(Approximately) 30 Thoughts On 30 NBA Teams, 2025-’26 Edition

While the W was juggling its own expansion considerations over the summer, the men’s league was keeping its fist tight: the long-expected dual announcement of Las Vegas and, crucially, Seattle getting teams[1] came to nothing. Adam Silver has a commission going, and governors are now going to decide how to weigh the long-term revenue sharing benefits of two more franchises against losing all of the special events Vegas now hosts on the NBA’s behalf.

As all of that was happening, though, actual basketball teams put their plans into motion. A decade later than expected, it’s the world against the Oklahoma City Thunder. Frustrations are mounting in every direction, confusion its bunkmate; can you believe the Buss family would ever want to sell the Lakers? Bones Hyland is in Greece Minnesota now. 

We’ll get to this later, but I named my dog in large part after Russell Westbrook, who is now a *checks notes* …Sacramento King? Inside The NBA still exists, albeit on The Worldwide Leader, and “Roundball Rock” is back. In any case: we ball.

Atlanta Hawks: Grabbing Nickeil Alexander-Walker from a Timberwolves team that needed but couldn’t afford him anymore was a savvy move from a team still trying to make it work with Trae Young as its focal point. While a nice pickup stylistically, Kristaps Porziņģis (something about extortion? Mmmkay) needs to play in more than half of Atlanta’s games in order to make this work. In contrast, Luke Kennard was the low-risk, high-upside investment.

Boston Celtics: Let’s see if Jaylen Brown has any lingering Kyrie Irving inclinations. He drives this bus now, but we’re bound to see pops elsewhere – Payton Pritchard and Derrick White likely, though their shooting averages will decrease with the greater load. Only a year and change removed from a title, and with most of the roster holding firm while Jayson Tatum recovers, Boston will avoid the play-in and be a feisty first round tie.

Brooklyn Nets: Michael Porter Jr., NBA champion, wants you to consider his point of view. Following a trade from the team with which he won a title, Porter is exactly the dude he’s made himself out to be: thinking about things, considering them measurably, using “females” as a noun when talking about gambling. As great a floor-spacing big as he is, and as useful a trait as that has become, Porter affects that he is a star in a league following the very trade from the team featuring the greatest active basketball player. There’s a decent chance he’ll put up 20/6/3 on decent shooting, and the Nets will win 30 games; as ever with those of Porter’s mindset, he will believe in his own success while standing in a pit of his own rotten mud, but you can’t argue with the paycheck. I suppose.

Charlotte Hornets: (Despite the charges getting, uhh, dropped, Miles Bridges does not belong in the NBA. Let’s also continue to question why Brandon Miller delivered a gun that was later used to kill Jamea Jonae Harris).

The 2021-’22 season was the apotheosis of LaMelo Ball’s particular assertion: given an adequate backing troupe, he can bless an NBA game with his carnivalesque style and pull out a dazzling win. Ball’s only All-Star season so far, it was also the last time the Hornets finished with a winning record.

First round pick Kon Knueppel – a Duke product, obviously, because Charlotte drinks local – won over a lot of people in Vegas and has been perfectly serviceable in the preseason; fellow Duke product Mason Plumlee is back.

“Oh good!,” you sigh, comfortable in the knowledge that there remains a Plumlee in the NBA. 

Chicago Bulls: In very nearly pulling a Tom Emanski threepeat of 39-win seasons over the past three years – they won 40 in 2023! – the Bulls have handed the keys to Josh “Social Media Investigation” Giddey. In the NBA in 2025, that is certainly A Thing A Team Can Do, but the rest of the team had better be built for it, and this one isn’t as currently constructed. Billy Donovan has some work cut out for him, but the trade deadline candidates here seem obvious.

Cleveland Cavaliers:Color me insane, but getting Lonzo Ball is an underrated stabilizing move from a team that has all the makings of a conference champion but hasn’t yet put it together in the playoffs with Donovan Mitchell, Evan Mobley, Jarrett Allen and company. To that end, the Cavs figure to once again grab the 1-seed in the East, potentially topping the 64-win mark from a season ago. If they underperform, someone not named Mobley will be on the block come trade deadline.

Health always being the main obstacle: if Lonzo can be the combo backcourt backup the Cavs have long needed, Cleveland can make the Finals sans [REDACTED] for the first time.

Dallas Mavericks: The plan is working as intended. Do not let outside forces foil the goals of this mission. Cooper Flagg-as-reward is going to be a devastating force of morning talk show energy for at least a decade to come, no matter how he does as a player. Why trade the previous Next Player Up if not to have the following one fall into your lap? Only if Kyrie’s injury is historically good, and Anthony Davis keeps himself together for more than 45 or so games, does Nico Harrison’s gambit make any sense whatsoever.

Denver Nuggets: Cam Johnson is the amiable shooting big this team needs, at least this year. The front office is acting with the manic fury of knowing that the best basketball player alive is on the team. To Nikola Jokić’s credit, he seems to believe in what Denver’s front office is doing, speculative though the late season coach/GM dual-firing was last spring. Bruce Brown is back! They are either one season or one failed 50-game stretch from Jamal Murray trade spec, though, and they know it. 

Detroit Pistons: Man, get ready. After watching them take the Knicks to a tough six, it is time for Cade and co. to coagulate. We’ve got an MVP candidate on our hands with that one, and the supporting cast is leveling up accordingly. With an eye on 50+ wins, top four in the East is the target. Those two things may seem synonymous, but we’ll see.

Golden State Warriors: How much longer are we going to drag this out? Yes, the Warriors will be a contender so long as Steph Curry is on the team. Jimmy Butler’s late-period addition is exactly what the Klay era was missing, but what the Klay era wasn’t missing, crucially, was championships. Measuring contention, though, is I’m sure a thing that is currently approaching the Golden State front office, its mind both on the current and future Warriors as well as the current, upstart Valkyries, the latter of whom is in a league in a growth stage. Adam Silver, won’t you pick up the phone?

Houston Rockets: KD’s here, the extension is signed, and the clock starts now. Coming off a tough, seven-game first round loss to the Warriors, the erstwhile upstarts are in the championship window. Fred VanVleet’s torn ACL is the stick in the craw: is there enough else going on off the ball, and does Ime Udoka trust the secondary ballhandlers enough, to make honest men out of Reed Sheppard and Aaron Holiday? Is there a Point Amen Thompson or Tari Eason in there?

Indiana Pacers: 

Seth doesn’t get it. Andrew Nembhard does.

Time for Nembhard and Aaron Nesmith to show themselves. With longtime franchise talisman Myles Turner gone, and Tyrese Haliburton out for at least most of this season, Rick Carlisle gets to experiment with lead ball handlers and middy-leaning lineups, real Caitlin Cooper sicko-type stuff. Given Carlisle and their general pace[2], Indiana figures to remain firmly in the East playoff hunt.

Los Angeles Clippers: Kawhi keeps me coming back; James Harden has me repelled. Still, the Clippers retain much of what made them look like the best team in the league for a roughly 30-game stretch last season. So much of this so clearly doesn’t work, but the rest of it is good enough for a winning record in a tough West. Watch for John Collins to pick up some slack when the inevitable injuries arrive, though he only played 40 games last year after being mostly ironclad for the first seven seasons of his career.

Nabbing Chris Paul for what will likely be the Point God’s final season was – ugh, I hate this adjective, but it feels applicable here – a classy move in a league and world increasingly bereft of them. He and Brook Lopez add to the vet ambiance. Let’s see what that does for Derrick Jones Jr.

Los Angeles Lakers: Every time I think about the Los Angeles Lakers I want to fold my arms over themselves until they are indiscernible, like a dough gone awry that needs reincorporation before rolling it back out. Like many of my favorite baked goods, the Lakers are always inexplicably on my television, accompanied by people giving their variously informed opinions about how best they can achieve success. Nobody ever bothers asking the eggs how they feel sweating on the counter. I saw a short-form video of LeBron James welcoming his son Bryce home from school today.

Memphis Grizzlies: This, more or less, is it for the Ja Morant Memphis Grizzlies. The heights are long gone, unless they aren’t, but the face of the team may be the only person with the power to determine that. Jaren Jackson received the max extension this offseason, a measure of stability after having fired Taylor Jenkins ahead of the playoffs last season. Ty Jerome joins late of Cleveland. Drastic underperformance, should it come to that, will make this THE team of the deadline.

Miami Heat:

Milwaukee Bucks: Gutting though it was to watch Damian Lillard go down in the playoffs the way he did, stretching him was the right move, assuming Giannis’s approval. To rip Myles Turner from the very divisional rival that just made the NBA Finals was a masterfully desperate stroke from Bucks brass whose only other move is to sign every member of the Antetokounmpo family. Nevertheless, Giannis trade talk will continue on the backburner.

Minnesota Timberwolves: Face of the NBA discussion is going to happen for the same reasons everything else happens: stupid people have enough time to be bored enough to argue about something as contrived as “the face of the National Basketball Association.” Because these arguments remain almost exclusively American, Anthony Edwards rises.

For all of his charisma and knack for meeting the moment with a highlight, Edwards is now best known for pushing the best to their limits, for taking it to the cream: after beating the Thunder in the play-in in 2023, they lost to the eventual champion Denver Nuggets, only to beat them the following year in seven games before losing to the Dallas Mavericks. 

A big trade later, and Minnesota was able to get back to the West Finals again this year behind (once again) a Gobert-led defense and Ant’s playmaking, with a dash of the good Julius Randle, good until–. The Timberwolves march to the beat of Ant’s drum, and Chris Finch is the addition of some kind of polyrhythm away from Minnesota overcoming the Thunder. It is possible, if only he opens his ears.

New Orleans Pelicans:

New York Knicks: In putting this together, I’ve tried to determine the lowest moment of my own Knicks fandom in the time of this site’s existence. Disappointing though 2014 was, to have born witness to not one, but two separate 17-win teams in a five-year span from 2015 to 2019 was exactly why I can’t just accept sports as an outlet. Those Knicks weren’t an escape from anything else, and watching the teams that bookended that particular run was not more than a reminder that basketball is supposed to be fun, and when it isn’t, it should not be on the television unit.

Among the teams in the men’s big four North American sports leagues, the New York Knicks have been roughly the worst since the year 2000. Only eight out of 26 years since the 2000-’01 season have ended with a winning record; Willis Reed is gone, and Walt Frazier is slowly easing out of the broadcaster’s chair. It has now been 52 years since the Knicks won a title.

And yet…and yet. The East is a wasteland of injuries. Achilles is making his last stand right now, and everyone else is falling. Giannis is the best player in the East – right? – but after that it almost certainly has to be Jalen Brunson, except on the nights when it’s Karl-Anthony Towns (Towns led the team in win shares and win shares per 48 minutes, both of which are catchall distillations of a player’s total contribution to a team’s success. Imperfect; aren’t we all?). A year after the trade, he is the best and worst, and the Knicks need every bit of it from him. 

But then: OG Anunoby may only slightly, temporarily, but justifiably and secretly be the best player on this team (Only when Suni Lee and/or Anne Hathaway is in the building, amirite Josh Hart?). There will be nights when he’ll need to be, and others – perhaps even an entire season – when he looks like an all-NBA player. Josh Hart lives to serve, and we love him for it, if only he would sometimes serve some passes, eh, not all the way out of bounds.

Jealousy, turning: with all due respect to Me7o hitting game-winners against the dregs on a Tuesday already out of playoff contention, Brunson is, for all intents and purposes, Him. He is the dog inside himself. This, right now, is the most fun I’ve ever had watching the Knicks, and the lion’s share of why belongs to the captain, the point guard who came to a desert and took less than the max.

Watching the Pacers one-up every Knicks shot elicited a scornful laugh – how could it not? – because if anyone in the East was to beat this team, they would have to do it with reliably ridiculous panache. A shot rising twice Jalen Brunson’s height in order to force overtime? So be it.

Thibs getting sacked wasn’t on the offseason bingo card for most, but management had it in mind from the time the Knicks drew the Celtics, expecting a loss, if not sooner. Unceremonious though his departure was, Mike Brown is a twice-over Coach of the Year who isn’t committed so much to his singular style as the players at his disposal, and how best to utilize them.

New York swapped a lot of draft capital – oof – for Mikal Bridges, only for Thibs to make him a spot-up shooter, completely evaporating Bridges of the playmaking flashes he’d shown in Brooklyn and, once upon a time, on a Finals team in Phoenix. Brown seems to want to use Bridges the way the player himself expected when he came across the river. Bridges has to be the secondary ballhandler in a fast-paced offense or the first guy running with the second unit. Deuce McBride is wonderful; he is also extremely effective off the ball.

With Haliburton’s injury, Indiana is shorthanded. Milwaukee is going to figure a lot out on the fly, and the Bucks’ cap situation will limit them at the deadline. Cleveland is up against it, with a couple of early playoff flameouts in the recent rearview. 

Detroit will pose a problem, as will Orlando. A player or two, at least, will make a leap, on those teams or on others. Externalities will unfold, and they won’t always figure themselves out. (In the midst of a Central division freakout, by the way: let’s pour one out for would-be Knick Malcolm Brogdon, who retired last week at 32, a Rookie of the Year and Sixth Man of the Year who got 50-40-90. Solid career, salute.)

But at this point, radical optimism is the only way forward. We’ve tried a lot of other things, and they were garbage. Again: two 17-win seasons in a five-year span, not anything even the Charlotte Hornets have dubiously achieved[3]. This is it: the New York Knicks will win the Eastern Conference for the first time since 1999, and you’d better believe I will be at a Finals game in Madison Square Garden.

Oklahoma City Thunder…:

…nah, actually. No. That’s chickenshit. Jalen wouldn’t let me get away with that. He’s looking up there, and he wants me to say it, but just hang on a minute. The defending champion Thunder – more on them shortly – are an expertly-built squad with a heliocentric offense that continues even when SGA is off the floor. There’s no reason to think OKC can’t run this right back and win another title.

Ah, except: the rest of the West has strengthened in kind. Houston’s going for broke in an attempt to get KD a title without the Golden State shine. The Timberwolves know they’ve got the talent to hang. Denver’s reloaded. The LA teams can talk themselves into it. Exactly how good is Wemby now?

As the prosecution previously established, the East playoffs will be no cakewalk, but the West will be a gauntlet. Whatever team makes it out of there will have survived hell, high water and whatever fourth dimensional plasma comes after that, and they’ll be feeling it. Aches and pains accumulated over three rounds, in addition to the 82 games leading up to them, may linger.

So, to borrow a mantra from the guy I named my dog after: Why not? Why not, just this once, lean all the way into it? I never had the opportunity before now, and I don’t know that I will again. Follow the league, follow the paper, see the expansion possibilities and eventual intercontinental cups and all the ya-ya that comes with that because growth is the only way, distilling everything else.

I’m out here on borrowed time anyway, I’m unemployed, and this is my human-written blog, so let’s put it in pixelated ink for all the world to see. I can’t believe I’m alive and in a position to write this and have it be anywhere near the realm of possibility. This is what I mean. Until it is impossible to believe, however close I get, I have faith. Mark it. Matthew, Luke and John it, too. Put it down there, on its own line:

The New York Knicks are going to win the 2026 NBA Championship.

Oklahoma City Thunder: It’s enough to make you think Sam Presti had an econ degree, but nay: his Emerson bachelor is in communications, politics and law. Warren Zevon wouldn’t have trusted him.

Only a few seasons removed from win counts in the twenties, the franchise that bore three MVPs without a title begat a fourth, and that one brought the Larry O’Brien Trophy home. It’s a revenge laugh that Kevin Durant left because of the TV money boom in 2016, and all of the aftershock from that free agency period gave way to various roster and salary cap restrictions that have made it so that the Thunder, the team he left, are best positioned to win multiple titles with a mostly homegrown team. 

As stated above, there’s no reason to think they can’t run this right back and win another title, perhaps twice or thrice over. Then again, winning NBA championships is difficult, which is why no team has repeated since the all-time great Golden State Warriors of 2017-’18. Even they ran into the dual injury misfortunes of Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson in what would’ve been the threepeat season, falling to Toronto in 2019.

OKC has positioned itself specifically to avoid that; two Jaylin/Jalen Williamses aside, they have an extensive amount of overlapping depth under reasonable contracts for the foreseeable future. Chet Holmgren is nowhere near his potential, and he figures to be the best match for Victor Wembanyama over the next decade-plus.

While it feels like it would be organizational failure not to wrest another two titles, at least, out of this team, at this time, the Oklahoma City Thunder have experienced such organizational success contextually that to have finally won a championship is to have effectively out-Processed the Process. The long game is in motion. The players know it, too.

Orlando Magic: Jamahl Mosley needs this roster healthy because there is a 50-win team in here. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, now dearly departed for Memphis in a trade for Desmond Bane, led the team in minutes at 31 years old last year, and while he remains a fine two-way player you’d like to have around – hi, Denver! – that still should not be the case for what is one of the league’s most promising young squads.

Between Paolo Banchero, the Wagner brothers and Bane, Orlando has a chance to make the Conference Finals for the first time since Dwight left[4]. At the very least, they should be in the top six in the East.

Philadelphia 76ers: Never say goodbye to tomorrow, Philadelphia. With Joel Embiid, there is always a chance. Unfortunately, that chance begins with the literal 50% possibility that Embiid plays in any given game. Throw in Paul George’s persona as a guy who shows up in the playoffs, and Tyrese Maxey’s newfound injury fallibility, and the Sixers have a lot to hope goes right this season. Any team does, to be certain, but this may be Philly’s last chance, just like all the others in the Embiid era.

Phoenix Suns: Mat-with-one-T Ishbia, in his own brain, as Devin Booker’s prime slowly dissipates:

Portland Trail Blazers: Dame is back, albeit on the shelf, and Anfernee Simons is gone. It’s in Scoot Henderson’s hands now. The next two years should be a nice scrap-and-keep project for Portland. Along with Scoot, Donovan Clingan and Toumani Camara are the pillars.

Yang Hansen is a source of great intrigue, having been a draft night question mark. Jerami Grant is also here, a steady vetty presence who doubles as draft night fodder for a team that figures to challenge for the play-in. Jrue Holiday is the bold-text version of this, obviously, and I hope he makes something out of Matisse Thybulle. 

Sacramento Kings: If this is the last ride of Russell Westbrook, so be it that he goes out as the only royalty I accept. Joining a roster that is already a Frankenstein’s Monster of the midrange, Russ re-links with several former teammates, like Domas Sabonis and Dennis Schroder, but 2017 is a long time in the rearview. Speaking of which: assuming DeMar DeRozan, Zach LaVine, Keon Ellis, Schroder and Sabonis are the starters, this is a team built to win in 2005. The Kings will talk themselves into being in contention for the play-in long enough not to be sellers at the deadline. Like many of his tax bracket, Vivek Ranadive is undefeated in self-confidence.

San Antonio Spurs: First things first, let’s commend Gregg Popovich on one of the greatest runs of head coaching and team operations in sports history. That he did it in San Antonio will always be a feather in Charles Barkley’s broadcasting cap. It’s one thing to have been in a position to draft Tim Duncan, the presumptive number one overall pick in 1997, but it’s another thing entirely to have done it when another generational big’s one-time injury opened the door for an otherwise unsightly tank job. Good on you to have pulled off something similar on the way out. Happy trails from the coaching reigns, Pop, and best of luck to Mitch Johnson in his first full year at the helm.

This is finally the year that Victor Wembanyama’s stranglehold on the Defensive Player of the Year trophy begins[5]. Any of these years – which is to say, any of the years in which he meets the eligibility requirements – he will start amassing MVP voter shares, as well. For as long as he is on this team and can play, Wemby’s Spurs will be in playoff contention.

To that end: Luke Kornet is going to come in handy, and Jordan McLaughlin is worth another look. Dylan Harper should provide some juice. A full year of De’Aaron Fox and Wemby should be enough to buy stock for the next 3-5 years; for now, something like 45 wins seems reasonable, with many accoutrements for Wemby along the way.

Toronto Raptors: This is the team with the largest possible variance in the Eastern Conference. As constructed and without any roster changes or major injuries, Toronto could be a 24-win team or a 54-win team, and neither would particularly shock me. The major curiosity here is who comes off the bench[6].

Utah Jazz: The draft netted Walter Clayton Jr. and John Tonje, but it also brought the Jazz…*sigh, looking around, how much do we want to get into this, let’s keep it brief* so, alright: Ace Bailey. Following a prolonged and very odd draft cycle in which he reportedly told the Jazz not to pick him (he preferred to land with the Wizards??), Bailey reported to camp, feeling blessed. Awesome! Welcome to Utah, Ace. We’re blessed that you’re blessed.

29 dribbles on 29 shots is a solid starting point, that said, and teammates have already commented on Bailey’s positive attitude around the locker room.

Washington Wizards: The Wiz were the fourth-fastest team in the league last season, which was approximately the best thing you can say about watching them play basketball. Well, also, the Poole Party is over. Apart from the eventual trade pieces that will be Khris Middleton and CJ McCollum, the intrigue here is in the development of the young pieces, starting with Bilal Coulibaly and Alex Sarr. Coming off an All-Rookie first campaign, the latter is a prototypical Most Improved Player candidate, but sometimes the shoe does fit, and there is plenty of opportunity in Washington. People are always saying that.

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[1] In the case of the latter, *back

[2] Sorry.

[3] Hornets and Hornets fans: all love. You weren’t the ones out there creating Pollack facsimiles on the beautiful honeycomb court.

[4] By the way, Anthony Parker – ex-NBA player and Candace’s brother – is the general manager in Orlando, and he has done a pretty bang-up job over the past two years. Kudos.

[5] As always, assuming health/that he can make the 65-game minimum

[6] It should be RJ Barrett, but anyway—