Hollinger’s 2025-26 projections: East’s Bottom 7

The Western Conference is impossibly tough every NBA season, and this one will be no exception. Of the 15 teams in the conference, 14 are at least somewhat trying to make the postseason, and at least six of them could fairly be described as either “mostly in” or “all in” on a deep playoff run.

Inevitably, that means a few will be disappointed. Some might be surprised to fall short, even if others aren’t. The mismanagement of franchises such as the New Orleans Pelicans, Phoenix Suns and Sacramento Kings has softened the bottom of the West to the point that the 10 best teams can at least feel reasonably sure of making the Play-In Tournament.

Nonetheless, it’s going to be a competitive conference every night. I only have one of the 15 teams projected to win fewer than 30 games and eight projected to win 45 or more. Today, I’m going to look at the bottom half of the conference. I have helpfully added predicted records for every team, so you have something to point to and laugh at in April. Here’s my take on where each team stands, along with what it can do in the coming months to impact the years beyond this one:

15. Utah Jazz (23-59)

Etch this one in stone: Utah will have one of the four worst records in the NBA and will do whatever it takes to ensure that happens. The Jazz owe a top-eight protected pick to the Oklahoma City Thunder, an obligation that turns into dust if it doesn’t convey this season. By finishing in the bottom four, the Jazz can ensure that their pick is no worse than eighth after the draft lottery.

In a related story, the Jazz sent out a second-round pick to turn Collin Sexton into the remains of Jusuf Nurkić and also bought out Jordan Clarkson. In doing so, they handed the keys to the backcourt to two recent draft picks (Isaiah Collier and Keyonte George) who don’t look anywhere near starting-caliber, along with rookie Walter Clayton Jr.

Utah still has an All-Star forward in Lauri Markkanen, though the Jazz have frittered away his prime years and will waste another. The post-Donovan Mitchell-Rudy Gobert rebuild was a smart piece of business in the abstract that yielded major draft capital, but results appear as far away as ever. Consider that Utah coach Will Hardy is in Year 4 and still has never coached a game that mattered. Will we still be saying this in years 6 and 7?

Utah has little to show thus far from the Gobert and Mitchell deals, with Walker Kessler looking like the only core piece. The four remaining first-round picks from trades are Minnesota and Cleveland picks that figure to land in the 20s, limiting their upside. In fact, the best piece from those two trades might be a subsequent trade that converted three of the least valuable picks into an unprotected 2031 Phoenix first (more on that in a minute).

On court, the Jazz throw two more first-rounders into the mix this year in forward Ace Bailey and Clayton, and hopefully, they work out better than other Utah picks of recent vintage. There’s no nice way to say this, but 2024 lottery pick Cody Williams was the worst regular player in the league by virtually any metric you’d want to use. If possible, the eye test was worse. However, he’s only 20, and his solid summer league provided some wisps of encouragement. Quietly, 2023 lottery pick Taylor Hendricks is also here somewhere after a blah rookie year and a second season lost to injury. He’s currently lost in the midst of a deep pool of forwards, though it may thin out once the Jazz trade or buy out Kyle Anderson, Kevin Love or Georges Niang.

It’s not all bad news on the player development front. The Jazz’s 2024 second-rounder, Kyle Filipowski, was NBA Summer League MVP and looks like a rotation player at worst, while late 2023 first-rounder Brice Sensabaugh is a legit shooter off the bench. Collier, selected 29th in 2024, is a dog on defense and could be a rotation point guard (or more) if he can straighten his shot and clean up some of his turnover issues.

But if there’s a big-picture question, it’s whether this is the last year of the Great Salt Tank. New president of basketball operations Austin Ainge will have another high lottery pick and $50 million in cap room next summer and could put assets like that future Suns pick in play to quickly pivot into more of a win-now posture around Markkanen, Kessler, Bailey and the 2026 first-rounder.

The tell is Kessler’s lack of a contract extension. Utah can postpone signing him until next summer so it can keep his artificially low cap hold on the books ($14.4 million) and take a dip in the free-agent pool; Utah can also use its space to take in players via trade. The only realistic alternative to that would be trading Markkanen and Kessler right now and settling in for an even longer rebuild. However, I’ve not yet seen an indication that Utah is headed in that direction, and after three years of losing already, “two years away from being two years away” is a tough marketing pitch.

So, one more year, Jazz fans. In the meantime, Markkanen will have some cool dunks on people’s heads as long as his back feels good and the team doesn’t win enough to sideline him with “spasms.” And Jazz fans can watch Bailey and the perimeter prospects learn on the fly and see if any of them are good enough to play a role on what should be a much better roster a year from now.

14. Portland Trail Blazers (31-51)

Portland had a strong second half last season and finished with 36 wins, nearly scratching its way into the Play-In Tournament in the final weeks. But the Blazers seem to be a likely regression candidate on multiple fronts. For starters, the underlying data from a year ago suggests the Blazers weren’t quite as good as their record, with a minus-3.0 per game scoring margin.

The Blazers have youth on their side but a glaring lack of offensive talent. Arguably, their two best offensive players from a year ago, Anfernee Simons and Deandre Ayton, are gone. Ayton was bought out to make room for Portland’s other young bigs (and to remove a guy the Blazers didn’t want around any longer), while they made a bizarre trade of Simons for 34-year-old Jrue Holiday, who has a cap-clogging deal that pays him $105 million over the next three seasons. It felt like a ‘win-now” move, except the Blazers aren’t anywhere near being ready to win now.

It remains to be seen how this team will score. Minus Simons and Ayton, the Blazers seem like a near-guarantee for a bottom-five offense, with Deni Avdija (who was genuinely good last season and should have received far more attention for it) the closest thing they have to a go-to guy. Blind faith in the idea that Scoot Henderson can be a plus-starter at point guard is probably the only other reason for optimism here, but he will miss the start of the season repairing a torn hamstring, and the point guard spot is a glaring hole in his absence.

The Blazers will guard you, though, and clearly intend to make this their identity. Wing stopper Toumani Camara is an absolute beast who probably should have made the All-Defense First Team last season, Holiday still has his chops on that end, and the Blazers welcome back “stocks” (steals + blocks) deity Matisse Thybulle after an injury-wracked 2024-25.

Second-year pro Donovan Clingan is limited offensively but protects the rim and cleans up the glass, while Robert “If Healthy” Williams adds another shot blocker. Even the fringe guys add value; newly acquired Blake Wesley can slide his feet with anyone, and third-year pro Rayan Rupert looked like he might be turning the corner in summer league.

Alas, the Blazers seem not quite built for the future but also not for the present. They missed their moment to trade Jerami Grant, who still has three years and $102 million left on a contract nobody wants, and jumped right back in the same boat with Holiday. Damian Lillard, back for the vibes, adds another $14 million cap hit while taking the year off to recuperate from a torn Achilles.

If the Blazers won’t be good, I still expect them to be interesting. Can Shaedon Sharpe develop into a starting-caliber wing in his walk year? Was rookie center Yang Hansen a draft-night reach or a brilliant scouting find? Can young guards such as Henderson and Wesley find their footing? Will Clingan ever score on a post-up?

All of that is a bit more interesting set next to the transition to new ownership in Portland, with Tom Dundon agreeing to buy the team after a multi-year organizational malaise following the death of Paul Allen. Will new ownership be satisfied to keep things rolling with the duo of GM Joe Cronin and coach Chauncey Billups, both of whom were extended at the end of last season? More broadly, what team-building strategies will Dundon and company embrace?

Dundon might not get to play with his new toy until after the trade deadline, but the Blazers have some interesting pathways. They can get near max cap room next summer if they don’t extend Sharpe, plus they own three unprotected firsts from other teams and likely will have another high pick in a strong 2026 draft. For the moment, however, they’re caught between a win-now team and a win-later one, without having a particularly strong case for being either.

Shaedon Sharpe rises for an easy two points against the Rockets. (Soobum Im / USA Today)

13. New Orleans Pelicans (32-50)

Despite the serial mismanagement of the past several months, it’s possible to construct a scenario where the on-court version of this season’s Pelicans ends up being somewhere between halfway decent and genuinely good.

Mix in a healthy Zion Williamson (I know, but humor me) with a slew of tough wings such as Trey Murphy, Herb Jones and Saddiq Bey, throw in some buckets from Jordan Poole and add Dejounte Murray at some point during the season. Sprinkle in Jose Alvarado mayhem and whatever rookies Jeremiah Fears and Derik Queen can give them, and maybe you have something.

Unfortunately, “healthy Zion Williamson” is doing a lot of lifting in this scenario, and despite encouraging reports on his offseason conditioning, there’s no reason to believe he can stay on the court for the majority of the season. He’s played more than half the schedule just twice in his six NBA seasons and has rarely betrayed any commitment to improving that trend line.

Even if Williamson plays at an All-Star level for the bulk of the schedule, the Pelicans have other issues. This is the worst center situation in the West, with veteran tourniquet Kevon Looney imported to try to limit the bleeding. Second-year pro Yves Missi had his moments as a rim runner but was clearly overmatched as a starter last season; ditto for undersized sidekick Karlo Matković.

The Pels are also likely to lean on their two lottery picks, Fears and Queen, through the lumps of an NBA rookie season. While the trade for Queen was disastrous in terms of asset management (the Pels gave up an unprotected 2026 first-rounder to move up in the draft), the rookie forward has some interesting shot-creation chops thanks to an unusually advanced handle for a player of his size.

But Queen, who will miss the start of the season because of a wrist injury, is not notably athletic and has struggled to stay in shape, and his shot isn’t threatening enough to play next to another non-spacing big — something that is all but a requirement as long as Williamson is the franchise centerpiece.

That particular issue goes beyond Queen. The Pelicans have zero stretch bigs on the roster after trading Kelly Olynyk and CJ McCollum for Poole and Bey; their only way to play four-out is to use either Murphy or Bey at power forward and have Williamson play center.

On the sideline, Willie Green is back despite murmurs from late last season that he’d lost the locker room. The Pelicans are near the luxury-tax line and won’t go over it; more disconcerting is that they’re also at the projected 2026-27 tax line after acquiring Poole’s $34 million obligation. While the Pels can regain some wiggle room by declining options on Looney and Jordan Hawkins, they’ll have to refill the roster spots with exception money; the Pels won’t have a pick in the 2026 draft thanks to the Queen trade.

Maybe those constraints are a good thing, as they might prevent the new front office led by Joe Dumars from doing any further harm. Once upon a time, the Pelicans had a bounty of draft picks from the Anthony Davis and Jrue Holiday trades and a possible generational building block in Williamson. Now they have a thin, capped-out roster of pieces that don’t seem to fit.

12. Phoenix Suns (35-47)

The good news is that the Suns seem to have somewhat realized how bad of shape they’re in. The bad news is that they’re still in bad shape. They don’t have control of their first-round pick until 2032 — presuming they get it unfrozen — and have a roster that will be hard-pressed to stay in playoff contention in the rugged West.

It doesn’t help that right after they burned through all their assets to build the most expensive team in the league, they decided to cheap out. Most notably, the Suns stretched Bradley Beal to get out of the luxury tax and repeater tax, the culmination of a disastrous trade in which they gave up Chris Paul, four unprotected first-round pick swaps and six second-round picks to become proud owners of the worst contract in the league. Beal’s contract, may it rest in peace, will now spend half a decade as a monument to the irrational foolishness of the last three years in Phoenix, quietly reminding you of $19.4 million in annual dead money any time you pull up the Suns’ books.

The Suns also moved on from Kevin Durant and got reasonable value for him, given his age and expiring contract: Jalen Green, Dillon Brooks and the 10th pick in the draft. But that’s still peanuts compared to what they gave up (four unprotected firsts and one swap, plus Mikal Bridges and Cam Johnson, who themselves were subsequently traded for six more firsts).

Unfortunately, the Suns’ habit of excess in trades is not easily broken. In a year where they theoretically should be retrenching, they gave up two firsts to Charlotte to get Mark Williams and needlessly inked a two-year extension with Devin Booker that will pay him $75 million for his age-33 season in 2029-30. Phoenix also likely reached to grab Khaman Maluach with the 10th pick in the draft, underscoring the Suns’ desperation to fix a center position that has troubled them for years.

Meanwhile, there’s the question of the point guard spot. Right now, Green and Booker figure to share the job, but both are wired as scorers and much better utilized as shooting guards. The other quality guard on the roster is Grayson Allen, but he can’t play point. End-of-roster pickups Collin Gillespie and Jared Butler will have chances to claw their way into the rotation.

The rest of the roster isn’t great, but it’s at least coherent. The “Brooks and Dunn” combo will be the wing stoppers, Royce O’Neale is a reliable third forward and the repatriated Nigel Hayes-Davis could provide additional shooting. Up front, Williams is injury-prone and Maluach is raw, but Nick Richards and Oso Ighodaro are still around for depth.

The Suns also changed coaches … again … with former Cavs assistant Jordan Ott taking over. One hopes expectations are slightly more realistic this season.

Where they go from here is hard to say. Right now, the Suns look like the new Sacramento, with an impulsive owner overseeing a roster tire fire that they’re now trying to piece back to respectability. Trading Booker to get some of their picks back seemed like the best way out of the pickle, but the extension reduces his trade value and indicates the Suns instead will try to dynamite themselves out of the crater they have dug for themselves. Good luck with that.

11. Sacramento Kings (36-46)

The Kings had a nice two-year run where they were just a normal, respectable NBA team. Last season, they brought back the Kangz. Sacramento panicked and fired Mike Brown after an early losing streak, then installed Doug Christie as head coach; as with many Sacramento hires in the last decade, his main qualification for the job seemed to be that he played for the early-2000s Kings. De’Aaron Fox decided he wanted out and was traded to San Antonio. The Kings pushed out Monte McNair as general manager and brought back Scott Perry, who split for the Knicks after three months the first time he had the gig.

So … here we are. Among other moves this offseason, the Kings traded Jonas Valančiūnas for the withered remains of Dario Šarić and passed on a golden opportunity to lock in 3-and-D wing Keon Ellis at a value rate by declining his team option and re-signing him as a restricted free agent. All of that was so they could stay far enough below the luxury tax to pay Dennis Schröder. The Kings did need a real point guard, yes, but had other, less painful pathways to get there.

Up front, the Kings have a certified masher in Domantas Sabonis, but otherwise, they’re puny. DeMar DeRozan masquerades as the power forward, Drew Eubanks is what passes for the backup center, and rookie Nique Clifford (good in summer league!) likely will need to play immediately because of the limited forward depth.

And yet, after all that, the roster isn’t that bad. It’s easy to forget the Kings had a positive net rating last season and made the Play-In; even after trading Fox, they went 16-18. Sabonis and Zach LaVine are fringe All-Stars most seasons, Keegan Murray is a solid wing starter who shoots and defends, DeRozan can still get midrange buckets and shot-fake fools into heaps of fouls, and Malik Monk is electric in a sixth-man role.

On the other hand, there is no elite star talent here, and the Kings are in the wrong conference for that. Schröder is a low-end starter when the word “Deutschland” isn’t across his chest, the frontcourt depth looks shaky with a capital “S,” and Christie is a question mark on the sideline at best.

Finally, as ever, the potential for rash, impulsive decisions with disastrous long-term consequences is never out of mind with this franchise. The most likely endgame is that the Kings end up in contention for the Play-In most of the season but don’t quite get there. The worst part? Unless LaVine miraculously declines his $49 million for 2026-27, the Kings may be left to just extend Murray, re-sign Ellis and run it back for another year.

In theory, the Kings aren’t barren in terms of assets, with five tradable first-rounders, including an unprotected 2031 Minnesota pick, but who are they acquiring that pushes this team to the point where trading major draft equity makes sense? Staying stuck in the middle with a non-awful team is a quasi-viable strategy in the East, but in the West, it just sends you back to the lottery.

The Kings have talent, including Domantas Sabonis, but is it enough in a rugged West? (Sergio Estrada / USA Today)

10. Memphis Grizzlies (39-43)

It’s a “recharging” year in Memphis: not quite rebuilding, not pushing chips in and just kind of resetting and taking stock of what they have before they figure out what comes next.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. The Grizzlies weren’t good enough to justify a different course, especially in the West. Underscore those last three words — in the West — because the Grizzlies’ example illustrates a key truth about the difference between the East and West, one that possibly helps maintain the near-continuous chasm in strength between the two conferences.

Memphis had a fairly young team that won 48 games, was seeded in the top three of the conference for much of the season, finished with the NBA’s sixth-best net rating, won a Play-In game after narrowly losing the first one at Golden State and was beating the mighty Oklahoma City Thunder by 28 points in Game 3 of their playoff series before Ja Morant’s injury effectively ended whatever was left of their season.

And after it, they correctly concluded that they weren’t good enough. I can’t imagine a team in the East doing the same thing in that situation, because perennially winning 46-50 games on that side is basically a license to print second-round playoff tickets.

So, the reset. Memphis swapped out coaches late in the season, promoting Tuomas Iisalo after firing Taylor Jenkins, and then cashed in its Desmond Bane stock for four first-round picks and a pick swap from Orlando. Two of them were parlayed into rookie guard Cedric Coward, while another could result in a juicy 2026 lottery pick from the Suns. (Memphis likely will have the lesser of Phoenix’s or Washington’s pick.) Memphis also decided to defend its flank on Jaren Jackson Jr.’s impending 2026 free agency rather than risk him flying the coop, using cap space and a renegotiate-and-extend maneuver to lock him up for the next half decade.

There is an intriguing alternate reality where the Grizzlies used Jackson’s somewhat low cap hold in 2026 (it would have been $35.1 million) to make cap-room moves before re-signing him. However, getting to that point would have required both summer 2025 restraint and likely at least one salary dump trade and still pointed to an uncertain-at-best outcome. Instead, the Grizzlies ate $11 million in stretched money on Cole Anthony.

The Grizzlies will lean on Jackson and the perennially questionable Morant, who has not played more than six consecutive games since March 2023 and has missed at least 20 games each of the last four seasons, and once again rely on superior depth to lift them through the slog of the regular season.

The supporting cast includes new additions Coward, Ty Jerome and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, who collectively should offset some of the shooting deficit left by Bane’s departure. Backup point guard Scotty Pippen Jr. excelled in his frequent relief stints for Morant (his defense on Shai Gilgeous-Alexander in the playoffs stood out), re-signed combo forward Santi Aldama comes off his best season, and the Griz hope second-year wing Jaylen Wells can be a lockdown stopper at Bane’s vacated guard spot. Even the “deep depth” still has fringe rotation-caliber players such as Vince Williams and John Konchar.

Right now, however, there isn’t enough star power, and there is no starting center. Or backup, for that matter. Jackson, Zach Edey and Brandon Clarke all will miss time to start the season, leaving journeyman Jock Landale as the only viable center on the 15-man roster. (One guy who might help is two-way big P.J. Hall. Keep an eye on him.)

The behemoth Edey had a respectable rookie season but required June ankle surgery, while undersized energizer Clarke has never played more than 64 games in his six pro seasons and doesn’t seem likely to break the streak. The Grizzlies sent out Jay Huff and brought in Landale just to cover themselves with a legit physical presence until Edey is back, but Landale isn’t any kind of answer for more than survival minutes.

The more interesting story for Memphis this season is what it portends for next summer. The Grizzlies’ lack of expiring money may keep things quiet until June, but after that? Watch out. The Grizzlies already have a full roster of 15 players signed for next season, plus two first-round picks coming in, but 10 of those 15 are either expiring contracts or easily could be arranged to be so. Memphis also still has access to all its own future firsts, plus a likely 2026 Phoenix pick and one in 2030 from the Magic. This thing could go in a lot of directions. Jackson is likely the lone untouchable. (Morant, alas, is likely radioactive on the trade market until he gets through a season without notable incidents, injuries or Instagrams.)

Again, that’s a product of the reset, a defensible move that has the Grizzlies in possession of multiple high-ceiling assets. It’s just going to be a while before we can grade the result.

9. Dallas Mavericks (41-41)

The least deserving draft lottery winners in NBA history, the Mavs have a new lease on life post-Luka Dončić after Cooper Flagg improbably fell into their laps. Will they fumble the bag a second time?

The biggest decision Dallas has made so far has been something of a non-decision: to continue trying to win with the team it has rather than cash in its Anthony Davis stock to more fully rebuild around Flagg.

It’s a questionable choice, but it does leave Dallas in a better short-term position. Once Kyrie Irving returns from a torn ACL — which might not be until next season — the Mavs will have a three-man core that can hang with anyone in Irving, Davis and Flagg. Alas, the Davis-Irving combo might not be elite for long, given their ages and injury histories, and meanwhile, the Mavs are punting on the best pathway to putting a long-term core around Flagg.

To fill Irving’s spot for this season, Dallas brought in the best player it could with the tax exception in D’Angelo Russell. He has his warts, but he is a capable starter and shot maker who will benefit from playing next to Flagg and Davis.

Unfortunately, the rest of the roster is too big and unskilled, a downstream consequence of buying into the fiction that Davis is a power forward. Centers Daniel Gafford and Dereck Lively II both remain, and Gafford signed a value extension and could be a compelling trade piece once the Mavs realize that Davis needs to play center. Lively, meanwhile, is the one guy they should definitely hang onto because the 21-year-old is on the same timeline as Flagg, who doesn’t turn 19 until December.

Forward P.J. Washington signed a four-year, $90 million extension that is reasonable value in a vacuum and likely improves his trade value. Alas, it’s not totally clear where his minutes will come in this lineup. Shoehorning in minutes for other quality forwards Naji Marshall, Caleb Martin and Klay Thompson (a theoretical shooting guard, but one whose coaches are terrified to have guard opposing wings) only gets more difficult.

From a surfeit of forwards, the Mavs are glaringly lacking in guards. Flagg, a natural power forward, may be pressed into service at shooting guard at times. The only true shooting guard on the roster is reserve Max Christie.

Without Irving, this is likely to be something of a “gap” year for Dallas, similar to what Indiana and Boston are doing, except the Mavs should be more competitive and make the Play-In because of Flagg and Davis.

Transactionally, the Mavs don’t have the draft equity to take any big swings (if only a recent trade had yielded more), but trading Washington or Gafford for either draft capital or another legit shooting guard seems like an obvious in-season adjustment. The second apron is another constraint; Dallas already used the stretch provision on 2023 first-rounder Olivier-Maxence Prosper so it could stay under it while retaining Brandon Williams and Dante Exum as low-end backcourt options.

The main story, however, is really good news: Flagg is the real deal, one of the top prospects I’ve scouted over the past decade. He’ll be a plug-and-play starter from Day 1 and should be an All-Star by the time his rookie contract ends. The more interesting question is how well the Mavs can build a team around him by that point.

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