Mock Expansion Draft: What's the best roster an NBA expansion team could build today?

In mid-July, the NBA began taking the next steps toward expansion. The NBA board of governors directed the league office to undertake "in-depth analysis of all the issues around expansion, both economic and non-economic," according to Josh Robbins of The Athletic.

"A lot of analysis still needs to be done, and nothing's been predetermined one way or another, and without any specific timeline," NBA Commissioner Adam Silver told reporters. "We're going to be as thorough as possible and look at all the potential issues."

However, NBA fans in Seattle and Las Vegas might not want to start popping bottles yet. David Aldridge and Mike Vorkunov of The Athletic reported "there is not overwhelming momentum among governors to immediately expand past the current 30 teams," as several ownership groups would prefer to "begin collecting and splitting the massive new revenues" from the league's new national TV contracts "among the existing teams, rather than bringing in new partners that would also receive a cut of the financial pie."

While expansion might not be imminent, it does seem like a foregone conclusion that the league will eventually add two teams in the coming years. That got us thinking: What's the best roster that an expansion team could assemble if an expansion draft were being held ahead of the 2025-26 season?

First, let's start with a few caveats. The NBA's latest collective bargaining agreement does not contain rules for an expansion draft, so we'll default to how it went down in 2004 when the then-Charlotte Bobcats joined the league. Teams were allowed to protect up to eight players from being selected (including restricted free agents), and they couldn't lose more than one player to the expansion team. If an expansion team selected a restricted free agent, that player would automatically become an unrestricted free agent, which would add significant risk to that selection.

The CBA does spell out how expansion teams will work financially for the first few years of their existence, though. During their first season, they'll operate with a salary cap that's 66.7% of the actual salary cap that year. If the expansion draft were to be held today, when the salary cap is roughly $154.7 million for 2025-26, the new team would be operating with a salary cap of $103.1 million.

With that in mind, let's build the best expansion team that money can buy.

Building the team

At first, our strategy was to load up on as many solid veterans on veteran-minimum contracts ($2.3 million each) as possible. That created the financial flexibility to splurge on a few positions of need to fill out the roster at the end.

Chris Paul was a no-brainer in that regard. While the 40-year-old is likely in the final year of his Hall of Fame career, he proved last season with the San Antonio Spurs that he still has juice left in the tank. His ability to set the table for teammates and space the floor on offense makes him well worth the minuscule $2.3 million price here.

To round out our point guard depth chart, we stayed in the bargain bin with D'Angelo Russell ($5.7 million) and Nikola Topić ($4.0 million). The Dallas Mavericks are relying on D-Lo to hold down the fort until Kyrie Irving returns from his torn ACL, so he and CP3 could have a camp battle for the starting gig of this hypothetical expansion team. Topić missed his entire rookie season due to a torn ACL, but the 6'6" jumbo playmaker is a high-upside swing at a relatively low cost.

We could have gone one of two ways at shooting guard. Defensive-minded players such as Matisse Thybulle and Josh Okogie would have helped cover up for the likes of Russell, but we'd essentially be playing 4-on-5 on offense whenever they're on the floor. Instead, we doubled down on shooting with Kevin Huerter ($18.0 million), added a walking bucket in Jordan Clarkson ($2.3 million) and rounded out our backcourt depth chart with a do-it-all veteran in Bruce Brown ($2.3 million).

Saddiq Bey ($6.1 million) missed all of last season to recover from a torn ACL, but he averaged 14.1 points while shooting 35.2% from deep in his four healthy seasons to date. He's now more than a full year removed from his injury, which could make him a sneaky value here. We also added even more shooting with Duncan Robinson ($16.8 million) and filled the final spot with Justin Champagnie ($2.3 million), who quietly had a career year with the Washington Wizards last season.

Since we largely constrained our spending aside from the splurges on Huerter and Robinson, we were able to spend up a bit at power forward. Jeremy Sochan ($7.1 million) is still somewhat of an enigma, but our team needs a few young, high-upside players to potentially build around long-term. Obi Toppin ($14.0 million) just helped the Indiana Pacers come within one game of winning a championship this past season, while Chris Boucher ($2.3 million) is an inexpensive veteran third-stringer.

At center, we'll have Goga Bitadze ($8.3 million) and Clint Capela ($6.7 million) battle it out for the top two spots, while Mason Plumlee ($2.3 million) is a nice break-glass-in-case-of-emergency insurance policy buried deep on the bench. We considered Jaylin Williams ($8.7 million) instead of Capela, but that would have required us not to take Topić and find another point guard instead. The downgrade from J-Will to Capela wasn't as steep as the one from Topić to the alternatives.

All told, our roster adds up to $101.8 million, which left us roughly $1.3 million below the $103.1 million salary cap. We're largely devoid of high-end star power, which speaks to the challenges that an expansion team will face in the first year of its existence. The combination of each existing team being able to protect eight players and the salary cap starting off at only ⅔ of what every other team gets severely limited our options when it came to contractual splurges.

Think you can do better? Here's the list of protected and available players from each team that I used to construct my roster. Have at it!

What if there was no salary cap?

The salary-cap restrictions made this exercise tricky. But what if we turned off the salary cap, didn't care about the aprons and just put together the best 15-man roster possible? The roster would look quite different.

At point guard, we'd gamble on Dejounte Murray, whose recovery from a torn Achilles wouldn't be nearly as daunting if not for his $30.8 million salary. We'll stick with Russell as our stopgap until Murray is healthy, and we rounded out our depth chart with another high-upside, injury-prone player in Lonzo Ball.

At shooting guard, Zach LaVine will give us the star power that the salary-cap squad sorely lacked. Collin Sexton could provide value both on the court and as a $19.0 million expiring contract, while we'll bet on a bounce-back year from Kentavious Caldwell-Pope as a low-usage shooter off the bench.

Speaking of bounce-backs, we're gambling on the health of Paul George's knees since contracts aren't a factor. The same goes for Khris Middleton, whose $33.3 million expiring contract could help us land a big fish on the trade market. And we'll stick with Duncan Robinson as our third-string small forward to provide some sharpshooting off the bench.

We added some bounce to our lineup at power forward between John Collins, who could likewise provide value as a $26.6 million expiring contract, and Obi Toppin. To round out our depth chart, we took a flier on Harrison Barnes, who shot a career-high 43.3% from deep last season with the San Antonio Spurs.

At center, we took on another injury risk in Robert Williams III, although he's also on an expiring $13.3 million deal. Behind him, we scooped up Jaylin Williams from the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder and again took Goga Bitadze.

This roster has far more upside than the salary-cap version, although it has plenty of potential injuries waiting to happen as well. If this group stayed healthy, though, it would have a real shot at making the playoffs in its inaugural campaign. The same likely can't be said about the salary-cap version.

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