Which NBA teams are closest to a title?

What's in the books?

Oklahoma City’s hilarious inability to move past the Dallas Mavericks is the single, assured lance the Western Conference can use to halt OKC’s presumed championship ascension. Tilt Dallas’ horse toward the Thunder.

Fans can place confident money on the Western field over the Western favorite when choosing a Finalist from that region, fans can visualize OKC’s victor easily because it is the same one who knocked OKC off last season on national television. This doesn’t mean Dallas is the West’s second-best team, several other Western clubs could corral the Mavs’ Western title defense long before it meets Thunder, especially after the Feb. 6 trade deadline replenishes various competing rosters.

Replenishing via credit. Usually in the form of trading young-for-old, tangible for its opposite, dealing first-round picks in future drafts, drafts from the next decade, professional selection rights for young men currently stuck in seventh period in seventh grade. For every bit added to an NBA team’s front end, the rear depletes. And you’ll need a lot of front end to remain standing in front of the Thunder.

The Thunder, for all of OKC’s fallibility in the face of its literal closest rival, are famously supplied on that back end. The conveyor swings scads of selections to general manager Sam Presti, additional draft picks throughout the rest of this decade and into the next. Other groups are nearly as infamously cashed out, those Mavericks are one of many contenders to owe an ongoing set of draft obligations. As if any incoming set of draft picks is a guarantee toward greatness.

Let’s rank the guarantees. These aren’t power rankings, simply a pick at who is closest and farthest from winning an NBA title. Those with the most and most minimal ground to cover between now and 16 playoff wins. The franchises with the longest hauls aren’t merely inside incipient stages, the teams at the rear have some real hangups, man.

This is why we start from the top and the bottom at the same time, alternating teams. I hate when they make us scroll all the way down for the things we want to read first.

1. Oklahoma City Thunder

One undersold counterpart to Sam Presti’s complete and utter dominance over the list of owed picks is the particular well the Thunder GM draws his buckets from, the water he’s taken from his rivals.

Future water, too, the kind current conditions compels one to hoard. Value added to the scarcity Sam created.

Presti doesn’t have any surefire lottery picks lined up, he doesn’t own a series of Wizard or Hornet selections, he’s not in the race for Cooper Flagg. Rather, Presti decimates rivals, one helper at a time. A small, if double-figure, percentage off the top.

Denver, Dallas, Houston and the Clippers could all use first-round picks to trade, or to augment rosters with springy, underpaid youth. Instead, Oklahoma City will swap up and snatch the Clippers’ first-rounder in June. Dallas loses a first-round swap to OKC in 2028. The Nuggies owe a first-round pick to the Thunder in 2027 and 2029. The Thunder pick up the two most favorable of Houston and L.A.’s first-round picks in 2026, and can swap with either Denver or the Clippers in 2027.

This is far more favorable than owning, say, a Jazz first-rounder protected 1-through-8 in 2026, which the Thunder also own. Or rights to an unprotected Heat pick in 2026, which the Thunder have. All this and a 5.5-game lead in the West, where the good teams are. Presti isn’t owed picks from a run of unaffiliated Eastern teams, he’s taken future assets from his direct rivals, some of whom he could visit via car.

And should. That is a beautiful part of the country.

The Thunder are stacked. Dallas in five or Dallas in six?

30. Chicago Bulls

Unlike every other club on this list, the Bulls are an inert franchise.

Its only hallmark, under owner Jerry Reinsdorf, is the unique way it refuses to act like other NBA clubs, a trait to inform and eventually poison general managers Jerry Krause, John Paxson, Gar Forman, and Artūras Karnišovas. Each GM has its own culpability, of course, it isn’t like Jerry came up with the idea to save money by trading Kyle Korver.

The Bulls do not value winning, which weighs a little on that first-round pick team owes San Antonio this June or next (or next). Chicago has until Feb. 6 to play clever, pretend they are just like any other reasonable store in the stall when the Bulls most surely are not, asking a first-round pick for Nikola Vucevic. Pretending Zach LaVine isn’t damaged goods with as many earned defensive caveats as Zach’s earned Chicagoland endorsements (many).

Chicago is a seller in a buyer’s market, in control of corners GMs crave. Lose a little, and Chicago guarantees its first-round pick in a good draft. Lottery pick heads to San Antonio in spite of trading starters? So what, a pick was headed to Texas anyway, might as well get it over with ahead of the acknowledged rebuild.

That’s a normal team talking, though. The Bulls aren’t like that, though they will have until Feb. 6 to prove otherwise.

Inside some particular fantasy, top free agents still consider the Bulls’ colors a worthy destination, provably untrue. NBA players love to look at themselves in a Bulls uniform after being drafted by the Bulls, maybe traded there, but otherwise free agents visit Chicago and throw out a first pitch at a Sox game before turning the Bulls down to make more money elsewhere. Bulls forward Elton Brand called free agent Tracy McGrady and told T-Mac the ball was his, the Bulls leaked it to the press. Derrick Rose didn’t pick up the phone to bother LeBron James or D-Wade or Chris Bosh and the Bulls leaked it as another victory.

Chicago’s only recent free agent successes include DeMar DeRozan — since moved on, still owe San Antonio a pick’for — and blatantly overpaying hometown guys (Wade, Jabari Parker, Rajon Rondo is from Louisville which is the Chicago of Kentucky). The Bulls had over a quarter-century to prove itself resourceful enough to sign-and-trade into a superstar scenario, the situation Pat Riley routinely finds himself in, and Chicago’s best idea was cutting the final 14 years of Tyson Chandler’s career in exchange for Ben Wallace.

Why? To save money. For the Chicago Bulls, winning is not the point. It would be nice, but only under the correct rates.

Chicago has no overarching list of incoming assets to shield it from criticism, not when other teams own unprotected picks from future decades, nor any obvious stars on the club. Marvelous role players abound — Ayo Dosunmu, Coby White, Lonzo Ball should be Chicago Bull keepers and not trade bait — Matas Buzelis (with an oncoming swing at All-Rookie Second Team) is studly but does not project to be a scoring superstar.

Comparatively, even Charlotte has LaMelo Ball and his 28 points per game to “figure out,” Utah has a bunch of picks plus a proven GM. Washington is a dozen losses ahead of the Bulls in the game of Tankathon, giving the possible Rookie of the Year as many on-court repetitions as Alex Sarr can handle alongside Bub Carrington, a likely All-Rookie pick leading his class in minutes. And, again, those are basketball teams. What are the Bulls?

August marks the fifth anniversary of the Bulls firing Jim Boylen, a purported low-point, the beginning of the club’s re-emergence into credibility, searching desperately for answers after exhausting each its Jim Boylen and Jim Boylan options.

The current carrot is the potential inherent in Feb. 6, that’s what keeps us coming back. Those of us who ran BIG hype over Jason Caffey averaging (nearly) nine points and (nearly) seven rebounds in (over) 30 minutes a game as a starter in 1996-97.

What does the lowest point look like? Some sportswriter crediting Chicago with the longest road toward a title?

No, it is another fruitless endeavor (or, in the case of the Alex Caruso deal, an objectionable offer) at the trade deadline. Followed by a trip to the Play-In, or not, who cares, followed by San Antonio selecting in Chicago’s place in the 2025 NBA draft.

Then what. What was the last year for. What were the last 27 years for?

2. Boston Celtics

Once someone is of the opinion that the Celtics can successfully defend a title with Jrue Holiday shooting 37/36/90, there is no looking back. The Celtics could embarrass Celtic fans in front of four different opponents this spring and still come out an NBA champion.

The Celtics know how to do something no other club in this league can claim, not Denver’s modern iteration nor Golden State’s broken-up holdovers. Boston can certainly secure 16 wins in 28 tries in spring with Holiday (who popped for 50/40/95 in the last postseason) failing to hit, Al Horford falling off, Jaylen Brown (124 postseason games already) doing too much, Jayson Tatum not enough. The C’s can even win it with Kristaps Porzingis “in the way.”

The counter to this is the deadening reality which confronts and eventually overcomes all but a select few defending NBA champions. It is very tough to do this for more than a season. Let alone two full, consecutive campaigns.

There is part of the champs that will want all of this to be over sometime this spring, real 12th round shit, and the Celtics will need to learn how to answer the bell. Very few teams do, nobody’s come close in six years: Golden State in defeat, two of its finest players cruelly falling to career-altering injuries in the failed bid to overcome a 193rd or 177th NBA game in 362 human days.

Playing through the relief of quitting, the embrace of good enough, this is the only thing these Celtics haven’t learned. Sometimes an ego can’t take the repeated hits, every night circled on an opponent’s calendar. Maybe we’re not good enough. Doubt in winter, belief by May.

Will the Celtics fall victim? Are they typical? Until we find out, until the full count, the C’s are as suited to win an immediate championship as any club (but the one currently beating NBA teams by 12.3 points per game).

29. Charlotte Hornets

The Hornets have a couple of first-round picks direct depositing into the account in 2027, but from teams (Dallas and Miami) seeking championship contention, in no small part because of those owed selections.

The Hornets are already an average defensive team, a rarity for a franchise well on the way toward a top-five pick, and Ball and Brandon Miller (out for the season after right wrist surgery) and burgeoning big Mark Williams have worked but a total of 254 minutes together.

The financial component clouds any picture, are Charlotte’s newest owners ready to spend to compete? Or will they run conservatively, extending some contracts and eschewing other prospects. Liberal spending around LaMelo has its drawbacks, he is unique, the Hornets better be damn sure the star it inks can actually work next to the guy. LaMelo is no LeBron, but we should still try to avoid acquiring Ball’s version of Larry Hughes.

3. Cleveland Cavaliers

Cleveland’s recent complications appear to be down to missing Evan Mobley for six games, Alperen Şengün got away with too many fouls Darius Garland missing some clutch free throws last Friday night. Plus some unnamed rival executive displaying anonymous interest in whether or not Garland and Donovan Mitchell have the legs to splash at a 40 percent clip from outside in the fourth quarters of close games in May.

Will Evan Mobley play in May? Probably. Will the guards hit tough jumpers? Hard to guarantee, but each are pretty good at it, neither’s legs will be stressed down the stretch of the regular season. Will Cleveland play the Rockets in the Finals? That would be fun, appropriate, Cleveland is owed some calls, Garland owes Cleveland some makes.

Cleveland is good and deep, it hasn’t proven anything, but everyone on the team plays as if he requires validation. That’s a frightening cut to get out in front of.

The group is also exciting, dynamic in ways LeBron’s Cavaliers were not. Ron would do well here.

28. Washington Wizards

Despite Cooper Flagg or any other rookie’s best efforts, the Wizards will lose on purpose again in 2025-26.

The franchise’s 2026 first-round pick heads to New York (along with every other Wizards fan, if D.C. and NYC metro ever develop high-speed rail) if Washington’s selection falls outside of the top eight picks in the 2026 NBA draft.

Washington has some random-ass incoming first-round picks in its future, each with the caveat that the future is at worst not guaranteed and at best altogether unwelcome.

The Wizards grab Golden State’s first-rounder in 2030, but only if Golden State (protected 1-through-20) is good. In 2029 Washington earns the second-most favorable pick of the NBA’s three-dampest franchises: Boston, Portland and Milwaukee. Plus Washington owns rights to convoluted swaps with Phoenix in 2026, 2028 and 2030, swaps which may never occur because Washington is always bad.

Always. But I’m sure Ted Leonsis hired the right guy this time.

Will Dawkins has done well as Wizards GM, but he’s also awfully fond of trading for cash considerations. He is still the fella who gave Marvin Bagley III a third team, traded Daniel Gafford for five second-round picks plus whatever the fuck Dawkins thinks he’s doing with Richaun Holmes.

The Wizards aren’t blocked from rising above its particular zero level, but it takes 16 postseason wins to pull a championship and the Wizards have 24 total playoff wins since becoming Wizards in 1997, since Scottie Pippen wrastled Darvin Ham:

That’s 2.4 wins per postseason appearance. They say you’re supposed to round these numbers up, teams can’t win half a game let alone .4 of one, and I should credit the Wizards with three wins per playoff series. But you can’t lose half a game, and in Washington we round down. The Wizards average two wins per playoff series.

4. Denver Nuggets

Denver’s drama is defense yet again, it ranks No. 18 and doesn’t figure to change its lineup and re-enter defensive ace Aaron Gordon back into its starting five. These games aren’t lost in the opening minutes anyway, the Nuggets can give up layups no matter who is on the court and at any point in the ballgame.

Michael Malone has three months to encourage a highly-agreeable group of talents to play defense, and then work his way through various game-to-game machinations within the context of a seven-game series. Trust that man, and his center: Nikola Jokic makes half his three-pointers now. Nikola practiced them.

The Nuggets are all out of major draft picks to trade but the team’s owner’s recently made another trillion bucks when half of America panic-bought coffee at Wal-Mart last week, the Nugs’ front office can afford some cash considerations, we can make this image happen again:

27. Brooklyn Nets

Within two years Sean Marks went from Billy King’s salted crops to Kyrie Irving pleading with the game’s best player to join Kyrie in Brooklyn, Kyrie and Kevin Durant in full view of cameras and any other NBA personnel who wanted to watch. Marks’ magnetism was not the impetus for Kyrie’s drive, the Nets’ work stood for itself.

Another quick turnaround is possible, but Marks also got lucky with Kenny Atkinson, got lucky with D’Angelo Russell’s career year, and the novelty of two or three available, unhappy, in-prime superstars. We call it “lucky” because Marks is also the person who entrusted his kingdom to Steve Nash, never a coach at any level then nor since.

So Sean shot too close to the moon, he wouldn’t be the first Sean to do so, and it doesn’t mean Sean can’t build another winner. Can Sean build a champion, though? It requires accurate celestial aim. Stars will want to play in Brooklyn, juggling two or three in their primes is another task. Sean should know.

Earlier this week found out J.E. Skeets had never heard of Billy Paultz and I take this personally, this was my fault, I’ve had J.E.’s ear for years and I let him down again.

The Whopper, the White Tornado, his dad sang the Star-Spangled Banner before Nets games, Hakeem Olajuwon punched him right in the face.

The same face staring through you like a smoothed-out 6-11 Eric Carmen, kneeling next to Julius Erving:

I could stare at his picture for many minutes. Coach Kevin Loughery looks like he could beat Bill Melchionni at every sport including bocce and most importantly, basketball.

Wendell Ladner appearing rather gacked. Jim O’Brien has the legs of a nervous bass player, and I enjoy the way trainer Fritz Massmann only seems concerned with Al Trautwig’s placement in the picture yes that Al Trautwig holy shit.

“Fritz Massmann” sounds like a name Dave Letterman would use to check into hotels if Dave Letterman ever left his house.

Back to Whopper. How does one find a Hawaiian shirt this large?

Did most men dress like Les Dudek in 1976?

5. Memphis Grizzlies

Ranking Memphis ahead of Houston?

Until the ghostly imagine of Jerry “Jer-Bear” Garcia visits Jalen Green, the Grizzlies will own the experience.

Memphis is stacked, proven in ways Houston is not.

Desmond Bane well into his Dumars Shit, Memphis displays the NBA’s two-best rookies, Ja Morant displays his version of “NBA speed.” GG Jackson is back to turning defenders around in the second quarter, Scotty Pippen Jr. is maybe the nicest reserve point man out there, Luke Kennard leads the NBA in three-point shooting and hopefully the team does not trade this fact to another team.

Marcus Smart will be unleashed on the rest of the league by spring, whether he plays for the Grizzlies or not. Jaren Jackson Jr. recently eclipsed R.J. Barrett in rebound rate, the sky is the limit. Memphis will be compelled to retain some sort of image at the trade deadline but needn’t, not unless the target is someone aching to help.

26. Utah Jazz

The Jazz will win more down the stretch of 2024-25 due to the oncoming glut of games in Utah, but the losing doesn’t figure to cease if the Jazz light up the lottery board in May. Another year of biding awaits whether Utah captures the Flagg or not: Danny Ainge loses his 2026 first-round pick to Oklahoma City if it falls out of the top-eight (otherwise the obligation dissipates), and since dragging his Callaways to Utah, Danny Ainge proved he knows how to keep his draft pick inside the top-eight. And to stay out of the trap at No. 8. Gotta take a few yards off here to add a few more yards over there.

So, prominence in 2026-27 at the earliest for this group. Lauri Markkanen, age 29, perfect year to dominate. Championship? Too early to tell, does Danny have any ex-teammates still running NBA teams?

His team has nine extra first-rounders between now and 2031, though mostly from outfits featuring standout players: Anthony Davis’ Lakers, Anthony Edwards’ Timberwolves, and those East-pacing Cavaliers. It is true that Ainge already turned three so-so incoming selections into the dynamite, unprotected, 2031 first-rounder from Phoenix.

However, in future endeavors, it is not best to trade unhappy superstars to teams with Evan Mobley and Darius Garland already on them, nobody wants the 29th pick. We appreciate the new currency Ainge created with Phoenix, but that deal won’t be available with most teams, not every front office works the Silk Road like the Suns.

6. Dallas Mavericks

Dallas is somewhat trucked once Kyrie Irving turns less than stellar, but that’s fine. The Mavs own the biggest and baddest bead over the best team in the West. Dallas displays two players who know how to drag teams toward championships, and a front office very much aware of Irving’s 96 career playoff games and the inevitability that Irving turns 33 in May. They’d trade picks to keep him at 32.

With LeBron James and James Harden at the end of their careers, Dallas has a template to follow with Luka Doncic. Like Harden, Luka will require bruisers, strong shoulders to carry him out of a dark room with all its lights on. Like LeBron, Luka requires similarly-minded loftiness, someone with greatness in them to relate to.

Dallas’ duty wouldn’t end with a championship. Doncic (a free agent in 18 months) isn’t even 26 yet, Miami wants its chance at building Luka’s tan, easing him into a less abrasive brand of hair product.

Doncic can sniff out a dog from hundreds of decameters away, he’ll be awfully sensitive and self-aware around new additions, and he is quite cognizant of the fact that superduperstars do not require Bird Rights to have their cake and eat it too, play in the town they want while making the most possible money.

Dallas is down three first-round draft picks and a swap between 2027 and 2030. Good work with P.J. and Gafford, good work in the summer, but this work never ends. Not when you’re one of 30, and certainly not when you are one of a handful of GMs working to support an untouchable.

25. Phoenix Suns

This is the line, the Suns have a slim chance at a title this season. The club can get lucky and earn advancement via attrition, unlikely for this roster, there are always a cast of injured stars in the postseason and for once the Suns may not have any of them.

The club could grow stronger, not internally but via trade deadline machinations. Then they’d have to get lucky, other competitors spraining ankles.

And that’s it, the most distasteful NBA champion in league history, the Suns draining whatever capital remains between now and Feb. 6. A certain assessment but for Bradley Beal’s no-trade clause, which some shitbag Arizonians heckle Beal’s family over.

The Suns are already $50 million over the luxury tax for 2025-26 and owe a salary cap’s worth of committed payroll (nearing $150 million) in 2026-27. The crops are sold, the soil is wrecked, and the only thing the Suns have left to tempt is the equipment (Devin Booker, Kevin Durant, Beal). Bradley’s no-trade clause limits the destination options for the 31-year old, this generation’s Jeff Malone. The Suns are similarly champing to unload Jusuf Nurkic (2025-26 salary of $19.4 million), as the head coach ignores Jusuf on and off the court.

The debt owed on 29-year old Grayson Allen (three years and over $54 million following 2024-25) has a chance, however slight, at growing into an asset. Teams have to really like Grayson Allen, want to commit to Grayson Allen through Grayson Allen’s prime and most of his tail end. If you’re sick of saying “Grayson Allen,” say, “shittier Eric Gordon.”

GM James Jones is interesting, he drafts exceedingly well alongside some honking misses. There are some shrewd deals in there of his own design, alongside just as many or more moves to make his bosses and the hair dye his bosses use happy. Jones can absolutely lead the Suns out of this, especially with the experience pressed onto him these last few years, engaging a decade’s worth of deals in half the time. But Phoenix won’t turn until the next decade.

7. Houston Rockets

The Rockets haven’t even begun yet and the Rockets know it, no NBA team has more momentum and this includes the Thunder, winning by 12.3 points per game.

The Rockets do not own a 2026 first-round pick and that’s fine, no kid born in 2007 wants any part of this locker room. Legend, among us NBA nerds, are the expiring salaries the Rockets claim (nearly $33 million, and $78 million to throw around if it wants to part with Fred VanVleet), along with the self-sustaining stash of its own first-rounders, nothing due beyond the 2026 pick (which heads to OKC or Philadelphia).

The Rockets slick a first-rounder from either the Suns or Nuggets in 2029, an unprotected first from the Suns in 2027, and a first-round swap with whatever Brooklyn’s rebuild looks like by the 2027 NBA draft.

Why aren’t the Rockets dealing? This is the perfect field to let someone like Zach LaVine loose with, dashing into passing lanes defensively and doing whatever he wants on offense because Houston (No. 11) still needs buckets. It is easy to assume cash flow problems with the owner, who seeks a settled sheet without any unexpected jumps, and the NBA isn’t set to accommodate his broadening payroll by scheduling a dozen more games per season, or expanding the arenas by 10,000 seats.

24. Toronto Raptors

Scottie Barnes is unlike any other future star in that this quarterback’s skills desperately crave a more craven star beside him, a whooping gamebreaker to engage Scottie’s left-handed running back and Austrian tight end. Toronto’s move to secure a scoresabunch small forward from Mississauga was smart, as was the idea to pair Barnes with dunk-everything defender Jacob Poeltl.

So what went wrong? Nothing. The NBA is deep, Immanuel Quickley is sometimes the NBA’s most important player, and I don’t see many other front offices ready to hand Scottie’s new target over to Toronto. If one were, Ontario owns all its first-round picks and Indianapolis’ 2026 first-rounder.

The Raptors boast a four-game winning streak, tied with Houston and New York for tops in the NBA. The team’s 8-31 start wasn’t so much a statement but a reminder that the Raptors have ages to go, and a bit of fringe work left to execute, sufficient to support a bench if the team wants to ape Indiana’s arch into Eastern contention.

This time three years ago, the Pacers were also about 20 games under .500. They’ve been to an Eastern final since, and currently own the No. 5 seed, Toronto can be that team and more.

8. New York Knicks

The Knicks haven’t strutted with this sort of relevance since Lorne Michaels was seen skipping his way out of 30 Rock while it was still light outside:

One of Michaels’s greatest talents is creating an aura of glamour about himself and SNL. But as the show sank last year, NBC began to wonder whether Michaels was spending too much time cultivating his urbane image.

“You could always tell when the Knicks or the opera were in town,” says a recently departed SNL star. “That’s the only time Lorne made sure the Wednesday-night script read-through started on schedule.”

Star, so, Myers. Dana Carvey is similarly insightful but not as loose with blind items Lorne can see directly through.

New York’s problem is the same joke over and over, the Knicks have no bench and the guy on the sideline wouldn’t let the bench check into the game even if the Knicks had a bench, which they do not.

If Knicks players aren’t chafing at the minutes, fans are. Fearful of the sort of exhaustion and/or injury which beset New York in last spring’s postseason, when the club fell to an arguably inferior group of farmhands from Indiana. Whether or not the Knicks make a deal with Mitchell Robinson (still mending) and the two first-round pick swaps New York has remaining is up for the market to decide, what is certain is Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau needs to lessen the minutes lode burdening his five starters.

Enter the third quarter with an 18-point lead, Thibs says, and I’ll think about it.

Thibs’ team, winners of four consecutive, were owners of the league’s fifth-best net rating even before New York squashed the Grizzlies by 37 in Madison Square Garden on Monday. This can absolutely be the year, but the Knicks are on the absolute lip of the rim, the touch has to be perfect if we want to see it roll in.

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NEXT UP: NBA teams 9-through-23.

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