an offensively devoid Portland Trail Blazers team, have hindered him.
Although the Lakers’ defensive personnel is quite tenuous, their offense has a chance to be dynamic and fuel their chances out West. Ayton may sit central to those efforts, potentially providing Los Angeles with bona fide starting center production for the first time since Anthony Davis was traded away in February.
Can a new environment, one determined for a deep playoff run and equipped with two of the sport’s greatest passers, reinvigorate Ayton? His elite play-finishing was vital to Phoenix’s multifaceted offense in 2020-21. Alongside Doncic and James, he finds himself with a similar opportunity to deliver and steer his career back on track. Will he capitalize? -Jackson Frank
Phoenix Suns: 68.2
The Phoenix Suns have turned over a new leaf, admitting to themselves they are no championship contender, even if Kevin Durant was still on the team. But as part of their course correction, he is now in Houston. Bradley Beal is gone, too. Their failed attempt at an offensively charged superpower was doomed from its inception for countless reasons. The offense was never as good as advertised — their midrange-heavy shot profile left them little margin for error — and they seemed to have locker room issues. But their most deflating on-court issue was a Charmin soft defense.
Opponents shot a staggering 68.2 percent at the rim against Phoenix last season, the fourth-worst mark in the league. Post-All-Star Break, that mark was (shield your eyes) 71.6 percent!! If you found yourself with a layup or dunk attempt against the Suns, it was probably wide open — off a cut, off a drive, off a roll, half-court, transition, whatever.
So, with the Suns being forced to admit their championship window was not just closed, but probably never open in the first place, they took a swing on Jalen Green and otherwise loaded up with defenders. Mark Williams, Nick Richards and giant rookie Khaman Maluach comprise an overhauled center rotation. Dillon Brooks is now manning the wing with defensive standout Ryan Dunn. So, while Green and Devin Booker are not the most fearsome defensive backcourt, Phoenix has chosen an unmistakable direction.
“At the end of the day, defense needs effort, all-out effort all the time,” new head coach Jordan Ott said at his introductory presser. “And then, we’re going to have to be connected. Through the 48 minutes, there’s going to be some type of adversity. Can we stay connected to move past that and be more connected for a longer period of time than the other team?”
The previous iteration of the Phoenix Suns did not give all-out effort all the time. It did not stay connected through adversity. If absolutely nothing else, these Suns will try to accomplish such goals. And that starts with preventing opponents from waltzing to the rim. -Lucas Kaplan
Sacramento Kings: 22
I’m cheating again, I know. But this statistic is too wild not to share. The last time the Sacramento Kings were top 10 in defensive rating was 2002-03. They’ve not had a top-10 unit on that side of the ball in 22 years. That’s far and away the longest streak in NBA history. Funny enough, the team with the second-longest drought is the Washington Wizards (the other team for which I identified this as a key stat). They haven’t had a top-10 defense since 2014-15.
Anyway, with Domantas Sabonis as their starting center, it seems unlikely this will be the year the Kings’ streak ends. But we’ve seen teams build good regular-season defenses with worse defensive centers. And, as I’ve said before, the Kings have a ton of pesky perimeter defenders (Dennis Schroder, Keon Ellis and Devin Carter).
There is a world where Sacramento is good at defending the point of attack and creates a ton of turnovers. This may be its pathway to a top-10 defense – similar to what the Chicago Bulls did in 2022-23 with Nikola Vucevic as their center. That season, they were fifth in defensive rating and fifth in opponent turnover rate.
With all their raw offensive firepower (Sabonis, Malik Monk, Zach LaVine and DeMar DeRozan), the Kings will be fine on offense. So, if they can manage to also break their league-leading defensive drought, Sacramento may be better than a lot of people expect. -Mat Issa
