Zach KramOct 22, 2025, 08:30 AM ETCloseZach Kram is a national NBA writer for ESPN.com, specializing in short- and long-term trends across the league’s analytics landscape. He previously worked at The Ringer covering the NBA and MLB. You can follow Zach on X via @zachkram.
Curry: We have a legitimate shot to win the title (2:32)Steph Curry sits down with Malika Andrews to discuss his career and his urgency to win another title with the Warriors. (2:32)
The modern NBA is typically a league built around competitive windows rather than perennial contention. Every team has missed the playoffs at least once in the past decade, except for the Boston Celtics (who last missed in 2013-14).
As they build and pay their rosters — especially under the current collective bargaining agreement — teams must understand their competitive cycles and strategize accordingly. As the 2025-26 season begins, which teams need to win now, and which would prefer to compete later instead?
It’s that question that informs our Now or Later rankings, which use a mathematical model to place all 30 teams along that spectrum.
The Now or Later rankings are made up of two parts with equal weight. The first is money score, based on each team’s projected total payments across upcoming seasons, with spending for the current season counting the most. The second is draft score, based on the value of the future first-round draft picks that each team holds, factoring in the protections and swaps that affect what each pick might be worth.
Those two factors summarize not just each team’s anticipated competitive time frame, but its flexibility to adjust, as well. An organization that has already traded all its picks and locked in its core to expensive long-term deals is showing clear win-now urgency and can’t easily make changes midstream.
So, let’s analyze the rankings, where the first-place team is the most desperate to win now and the 30th-place franchise is the most content to win later.
The Cavaliers lead the league in money score by a huge margin because they’re the only team above the second apron in 2025-26. And they’re no slouches in the draft department, either, because they don’t control any of their next four first-round picks as a result of the Donovan Mitchell trade. They basically couldn’t be more of a win-now team if they tried.
The Magic experienced the largest year-to-year jump up these rankings of any team. They traded a major pick haul for Desmond Bane and gave Paolo Banchero a max rookie extension a year after giving Franz Wagner and Jalen Suggs large extensions of their own.
After years of treading water and slowly building from within, the Magic now have a very expensive core — they’re already right around the projected second apron line for next season — that hasn’t accomplished anything yet. That’s a dangerous position to occupy. But in the wide-open East, they chose to adopt a win-now posture sooner than expected, and it might pay off: Orlando has the second-best projected record in the East this season, according to ESPN’s Kevin Pelton.
The Knicks entered firm win-now territory in 2024, when they traded for Mikal Bridges and Karl-Anthony Towns, and they’re taking a Finals-or-bust mindset into this season. New York has an expensive core, even with Jalen Brunson taking a discount on his recent extension, and keeping that group could grow even pricier if Towns signs an extension of his own.
On the draft side, the Knicks will lose their first-round picks in 2027, 2029 and 2031, and they have an unfavorable swap in 2028. Technically, the Knicks have surplus draft capital in 2026, but the top-eight-protected pick they’re owed from the Wizards will almost definitely not convey, at which point it will turn into a pair of second-rounders instead.
Notably, the top three teams in these rankings play in the East, reflecting how the remaining contenders in the weaker, injury-ravaged conference see an opportunity to reach the Finals.
The Timberwolves fell slightly in these rankings overall, but the team that has lost in consecutive conference finals rates as the most win-now group in the West. Minnesota is mostly locked into its current core after extending Julius Randle and Naz Reid, and 2028 is the only time in the next six years that it controls its own pick.
Phoenix ranked first in both money score and draft score last season before a rapid unscheduled disassembly of a putative championship contender. The Suns traded Kevin Durant, waived-and-stretched Bradley Beal and ducked under both cap aprons. They would have fallen further in these rankings if they hadn’t traded for center Mark Williams or given Devin Booker an extension that doesn’t kick in until 2028-29.
As it stands, though, they’re still the first team in these rankings that doesn’t have a realistic path to contention in 2025-26. They’ve traded so many of their picks that they don’t control their own first-rounder until 2032. They can’t win now — but they aren’t positioned to win later, either.
At the moment, Denver is the only team that has traded its 2032 first-round pick, which was the cost to exchange Michael Porter Jr. for the lower-salaried (and possibly better) Cameron Johnson. Because the Nuggets also owe top-five-protected picks to the Oklahoma City Thunder in 2027 and 2029, they’re limited in the draft compensation they can ship out in midseason trades.
Although shedding Porter’s salary made Denver’s roster a bit less expensive in the short term, Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray, Aaron Gordon and Christian Braun are all signed to long-term deals that could limit the team’s financial maneuverability, given ownership’s tendencies. The Nuggets are a win-now team as long as they have Jokic in his prime, and they’re on a conceivable path to winning his second title.
By trading Kristaps Porzingis and Jrue Holiday over the summer, the Celtics wiggled their way out of the most punitive financial penalties they could have faced for building such an expensive roster. But they could fall only so far in these rankings when they’re committed to paying Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown $479 million combined over the next four years. This is still a team that wants to win in the near future — just, perhaps, with a one-year delay as Tatum recovers from a torn Achilles.
After trading Luka Doncic last season, Mavericks GM Nico Harrison said he envisioned a three- to four-year time frame for his team to win a championship. That mindset is reflected in this ranking, as Dallas has moved more in a win-now direction despite dealing a superstar in his prime.
The Mavericks would arguably be best-suited to pivot and build around 18-year-old Cooper Flagg and 21-year-old Dereck Lively II. But since last season, they’ve extended Kyrie Irving, Daniel Gafford and P.J. Washington, locking every member of their new, veteran-heavy core into place for at least two more seasons.
The Bucks’ urgency is almost existential, as they continue to make risky moves — most notably, stretching Damian Lillard’s remaining salary to be able to sign Myles Turner — with the hope of appeasing Giannis Antetokounmpo and his potentially wandering eye.
Whether those transactions will help Milwaukee advance past the first round of the playoffs for the first time in four years remains to be seen. But with no control of their first-round pick until 2031, the Bucks don’t have any reason to step on the brakes and change direction, whether Antetokounmpo is happy or not.
At one point, the spendthrift Clippers were mainstays near the top of these rankings. But now Ivica Zubac is the only Clipper owed any guaranteed money after 2026-27, so the team ranks in the bottom third of the league in money score.
The Clippers are still working their way out from under a large draft burden, though, as they don’t control any of their next four first-round picks because of the Paul George and James Harden trades. And although LA does have its 2030, 2031 and 2032 first-rounders for now, those picks could be on the chopping block if commissioner Adam Silver decides to enact harsh penalties at the conclusion of the Aspiration investigation.
Golden State has the flexibility to make a splashy win-now move midseason if it’s as good as the projections and advanced stats think and wants to make a real run at another title.
The 76ers are stuck between two paths. The win-now route centers on Joel Embiid and Paul George, who are both in their 30s and due more than $100 million combined this season. But with the health of both veterans uncertain, the 76ers could instead pivot to a future-oriented strategy centered on young guards Tyrese Maxey, Jared McCain and VJ Edgecombe.
Last season’s 24-58 record suggests this isn’t the right time for any all-in moves from GM Daryl Morey, which might explain why Philadelphia still has several future picks in its cupboard. But as long as Embiid is on the roster and even theoretically at full strength, the 76ers have to at least consider trying to maximize his remaining competitive window.
Want to know why LeBron James hinted at his discontent with the Lakers’ direction over the summer? Just look at this placement, as his team is right in the middle of the Now or Later rankings. In his 40s, James feels the urgency to win now. But the Lakers are taking a longer approach with Doncic — 14 years James’ junior — in the fold.
Other than Doncic, who signed a max extension in August, every other projected starter can enter free agency next summer, and the Lakers’ cap sheet is entirely clean after 2026-27. The Lakers have ample flexibility to build around their new star in the seasons to come. Notably, the 2027 free agent class could include such stars as Antetokounmpo, Jokic, Towns, Mitchell and old friend Anthony Davis, among many others.
The Raptors are tied for the most boring draft list in the league: They control all of their own first-round picks for the next seven years, and they don’t control anyone else’s. So, if they want to support a winning push in a weak Eastern Conference — and it seems like they do, given all the big salaries they’ve handed out — the Raptors have the assets to incentivize a trade partner.