- Close
ESPN Senior Writer- Co-author, Pro Basketball Prospectus series
- Formerly a consultant with the Indiana Pacers
- Developed WARP rating and SCHOENE system
A month into the NBA season, dividing lines are beginning to take shape in both conferences. Although there is still a surprising leader in the East (the Detroit Pistons, who look like they have the defensive chops to stay in the mix), the rest of the top five teams in net rating are now the contenders we expected.
Meanwhile, a bottom tier has separated itself, with fans and executives alike dreaming of snagging a top prospect in what looks like a strong 2026 NBA draft.
In between is where the real interest lies as teams jockey for home-court advantage in the playoffs and to make -- or avoid -- the play-in tournament. All season long, ESPN's Zach Kram and Kevin Pelton will be sorting the NBA's 30 teams into tiers based on their outlook for success at the end of the regular season and beyond.
Jump to a tier:
The Favorite to Repeat
Legit Title Contenders
Conference Finals Party Crashers
Prospective Contenders Stuck in Neutral
The Muddled Middle
Play-in Dreamers
Barren for Darryn
Tier 1: The Favorite to Repeat
Oklahoma City Thunder (13-1)
Jalen Williams hasn't played this season, while Chet Holmgren, Luguentz Dort, Alex Caruso, Aaron Wiggins and Isaiah Joe have missed at least four games apiece. The Thunder have been cold from deep, making just 34% of their 3-point attempts to rank 21st in the league.
And yet, the 2024-25 champs are still on pace for a 76-6 record as they mount a title defense, with a league-best plus-15.4 point differential that's even better than their record-setting mark last season. Oklahoma City has the NBA's best defense by a whopping 6.6 points per 100 possessions; Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is essentially replicating last season's stat line, which won him an MVP award; and Holmgren appears to be making an offensive leap, averaging a career-best 19.3 points per game on tremendous efficiency.
Just about the only knock against Oklahoma City is that the Thunder have benefited from the NBA's second-easiest schedule to date, which has helped inflate their historic point differential. But there's no doubt that the Thunder are in a class of their own. -- Kram
Brian Windhorst joins “NBA Today” to rave about Nikola Jokic’s incredible start to the season for the Nuggets.
Tier 2: Legit Title Contenders
Denver Nuggets (10-2)
Houston Rockets (9-3)
New York Knicks (8-4)
Cleveland Cavaliers (9-5)
Philadelphia 76ers president Daryl Morey is responsible for the NBA's "5% rule," which argues that teams that exceed 5% probability of a championship should focus entirely on winning one. These are the other four teams that clear that bar using BPI -- a group that hasn't really changed since the start of the season.
The Rockets are the closest thing to a surprise, having shrugged off the loss of Fred VanVleet with the NBA's third-best point differential thus far. Houston's offense probably won't keep it up, but 2024 lottery pick Reed Sheppard is quietly helping fill the void left by VanVleet's injury, and the Rockets will add to their depth when Dorian Finney-Smith returns from offseason surgery.
November hasn't gone as smoothly as last year for the Cavaliers. So long as Darius Garland can get healthy, Cleveland still stands with New York as the most likely East winners, given track record and full-strength potential.
The Nuggets, who took Oklahoma City to seven games in the conference semifinals last postseason, look like the biggest threat to the Thunder this season. Denver could delay a potential rematch by claiming the No. 2 seed thanks to a stronger start and better depth. The Nuggets have to be encouraged that they're second in point differential despite newcomer Cam Johnson suffering through a shooting slump. -- Pelton
Tier 3: Conference Finals Party Crashers
Los Angeles Lakers (10-4)
Minnesota Timberwolves (8-5)
San Antonio Spurs (9-4)
Detroit Pistons (11-2)
Atlanta Hawks (9-5)
The next tier of contenders includes five teams that are all very strong on one side of the ball and only middling on the other. According to Cleaning the Glass, which strips out garbage time, the Timberwolves rank fifth in offensive rating while the Lakers rank fourth in effective field goal percentage, even though LeBron James, Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves have played just 21 out of a possible 42 games. And the Pistons, Spurs and Hawks rank third, sixth and seventh in defensive rating, respectively.
These teams have important questions they must address if they want to upset a higher-ranked opponent in the playoffs, however. Can Reaves sustain his leap when James returns, and can a lineup with Doncic, Reaves and James defend enough to win multiple playoff rounds? Lakers opponents have the fourth-best shot quality in the NBA, according to GeniusIQ, with only the lowly Kings, Nets and Pelicans faring worse.
For Minnesota, the questions circle the still-uneasy point guard spot and the state of the defense, which was the best in the league in 2023-24 but has fallen to the middle of the pack this season. Seven of the Timberwolves' eight wins, moreover, have come against the worst teams in the league -- Utah (twice), Sacramento (twice), Brooklyn, Charlotte and Indiana -- so the Timberwolves' hot streak might be the product of the schedule more than their true talent. (The eighth win came against Portland on opening night.)
The Spurs and Pistons have overarching similarities as two young contenders led by recent No. 1 picks. They face similar questions about whether offenses without much shooting can succeed in the current NBA. The Spurs have more high-end talent, as Victor Wembanyama is an MVP candidate and De'Aaron Fox has only just returned from an offseason hamstring injury. But the Pistons benefit from an Eastern Conference that's much weaker at the top than the West, and they should be able to land a high seed thanks to their scorching 11-2 start.
Finally, the Hawks have gone 8-2 since Trae Young sprained his knee last month, but their current profile -- seventh on defense, 19th on offense -- is a mirror image of what they've grown accustomed to with their star point guard. Can they maintain their current defensive energy after Young returns, while improving to above-average on the offensive end? -- Kram
Tier 4: Prospective Contenders Stuck in Neutral
Golden State Warriors (9-6)
LA Clippers (4-9)
Orlando Magic (7-7)
We may as well call this the "mea culpa" tier. These teams were projected for more than 49 wins by my stats-based model, and none of them are tracking that way thus far.
The most concerning start belongs to the Clippers, who have shown their age in going 4-9. Bradley Beal is out for the year following a hip fracture that required surgery, 40-year-old Chris Paul has fallen out of the rotation and Kawhi Leonard has already dealt with an ankle injury. Clippers opponents won't keep up 38.7% 3-point shooting, but at this point, they need to benefit from regression just to make the play-in.
The Magic and Warriors stand a better chance of working their way back into the top six in their respective conferences, though they surely hoped to secure home-court advantage in the first round. Orlando, too, has been on the wrong side of opponent shooting luck, while Golden State has already won three consecutive games after dropping to .500 last week. -- Pelton
Tier 5: The Muddled Middle
Portland Trail Blazers (6-7)
Miami Heat (7-6)
Milwaukee Bucks (8-6)
Philadelphia 76ers (7-5)
Toronto Raptors (8-5)
Boston Celtics (7-7)
Chicago Bulls (6-6)
As the lone Western Conference team in this middling tier, Portland doesn't have the top-end talent to match the West teams in higher tiers, but the bottom of the conference is shaky enough that the running, pressing Trail Blazers should make the play-in tournament with ease. They're the only team this season to beat Oklahoma City, plus they're the only team to beat Denver in regulation.
Most of the muddle comes in the East. With so little separation between these teams -- including Orlando and Atlanta -- there's a huge range in potential outcomes; almost all of them could either land home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs or miss the play-in entirely. They've already demonstrated how streaky and inconsistent they can be: Toronto started 1-4 but has climbed to 8-5, while Chicago started 5-0 but has fallen to 6-6.
Milwaukee, meanwhile, might be the team in this tier most likely to outperform in a playoff setting, as Giannis Antetokounmpo will enter every series as the best player until possibly the Finals. Yet even as role players like Ryan Rollins and AJ Green have stepped up, the Bucks' supporting cast still seems lacking, and and the team's negative point differential suggests they're much closer to average than true contention. -- Kram
Tier 6: Play-in Dreamers
Memphis Grizzlies (4-10)
New Orleans Pelicans (2-11)
Sacramento Kings (3-11)
Phoenix Suns (8-6)
Dallas Mavericks (4-10)
Charlotte Hornets (4-9)
It says something about the muddled middle in the East (and a lot about the steep divide after the conference's top 12) that five of the six teams in this tier are out West. Of course, the Pelicans had to slot somewhere, and it's hard to put a team without its own draft pick in the last tier even though New Orleans' performance thus far has merited that spot.
The Hornets have been more competitive than their 4-9 record would indicate, with a minus-3.3 point differential that would rank 10th in the West. Barring injuries above them, however, Charlotte will most likely head directly back to the lottery.
That leaves four West teams, at least one of which will make the postseason by default. The Mavericks and Grizzlies had higher aspirations entering the year, which have been torpedoed by slow starts amid problems caused by recently fired GM Nico Harrison in Dallas and star point guard Ja Morant's unhappiness in Memphis. Both are contenders to go the other direction and embrace a run at a high lottery pick. That's a harder sell in Sacramento, where the excitement of the "Beam Team" returning to the playoffs in 2022-23 is becoming an increasingly distant memory.
The best vibes in this tier, surprisingly, belong to the Suns. With Devin Booker playing at an All-NBA level and Collin Gillespie filling in well for the injured Jalen Green, Phoenix is making an early case for fit over the talent lost when Durant was traded and Bradley Beal bought out last summer. -- Pelton
Tier 7: Barren for Darryn
Utah Jazz (5-8)
Washington Wizards (1-12)
Brooklyn Nets (2-11)
Indiana Pacers (1-12)
As the lottery demonstrated last season, when the two worst teams in the league -- Utah and Washington -- landed only the No. 5 and 6 picks, there's no longer a guarantee that a terrible record will lead to a franchise-altering superstar in the draft. But in advance of a loaded 2026 draft featuring potential superstars Darryn Peterson, AJ Dybantsa and Cameron Boozer, this quartet of teams is doing its best to increase the odds of winning a top pick.
That was the plan all along for Utah, Washington and Brooklyn, while Indiana has joined the look-ahead-to-the-lottery party after a succession of disastrous injuries buried the Pacers in the standings. The Jazz, Wizards and Nets are all aiming to land the cornerstone who can pave the way back to contention after a long rebuild, while the Pacers now have the chance to nab a young co-star for Tyrese Haliburton once the All-NBA guard returns from a torn Achilles.
While Utah has five wins -- more than the rest of the teams in this tier combined -- and is currently in contention for the West's last play-in spot, the Jazz owe a top-eight-protected pick to Oklahoma City this season. So the Jazz will have every incentive to lose enough games the rest of the way to ensure that pick stays in Utah. -- Kram