Kevin Durant is back in Texas, Victor Wembanyama is back for the San Antonio Spurs after major shoulder surgery, and the Dallas Mavericks aren’t saying when point guard Kyrie Irving might be back from a knee injury so he can join standout defender Anthony Davis and rookie forward Cooper Flagg, the No. 1 pick of this year’s NBA draft.

The Houston Rockets added 15-time NBA All-Star forward Durant — a one-and-done college star for the Texas Longhorns almost 20 years ago — in a blockbuster trade with the Phoenix Suns in early July. It came with the Rockets fresh off their first Southwest Division title in five years and having earned the No. 2 seed for the Western Conference only to lose to the Golden State Warriors in the first round of the playoffs.

Wembanyama, the 2023 rookie of the year, missed most of the last half of his second season with the San Antonio Spurs after getting diagnosed with deep vein thrombosis, a blood clot condition that is potentially life-threatening. Surgery was the chosen path back to the court for the 21-year-old French star, who is now listed at 7-foot-4 instead of 7-3.

The Mavericks enter their first full season without star guard Luka Doncic after converting a 1.8% chance to win the draft lottery and getting Flagg, a one-year wonder at Duke 14 years after Irving followed a similar path to the NBA.

Dallas lost in the play-in tournament a year after reaching the NBA Finals, losing Davis for almost two months when he went down with an injury in the 10-time NBA All-Star’s debut a week after the widely panned trade that sent Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers. Irving was lost for the season when he tore the ACL in his left knee in early March.

Durant didn’t win a playoff game in two-plus seasons with the Suns, who decided on a major reset in a deal that landed them Jalen Green — the No. 2 selection in 2021 — and a bevy of draft picks.

Now the four-time league scoring champion joins a franchise looking for its first playoff series victory since 2020. It’s the fifth stop for Durant since leaving the Longhorns to be the No. 2 pick in 2007.

“We always got so much support here from me playing at Texas, so I always felt the love every time I came back to Houston,” said Durant, who was NBA Finals MVP in 2017 and 2018 with the Warriors and was the league’s regular-season MVP with the Oklahoma City Thunder in 2014. “So to put on a Rockets jersey, I know it’s going to go to the next level.”

Wembanyama’s health scare gave him a new appreciation for life. He spent part of the offseason visiting NASA in Houston and training with monks in China. He also added some bulk to his wiry frame, now listed at 240 pounds.

“This is my best summer so far,” Wembanyama said. “I can tell the progress is just incredible. I feel better, I look stronger, and the scale says I’m heavier. So everything is a green light.”

It seems unlikely Irving will play before the calendar turns to 2026, and Davis will have protective eyewear for the rest of his career after offseason surgery to repair a detached retina.

If the 32-year-old Davis can avoid a penchant for long-term injuries and Flagg lives up to the hype that helped soothe the hard feelings many Dallas fans had over the trade, the Mavs could chart a promising near future quickly after many thought they had squandered it by trading a superstar in his prime. Doncic was just 25 at the time of the trade in early February.

“Same thing as last year when I got traded and I had a press conference,” Davis said of his message for fans. “The goal is still to bring a championship here. I think we have a good ballclub. I think our biggest thing as a team is our health. I’m happy to be here. I’m excited to be here. And I want to win here.”

The division also includes the Memphis Grizzlies, who have reached the playoffs four of the past five seasons but advanced out of the first round just once in that stretch, and the New Orleans Pelicans, who have made the playoffs just twice in the past seven seasons and haven’t won a postseason series since 2018.

Here’s a a team-by-team look at Southwest in predicted order of finish.

Houston: A season-ending knee injury to Fred VanVleet just before the start of training camp last month dampened the Rockets’ title hopes and left them searching for answers at point guard. They could use different lineup configurations with VanVleet out, including moving 6-7 Amen Thompson out to point guard to make a big starting five that would include Durant and center Alperen Sengun, both at 6-11, along with forwards Jabari Smith Jr. (6-10) and Tari Eason (6-8). Even with this lineup, Houston needs point guard Reed Sheppard, the former Kentucky standout who played sparingly last season after being the No. 3 overall pick in 2024, to take a step forward to make up for the loss of VanVleet.

Dallas: Flagg, who was the AP men’s college basketball player of the year while leading the Blue Devils to the NCAA Division I tournament’s Final Four this past spring, joins a team with two NBA title-winning top overall picks in Irving (2016 with the Cleveland Cavaliers) and Davis (2020 with the Los Angeles Lakers), along with Klay Thompson, a four-time champion with the Warriors. “You couldn’t ask for a better situation,” said coach Jason Kidd, a Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame point guard who won a title as a player with the Mavericks in 2011. “When you talk about wisdom, you have quite a few people who have been in that seat as coaches or as players. We’re not asking him to carry the weight of the Dallas Mavericks. We’re asking him to be Cooper Flagg. And that’s pretty special.”

San Antonio: Wembanyama led the NBA with 176 blocks last season despite being limited to 46 games by the shoulder injury, and defense is a clear priority even as the team upgraded on offense. “This is a nonnegotiable,” Wembanyama said. “It’s not something you can’t do. If you want to be a part of our team and we’re going to hold each other accountable, we know the coach is going to hold us accountable, your status is defense and that is nonnegotiable.” The Spurs almost won the lottery again two years after landing Wembanyama, settling for Rutgers guard Dylan Harper with the No. 2 pick. Coach Mitch Johnson enters his first full season in the role after replacing Gregg Popovich. A five-time NBA champion and the league’s all-time leader in coaching wins, Popovich moved into the front office after stepping away after a stroke five games into last season.

Memphis: The Grizzlies will rely on the tandem of Jaren Jackson Jr. and Ja Morant — a tandem of two-time NBA All-Stars — surrounded by a mixture of new teammates. Jackson and Morant have been the core for years. The front office traded the third member of that group, sending Desmond Bane to the Orlando Magic in June. The Grizzlies will need to weather the early season as key players recover from offseason ailments. That includes Jackson and 7-4 center Zach Edey, who had ankle stabilization surgery in June. Memphis coach Tuomas Iisalo no longer has the “interim” tag. He was the replacement when Taylor Jenkins was fired late in his sixth season; the Grizzlies advanced through the play-in tournament only to be swept in the first round of the playoffs by the Thunder, who went on to win the NBA title.

New Orleans: Much will hinge on whether oft-injured star power forward Zion Williamson, the No. 1 pick in 2019, can stay in the lineup. Joe Dumars, the club’s new executive vice president of basketball operations, decided to double down on Williamson as franchise player as he tries to turn around a team that went 21-61 last season. Dumars, an NBA champion as a player and general manager in Detroit, wants Williamson to take more responsibility as a leader. The offseason additions for the Pelicans included two players who won championships with the Warriors — guard Jordan Poole and center Kevon Looney — and University of Oklahoma guard Jeremiah Fears as the No. 7 pick of the draft.