Tim BontempsOct 13, 2025, 07:00 AM ETCloseTim Bontemps is a senior NBA writer for ESPN.com who covers the league and what’s impacting it on and off the court, including trade deadline intel, expansion and his MVP Straw Polls. You can find Tim alongside Brian Windhorst and Tim MacMahon on The Hoop Collective podcast.Follow on X
play1:20Is Nikola Jokic the best player in the NBA?The “NBA Today” crew discusses a preseason poll naming Nikola Jokic the best player in the NBA.
play1:26Perk: The Rockets are going to be the NBA’s best offensive teamKendrick Perkins breaks down his optimism for the Rockets’ offense after an impressive performance vs. the Jazz.
play1:35Shams Charania expects Erik Spoelstra to coach Team USA for multiple cyclesShams Charania joins “The Pat McAfee Show” to discuss Erik Spoelstra being named the head coach for Team USA men’s basketball.
Shumpert watching for OKC’s championship swagger (0:46)Iman Shumpert is looking forward to seeing how the Thunder respond after winning the NBA title. (0:46)
Is Nikola Jokic the best player in the NBA?The “NBA Today” crew discusses a preseason poll naming Nikola Jokic the best player in the NBA.
Perk: The Rockets are going to be the NBA’s best offensive teamKendrick Perkins breaks down his optimism for the Rockets’ offense after an impressive performance vs. the Jazz.
Kendrick Perkins breaks down his optimism for the Rockets’ offense after an impressive performance vs. the Jazz.
Shams Charania expects Erik Spoelstra to coach Team USA for multiple cyclesShams Charania joins “The Pat McAfee Show” to discuss Erik Spoelstra being named the head coach for Team USA men’s basketball.
Shams Charania joins “The Pat McAfee Show” to discuss Erik Spoelstra being named the head coach for Team USA men’s basketball.
In a sport in which only five players take the floor for each team at a time, a concentration of stars has been a clear way to build a championship-level team.
But even when a team doesn’t have a trio of ready-made stars, looking at the top three players on each roster is a good way to measure both the short- and long-term health of an organization and where a franchise is headed over the next few months and next few years.
With that rubric in mind, we not only have laid out the cores of all 30 NBA teams, but also ranked them in comparison to one another. And we’ve done so by taking into account both the group’s present and future value — along with the likelihood that these players will be with their respective teams for the medium to long term.
Who else could be atop this list? Not only did the Thunder win 68 games and their first championship last season, but they also did so with one of the youngest title-winning rosters in NBA history. Then, to cap things off, general manager Sam Presti went out this summer and proceeded to lock all three of his young cornerstones into long-term contract extensions — officially cementing the Thunder as the perennial favorites to lift the Larry O’Brien Trophy for the foreseeable future.
The “NBA Today” crew discusses a preseason poll naming Nikola Jokic the best player in the NBA.
The Cavaliers, like the Thunder, have a trio of prime-age or younger stars locked into long-term contracts and a team that won 64 games last season. Unlike the Thunder, however, Cleveland was unable to follow it with playoff success, losing in five games to the Indiana Pacers in the second round. That is why the Cavaliers are placed here and not even higher up this list. A strong playoff run next spring, and that will quickly change.
Perk: The Rockets are going to be the NBA’s best offensive team
How do you get picked fourth and win Rookie of the Year, as Stephon Castle did last season, and fall out of a team’s core? By that same team trading for an All-Star point guard (Fox) and drafting another (Harper) with the second pick after jumping up in the lottery, as the Spurs did over the past few months. How all of these different players fit around the one certain core player in San Antonio for the foreseeable future, Wembanyama, will be one of the big stories of the upcoming NBA season.
Jayson Tatum: ‘I haven’t said I’m not playing this season’
Shams Charania expects Erik Spoelstra to coach Team USA for multiple cycles
For the second straight season, the Hawks have the same trio leading the way, all while the franchise has undergone a rapid and fascinating reimagining of the roster by newly installed general manager Onsi Saleh. Trae Young remains this team’s best player. Kristaps Porzingis could be its second. And yet, both players are able to be unrestricted free agents next summer. Meanwhile Daniels was last season’s Most Improved Player, Johnson — if he can stay healthy — is a popular breakout candidate and Risacher, although no Cooper Flagg or Victor Wembanyama, had a fine rookie season after Atlanta selected him No. 1 in the 2024 draft.
A lot has changed in Houston over the past year. Thompson was a very near miss from inclusion in this group a year ago, and in hindsight that was an obvious mistake. The No. 4 pick in the 2023 NBA draft continues to blossom into a star and has a chance to take another massive leap forward this season due to the unfortunate torn ACL for Fred VanVleet last month during preseason workouts. Although I’m sure you’re thinking, “No Kevin Durant? Really?” remember the purpose of this list. Durant remains — at least for now — without a contract extension, and Sheppard could be the team’s starting point guard this season and remains a key player for Houston long term.
After advancing out of the first round of the playoffs once in its first 34 years of existence, Minnesota has now done so in back-to-back seasons, reaching the Western Conference finals before losing to the Dallas Mavericks and Oklahoma City Thunder, respectively. The question now is how Minnesota will find a way to advance further — especially with the Thunder looming over the West moving forward. The answer will begin with continued improvement from Edwards and McDaniels. Randle moves into the core after inking a long-term extension with the franchise this offseason.
A year ago, Boston was coming off raising banner No. 18 to the TD Garden rafters and looked poised to have a real chance at claiming a 19th title. Then came Tatum’s unfortunate torn Achilles in May against the Knicks in the conference semifinals. Now, Boston is likely to spend this season spinning its wheels waiting for Tatum to get back and give this group a chance to potentially be back in the title fight again in 2026-27. Until then, though, Brown and White will still remain two of the better wing players in the NBA, and the envy of most of the opponents they’ll come up against this season.
Entering Game 7 of the NBA Finals, Indiana was likely going to be right near the top of this list after a remarkable playoff run that featured a series of historic comebacks fueled by the style of play coach Rick Carlisle and Haliburton have employed in Indianapolis. But after Haliburton suffered an Achilles tear in that final game of the 2024-25 campaign, the Pacers are also staring at a long 12 months until his likely return at the start of next season. One silver lining? Although Bennedict Mathurin fell out of the team’s core thanks to the emergence of Nembhard, who had another brilliant playoff run, Haliburton’s absence could give the former lottery pick a chance to reestablish himself with the Pacers.
Things are drastically different in Dallas compared to a year ago, when the Mavericks had Luka Doncic and Irving together in a backcourt that was coming off an NBA Finals appearance. Now, Irving has a torn ACL, Doncic is in Los Angeles and — after a stunning bit of lottery luck — Flagg is the star of the show, playing alongside Davis in the Mavericks’ frontcourt. It’s all pretty hard to believe, even months after it all took place. Still, Dallas could have a chance to be a factor this season — but that will require Flagg to instantly contribute, Davis to remain healthy and Irving to come back from his knee injury ready to go by playoff time.
Last season, the Warriors went 22-5 with Butler and Curry both available after acquiring Butler at the trade deadline from the Miami Heat, and they feel they’d have advanced to the Western Conference finals if they hadn’t lost Curry for the rest of the series against the Minnesota Timberwolves with a hamstring injury. There’s little doubt this team has a very high ceiling — if healthy. But given their core is all 35 or older, the “if healthy” question is going to follow this group around all season long.
The Lakers — fairly — believe a team led by Doncic and James can contend with anyone. However, that requires both players to be healthy. And with James already dealing with a sciatica problem that threatens the start of his season for the first time in his remarkable career — plus his status as the league’s oldest player, who is approaching his 41st birthday — health is going to be a constant question. And that’s before the potential shooting issues, as well as the perimeter and interior defensive concerns for this team.
Questions? In Philadelphia? Never! Jokes aside, obviously the elephant in the room is the health of Embiid, let alone that of Paul George. If the two of them can stay on the court this season, Philadelphia could be a factor in the East. But there’s no certainty of when, or how often, we will see the two 76ers stars out there. George, meanwhile, is in the second year of a max extension that he signed as a free agent last summer, but he falls out of the core this season in favor of Edgecombe, the third pick in June’s draft.
This is a franchise perpetually stuck in the mud. One could argue the Bulls should be in a lower tier than this — but that would be saying the Bulls are definitely going to be committed to bottoming out and rebuilding. History suggests they will win 38 or 39 games and be in the play-in — which, in this season’s East, is very possible. After signing a long-term deal this offseason, Giddey is a core player. Coby White, although the team’s best player, is not as he enters the season on an expiring deal. Instead, the No. 12 pick in this year’s draft, Essengue, is one alongside Buzelis, last year’s No. 11 pick.