Just because the NBA season just ended — with the Oklahoma City Thunder claiming their first championship since relocating to the city — that doesn’t mean that the balance of power across the league hasn’t already shifted.

The 2025 NBA Draft provided a chance for plenty of teams to infuse young talent into their rosters with the aim, aside from Oklahoma City, to become the eighth different team in as many years to win the title.

Free agency, which is right around the corner (beginning Monday, June 30), presents the next chance for teams to add to their rosters.

Here are USA TODAY Sports’ post-playoffs, post-NBA draft power rankings:

1. Oklahoma City Thunder

The NBA champs have their young core in place, players like 2024-25 rookie Nikola Topić — a skilled, 19-year-old guard who didn’t step on the court at all this season — and added a skilled big in Thomas Sorber at No. 15 who should develop in the program.

2. Houston Rockets

A dynamic young team with an excellent coach in Ime Udoka just took a huge, win-now swing for an elite player in Kevin Durant. The Rockets could become very dangerous.

3. New York Knicks

A lot will depend on the head coach they hire, but — given the massive injury ramifications across the East — the Knicks get a boost just because they have their core healthy.

4. Minnesota Timberwolves

Their first-round draft pick — mobile big man Joan Beringer — is an 18-year-old project who doesn’t help the Timberwolves get past the conference finals hump, but they have a very good core in place.

5. Indiana Pacers

It’s tough to see the Eastern Conference champs (and a team that pushed the Thunder to seven games) this far down, but Tyrese Haliburton’s Achilles tear is devastating.

6. Cleveland Cavaliers

They were bounced out of the playoffs far earlier than they wanted, but in coach Kenny Atkinson’s first year, the Cavaliers led the NBA in most shooting and offensive metrics.

7. Denver Nuggets

With a full offseason to settle into the job, new coach David Adelman should create a more unified vision for the Nuggets. They’ll need more depth, but Nikola Jokić remains a force.

8. Los Angeles Clippers

After finishing the regular season strongly, the Clippers took the Nuggets to seven games. The roster is definitely aging so the window to win is right now.

9. Los Angeles Lakers

With a full offseason to develop an offense that suits Luka Dončić and LeBron James, coach JJ Redick should get more out of the Lakers, whom the Timberwolves eliminated in five games in the first round. Still, L.A. needs to find a center.

10. Boston Celtics

The team is undergoing a transition, with Kristaps Porziņģis and Jrue Holiday gone in luxury-tax-trimming moves and potentially more on the way out. The Achilles tear to Jayson Tatum, however, is most devastating for Boston’s chances to get another title.

11. Golden State Warriors

Adding Jimmy Butler certainly made Golden State more competitive, but the Warriors’ leaders are 37 (Stephen Curry), and 35 (Jimmy Butler and Draymond Green).

12. Detroit Pistons

They broke out last season and played the Knicks very tough in the first round. They should only become more competitive as Detroit’s young core continues to develop.

13. Orlando Magic

Injuries derailed their season, but adding Desmond Bane should make the defensive-minded Magic a little more consistent with their shooting.

14. Milwaukee Bucks

Giannis Antetokounmpo may be assessing his future with the Bucks, who have lost three consecutive playoff series and saw Damian Lillard suffer a torn Achilles.

15. San Antonio Spurs

All of a sudden, the Spurs have a dynamic and hyper-athletic core. Victor Wembanyama is the obvious centerpiece, but Stephon Castle, No. 2 overall pick Dylan Harper and De’Aaron Fox is almost too much talent at one position.

16. Memphis Grizzlies

They were able to find their replacement for Desmond Bane on a budget, trading for the rights to Washington State guard Cedric Coward at No. 11. Memphis needs to minimize turnovers.

17. Atlanta Hawks

With the additions of Kristaps Porziņģis and forward Asa Newell at No. 23, the Hawks got tremendous value and may be a surprise team in the wide-open East.

18. Dallas Mavericks

It’s a shame Kyrie Irving will miss time with a torn anterior cruciate ligament because the fit with No. 1 overall pick Cooper Flagg and Anthony Davis would be fascinating to watch.

19. Chicago Bulls

This feels like a team at a crossroads and one that has been middling in the play-in window. Noa Essengue is an exciting young player, but the Bulls need help now.

20. Miami Heat

Having struck out on Kevin Durant and having traded away Jimmy Butler, the Heat seem like a team stuck in the middle and without a clear direction. They needed play-making at guard and Kasparas Jakučionis provides plenty of it, but he’s likely a few years away from consistent production.

21. Philadelphia 76ers

This placement comes with a massive caveat. The 76ers have plenty of talent — young, mid-career and veterans in decline — but Philadelphia absolutely needs Joel Embiid to stay healthy. Regardless, VJ Edgecombe infuses dynamic athleticism on both ends.

22. Toronto Raptors

It will be interesting to see how Brandon Ingram, who didn’t play in a single game for Toronto with an ankle injury, incorporates into the offense. Same for rookie Collin Murray-Boyles, taken No. 9 overall.

23. Sacramento Kings

Sacramento is a team that may be looking to offload some of its veteran pieces, potentially signaling an impending rebuild.

24. Phoenix Suns

They’ll be without Kevin Durant and will have a new coach in Jordan Ott. They still need to figure out their Bradley Beal problem.

25. Portland Trail Blazers

The Trail Blazers have amassed four centers, three of which are 7-footers (Donovan Clingan, Deandre Ayton, Yang Hansen). The other is Robert Williams (6-foot-9).

26. New Orleans Pelicans

They actually have a lot of young and dynamic talent, with No. 13 overall pick Derik Queen being the latest piece. The fit is what’s questionable.

27. Washington Wizards

The trade of Jordan Poole should open up things for No. 6 overall pick Tre Johnson, but the continued development of Alex Sarr is arguably the most important piece for Washington.

28. Brooklyn Nets

Brooklyn had an interesting draft, selecting five first rounders, four of which were guards.

29. Utah Jazz

Danny Ainge had a tremendous draft, getting great value with wing Ace Bailey at No. 5 and guard Walter Clayton Jr. at No. 18.

30. Charlotte Hornets

Frankly, there’s not a whole lot about the Hornets that’s exciting. They did, however, add a pair of excellent shooters in the first round of the draft in Kon Knueppel (No. 4) and Liam McNeeley (No. 29). Getting Ryan Kalkbrenner early in the second round was another high-value move.

Robbie Chosen spent less than a season playing alongside Baker Mayfield with the Carolina Panthers.

The veteran NFL receiver came away from that brief stint impressed with No. 1 pick from the 2018 NFL Draft, especially his ability to ingratiate himself quickly into Carolina’s offense.

‘He was only signed there for probably a week, and by Day 1 of training camp, he knew the whole offense,’ Chosen said in an appearance on NFL Network’s Good Morning Football. ‘He was in the building early every morning and just took control, took command of the offense.’

That’s part of the reason Chosen is confident Mayfield can become a Super Bowl-winning quarterback.

‘He has a strong arm. He has all levels of his game,’ Chosen said of Mayfield. ‘He knows how to get guys going. He plays with that energy and that chip on his shoulder. But definitely, I believe he’s a Super Bowl quarterback.’

Mayfield was dealt a tough task in replacing Tom Brady upon joining the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The 30-year-old has thrived in place of the future Hall of Famer, leading Tampa Bay to back-to-back postseason appearances despite dealing with consistent changes at offensive coordinator.

The Buccaneers haven’t yet gotten out of the divisional round with Mayfield as a starter. However, the 30-year-old has performed well across his three postseason games with the team, completing 66.3% of his passes for 871 yards, eight touchdowns and two interceptions.

Chosen is among the many who have enjoyed watching Mayfield’s strong performance, both in the regular and postseasons.

‘Baker’s situation has showed that sometimes, it’s not always the player,’ Anderson said. ‘He wasn’t in the best situations, then got to Tampa and flourished and showed that he was a No. 1 pick in the draft and he has that capability.’

The Toronto Raptors and Vice Chairman and President Masai Ujiri have parted ways, just a day after the NBA draft.

Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, which owns the Raptors and the Toronto Maple Leafs of the National Hockey League, let Ujiri leave with a year remaining on his contract.

Ujiri, a former NBA Executive of the Year when he was with the Denver Nuggets in 2013, left that franchise to become the executive vice president and general manager of the Raptors.

The 54-year-old Ujiri made the Raptors a contender with seven straight playoff appearances, including in 2018, when he fired Dwane Casey, who had just won the NBA Coach of the Year award, and replaced him with Nick Nurse. He then traded fan favorite DeMar DeRozan, Jakob Poeltl, and a first-round pick to the San Antonio Spurs for Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green.

Leonard helped lead the Raptors to their first NBA championship the following season with a six-game series victory over the Golden State Warriors. Since winning that championship, the Raptors have made the postseason only twice and have missed the playoffs each of the past three years.

The team finished 30-52 this season under second-year head coach Darko Rajaković, and is left without a main executive, although Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment said that ‘Raptors front office leadership remains in place with extensions for key personnel, including general manager Bobby Webster,’ before free agency starts on June 30.

In the 2025 draft, Toronto selected forward Collin Murray-Boyles with the ninth pick and guard Alijah Martin with the 39th pick in the second round.

The NHL and NHL Players’ Association announced that they have to agreed a new four-year collective-bargaining agreement on June 27.

It will take effect after the current one expires in September 2026 and run through 2030. The memorandum of understanding still needs to be ratified by the owners and the players.

‘We can all look forward to at least five years more of labor peace,’ said NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, who didn’t reveal details out of respect for the ratification process.

The two sides previously announced a significant jump in the the salary cap over the next three seasons.

Here are the key details of the collective bargaining agreement, per reports, and what it means:

84-game regular season

It’s currently at 82 games and will change with the 2026-27 season. This will allow teams to play every team within their division an even number of games. Under the current setup, teams play four games against division opponents and three games against others.

To account for the increased number of regular-season games, the league would cut the number of preseason games by two. Veteran players aren’t fond of preseason games and there have injuries during those, including to Los Angeles Kings defenseman Rob Blake in 2024.

One-year cut in contract lengths

The current maximum length is eight years for re-signing and seven years for signing with a new team. Those numbers will drop to seven and six. This is a further change from the earlier days when teams offered contracts in the double-digit lengths with a big portion up front and less at the end to lower the overall salary cap hit.

Playoff salary cap

Currently, there is no salary cap in the playoffs, just in the regular season. Teams were able to put players on long-term injured reserve (LTIR) and exceed the salary cap by the amount of their salaries. For example, Tampa Bay Lightning winger Nikita Kucherov missed the entire 2020-01 season after offseason hip surgery but returned for the playoffs and helped the Lightning win a second consecutive Stanley Cup title. Tampa Bay used the LTIR exception to add to their roster during the season. A postseason salary cap would close off that loophole.

Which makes the Ravens’ decision to release him May 5 under the guise of “football decisions” even more dubious. Sure, Tucker’s best football – a career that makes him arguably the greatest kicker in NFL history – is behind him. But Tucker’s days with the Ravens, and perhaps as an NFL kicker, were numbered once 16 women accused him of sexual harassment while receiving massage work at eight different Baltimore-area spas from 2012-16 in a series of reports in the Baltimore Banner from earlier this year.

The NFL started an investigation in February. Tucker, who has still denied any wrongdoing, vehemently disputed the Banner’s reporting. But the NFL does not mess around with its investigations. These are well-paid, well-resourced, highly respected individuals seeking the truth. Multiple Ravens stakeholders, including general manager and executive vice president Eric DeCosta and head coach John Harbaugh, met with investigators.

Whatever investigators discovered must have been severe enough to warrant a suspension of this length with Tucker, released by the Ravens May 5, and not currently on any team.

A representative for Tucker released a statement to ESPN stating that the kicker stood behind his previous statements, which called the Banner’s reporting libelous. Those past defenses were obviously not founded in reality. The punishment after the investigation reveals as much.

 “We are disappointed with the NFL’s decision,” Rob Roche told ESPN. “Justin has always strived to carry himself in a way that would make his family and community proud.

“The people who know Justin best know his character and understand that while he remains fully committed to excellence as a football player, he is deeply dedicated to his most important lifetime roles as a father, husband, and friend.”

The Ravens called his release a football decision. But that was always insulting to everyone’s intelligence. Tucker didn’t help himself by having his worst statistical season in 2024 (73.3% field-goal percentage).

“Sometimes football decisions are incredibly difficult,” team general manager and executive vice president Eric DeCosta said in a statement at the time, “and this is one of those instances.”

Had the NFL Players’ Association, the league and Tucker not agreed to the punishment, the case could have gone in front of a jointly appointed disciplinary officer, former U.S. district judge Sue L. Robinson. Neither she nor commissioner Roger Goodell (or another arbitrator, had Goodell deemed it necessary) will have to make an additional ruling, however.

The lone disciplinary hearing heard by Robinson since the policy was created during the latest collective bargaining agreement was Deshaun Watson’s 11-game suspension and $5 million fine levied in 2022 after he faced dozens of sexual harassment allegations, also from massage therapists, in the Houston area while he played for the Texans.

People forget the league wanted an indefinite suspension of at least one year, while the union took its case to Robinson who issued a six-game suspension. The NFL appealed and an agreement on the 11-game ban and $5 million was reached.  

For Tucker, a five-time All-Pro, to get 10 games with no pushback puts him in a similar tier of punishment. That it occurred to a legendary member of the same organization at the center of the Ray Rice controversy, in which the league suspended Rice two games despite video evidence of him harming his spouse, invokes nasty memories.

Tucker was a popular figure in the Ravens’ locker room. He was the longest-tenured player in the organization until his release and the last remaining member of the Super Bowl 47 team. His career kicking percentage of 89.1% is tops in league history. Tyler Loop, a sixth-round pick in the 2025 draft from Arizona, and undrafted rookie John Hoyland are currently the only place kickers on Baltimore’s roster.

There’s been no reported interest among the other 31 teams in Tucker, who can still sign and participate in training camp and preseason games. If one wants to take a flyer on Tucker come Week 11 this November, that will be their right, same as it was the Browns’ to trade for Watson and give him $230 million fully guaranteed.  

They should keep in mind that the NFL doesn’t ban players for 10 weeks for no reason. And that reason should be enough to make them think twice.

The days of transgender athletes being able to compete at the Olympics are numbered.

The International Olympic Committee will no doubt dispute that, arguing that new president Kirsty Coventry’s announcement Thursday was only for a working group to examine how to “protect the female category.” But from her loaded language to the dearth of transgender athletes at the Games, it’s obvious this is intended as a means to exclude, not include.

“A lot of members shared with us their own experiences from their own countries that had nothing to do with Paris or any other specific sporting event. Just their cultural experiences they were sharing with us and culturally what was expected from us as an Olympic movement,” Coventry said. “That made it very clear that we had to do something, and this was what everyone agreed was the way forward.”

Make no mistake: That “way forward” will take the IOC backward. And do so in contradiction of its own research and at great harm to an already vulnerable community.

For the better part of 20 years, beginning with the 2004 Athens Olympics, transgender athletes were allowed to compete with minimal, if any, fuss. During that time, in fact, there was only one — one! — openly transgender woman who competed, weightlifter Laurel Hubbard in Tokyo.

(Two nonbinary athletes have also competed.)

But transgender women athletes have become an obsession for some folks with deep pockets and big platforms, and their disinformation campaign has now poisoned the discourse for the larger public.

Most of us don’t know anyone who is transgender, let alone a transgender athlete. Which ought to tell you how big a “threat” they are. But J.K. Rowling, Riley Gaines and the U.S. Republican Party have managed to convince even people who should know better that transgender women have both a competitive advantage and are a marauding horde about to overwhelm women’s sports.

The anecdotal evidence shows that to be patently false. There are “less than 10” transgender men and women out of the half-million athletes competing in the NCAA, according to president Charlie Baker, and probably another 100 or so at the youth level. Hubbard, the lone transgender woman to compete openly at a Games, got knocked out in the opening round of the weightlifting competition in 2021.

Even Lia Thomas, whose one NCAA title has been made into a sign of the apocalypse, lags well behind when compared with Olympic-level swimmers like Katie Ledecky and Kate Douglass.

Know what else shows this hysteria over transgender athletes to be overblown? A study the IOC funded! Transgender women might actually be at a disadvantage compared to cisgender women, researchers found, with lower lung function and cardiovascular fitness.

“While longitudinal transitioning studies of transgender athletes are urgently needed, these results should caution against precautionary bans and sport eligibility exclusions that are not based on sport-specific (or sport-relevant) research,” the researchers wrote.

But ignorance, fear and hate are powerful motivators, so here we are.

“It was very clear from the members that we have to protect the female category, first and foremost,” Coventry said. “We have to do that to ensure fairness, but we need to do that with a scientific approach. And with the inclusion of the international (sport) federations.

“We need to bring in the experts, that will take in a little bit of time. We need to bring in the (sport federations) so we have full buy-in to try and come up with cohesion on this specific topic.”

Coventry is naïve if she thinks there will ever be cohesion on this. The people howling for “fairness” will accept nothing less than the complete exclusion of transgender women, from sports and in society. That is awful enough. But if you think this won’t harm all women, you must have missed the debacle in boxing at the Paris Olympics.

For those who missed it in biology class, gender is not black and white. There are women with three X chromosomes. There are women missing one of the X chromosomes. There are women who have XY chromosomes but female reproductive systems. There are women who have naturally higher levels of testosterone and androgen.

There also are women who have external female genitalia and internal male reproductive organs — some of whom might not even know it!

Then there are the disingenuous folks who already have and will continue to use a white, heteronormative notion of what a woman is to remove anyone who falls outside it. A female athlete who is masculine presenting and has short hair? She’d better be ready to prove her womanhood.

It’s demeaning, it’s humiliating and it’s wholly unnecessary. Even track and field’s solution of using cheek swabs to weed out those who aren’t woman enough to meet their criteria is a form of discrimination, a requirement male athletes aren’t subjected to.

This transgender paranoia is just that, paranoia. Might a transgender athlete wind up on a podium some day? Sure. Just as will a woman whose parents are millionaires and could afford to give her the best in private coaching, strength training and nutrition from the time she could walk. Or a woman who has an inordinately long wingspan and superior lung capacity.

But we don’t tar and feather those women. We celebrate them.

The beauty of sports, the whole purpose of the Olympics, is for athletes to test themselves, mentally and physically. To strive for the best versions of themselves while also learning valuable life lessons about commitment, resilience and cooperation. Yet the IOC appears ready to join the chorus of those who want to make those opportunities off-limits to transgender people, simply because of who they are.

“It was very clear from the membership that the discussion around this has to be done with scientific approaches and scientific and medical research at the core so that we are looking at the facts and the nuances,” Coventry said.

The facts and the nuances are that the IOC already had protocols for transgender participation and they worked just fine for two decades. But that was never going to be good enough for the braying mob, and Coventry and the IOC appear to have decided that sacrificing transgender athletes is a small price to pay for making that headache go away.

Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.