{"id":152481,"date":"2025-07-28T07:00:38","date_gmt":"2025-07-28T11:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=152481"},"modified":"2025-07-28T05:02:06","modified_gmt":"2025-07-28T09:02:06","slug":"charles-barkley-names-his-2-most-improved-nba-teams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/07\/28\/charles-barkley-names-his-2-most-improved-nba-teams\/","title":{"rendered":"Charles Barkley Names His 2 Most Improved NBA Teams"},"content":{"rendered":"

Charles Barkley<\/a> has been an entertaining figure on television for a while. Now, not everybody is going to always agree with what he has to say. He certainly has a way to captivate an audience though. Recently, \u2018Sir Charles\u2019 gave a take that a lot of people would tend to agree with, or at least have an understanding of it. Barkley named the two NBA teams that he believes has improved the most this summer.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Jun 12, 2024; Dallas, Texas, USA; NBA TV analyst Charles Barkley talks on set before game three of the 2024 NBA Finals between the Boston Celtics and the Dallas Mavericks at American Airlines Center. Mandatory Credit: Kevin Jairaj-USA TODAY Sports<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Charles Barkley Names His 2 Most Improved NBA Teams<\/h2>\n

Charles Barkley Names Nuggets And Rockets As Most Improved<\/h3>\n

Sean Keeler of The Denver Post spoke with the 62-year-old Barkley, as the Hall of Fame power forward was in Denver this past weekend. Barkley told Keeler<\/a>,<\/p>\n

\u201cI think (the Nuggets) and the Houston Rockets have probably had the best summers (in the NBA). And (the Nuggets), they\u2019ve got the best player in the world (in Nikola Jokic<\/a>). They just needed some more depth. They kind of broke the team up after they won the first championship (2023), and that\u2019s really unfortunate. (They\u2019ve) still got the best player. You want to give them as many opportunities as possible. But I thought they had a great summer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those two teams are being viewed as championship contenders, probably one tier below the reigning champs, the Oklahoma City Thunder. Both are coming off strong seasons, but they have looked to improve over the offseason.<\/p>\n

Rockets Notable Moves<\/h3>\n

The most notable move that the Rockets made, of course, was trading for four-time scoring champion Kevin Durant<\/a>. While Houston ended last season as the second seed in the Western Conference, they at times struggled to put the ball in the basket. Having Durant, who is still one of the premier bucket-getters even as he approaches 37 years old, should make that less of a worry in 2025-26.<\/p>\n

In that deal, they gave up two starters in Jalen Green<\/a> and Dillon Brooks<\/a>. The Rockets still ensured they had proper depth on the roster. They added Dorian Finney-Smith<\/a> and Josh Okogie<\/a> in free agency. Fred VanVleet<\/a> was re-signed as were many of their depth bench pieces. Houston even signed the reigning G League MVP<\/a>, JD Davison<\/a>, to a two-way deal.<\/p>\n

Nuggets Notable Moves<\/h3>\n

Barkley mentioned how Denver somewhat broke up the team after winning the title in 2023. They lost two of their top reserves, Bruce Brown<\/a> and Jeff Green<\/a>, in the following offseason. In 2024, starting shooting guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope<\/a> signed with the Orlando Magic.<\/p>\n

The most notable move that the Nuggets made this offseason was dealing away Michael Porter Jr.<\/a> to the Brooklyn Nets in exchange for Cameron Johnson<\/a>. The 29-year-old Johnson is making about $17 million less this season than Porter Jr. It may be arguable as to who the better player is, but the move also allowed the Nuggets to add more.<\/p>\n

One of the pieces they lost in Brown has been brought back. That wasn\u2019t the only addition to Denver\u2019s bench, one that has been subpar the past couple seasons. Tim Hardaway Jr.<\/a> was signed, and the Nuggets acquired Jonas Valanciunas<\/a>. That gives Jokic perhaps the best backup center<\/a> that he has had in his career.<\/p>\n

Photo credit: \u00a9 Jim Krajewski\/RGJ \/ USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Charles Barkley has been an entertaining figure on television for a while. Now, not everybody is going to always agree with what he has to say. He certainly has a way to captivate an audience though. Recently, \u2018Sir Charles\u2019 gave a take that a lot of people would tend to agree with, or at least […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5060,"featured_media":152493,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,20,31,62,3],"tags":[50219,1006,167,69],"class_list":["post-152481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-nuggets","category-rockets","category-nba","category-news","tag-2025-nba-free-agents","tag-charles-barkley","tag-jonas-valanciunas","tag-kevin-durant"],"modified_by":"Kenny Kluska","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5060"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152481"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152481\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":152494,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152481\/revisions\/152494"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}