With training camp on the horizon and the regular season less than two months away, anticipation is building for NBA fans across the globe. This is going to be an exciting season: The West is as competitive as ever, while the East is a crapshoot, which just means more teams have a real chance to make noise.
Free agency has more or less died down, except for a few straggling veterans (cough, cough, Al Horford) and an ice-cold restricted free agent market. Cam Thomas finally accepted his qualifying offer with Brooklyn this week. Expect Quentin Grimes, Josh Giddey and Jonathan Kuminga to resolve their prolonged holdouts in the near future, too.
This offseason was not quite as chaotic as promised — so much for that long-rumored Giannis Antetokounmpo trade request — but there was still plenty of change. Kevin Durant is a Houston Rocket. Desmond Bane went to Orlando. Damian Lillard is back in Portland. The landscape has shifted dramatically.
And yet, for every front office who excelled in this summer's festivities, there is a front office destined to live in regret. Whether it's due to a simple inaction or a gross misallocation of resources, these are the NBA teams having the worst offseasons to date.
5. Brooklyn Nets
It's impossible to know the outcome of a rookie class this soon, but the Brooklyn Nets' use of five first-round picks in June warrants major scrutiny. Egor Dëmin just was not worth the eighth overall pick. I'm sorry to say it, but how a team could watch his freshman season at BYU and come to the conclusion that he's better than Collin Murray-Boyles, Derik Queen, Khaman Maluach and Kasparas Jakučionis (and the list goes on) defies logic.
Draft picks are so often a crapshoot, so this take could age poorly. Dëmin looked solid in Summer League and he will benefit from a long leash in Brooklyn. The Nets don't plan on winning many games this season and will be happy to rack up Ls as Dëmin learns the ropes. But in addition to flubbing their lottery pick on a non-shooting, non-defending "point guard," the Nets subsequently drafted two more tall guards with shooting concerns in Nolan Traoré and Ben Saraf, a "point center" with shooting concerns in Danny Wolf and an extremely unrefined 3-and-D wing in Drake Powell.
If you are going to use five first-round picks — a perfectly reasonable action for a team in the early stages of a wholesale rebuild like Brooklyn — you'd at least like those picks to make sense together. Brooklyn clearly envisions an up-tempo lineup with multiple ball-handlers and high-feel passers. It's a fun vision, but even operating under that mandate, I'm not sure Brooklyn nailed any of its picks.
Beyond their incredibly odd draft strategy, the Nets turned Cam Johnson into Michael Porter Jr. and a single first-round pick. That unprotected 2032 pick from Denver could prove valuable, so the jury is still out here. But Johnson is an exceptional complementary piece and he no doubt had plenty of suitors. Suffering through Michael Porter hero-ball for the next few years will leave Nets fans exasperated, even if the trade works out long term.
Brooklyn is taking a patient approach to the extreme, which is generally smart. But man, this team is going to be bad and I'm not sure fans are going to see much light at the end of the tunnel with this group as it stands.
4. Phoenix Suns
The Phoenix Suns needed to move on from Kevin Durant, but getting so little in return for the 15-time All-Star was a mild surprise. Durant essentially manipulated the market in order to force his way to Houston, so the Suns could only do so much. Still, it's worth wondering if trading him for Jalen Green, Dillon Brooks and a single lottery pick was even worth it.
Khaman Maluach was a home-run outcome with the 10th overall pick, but Phoenix immediately followed that up with a trade for Mark Williams. That pegs Maluach in a backup role for the next couple years at least. Williams is certainly more prepared to help a winner in 2025-26, but after injury concerns derailed his trade to Los Angeles last season — not to mention Williams' shortcomings as a rim protector — it's fair to wonder if he was worth two first-round picks when the Suns are so desperately short on assets.
Green just isn't very good. Like, he put up numbers in Houston, but few NBA players run more hot and cold. The pendulum swings wildly and at random. It's impossible to know what to expect on a given night. Green has incredible tools and he can put points on the board, but he's a non-presence on defense and his offensive skill set does not elevate those around him. If Green isn't dropping 40 points on iso buckets, odds are he's not really helping the Suns win games. Devin Booker will be Green's best backcourt mate to date, but it's not the most synergistic pairing on paper.
Dillon Brooks brings a defensive intensity that Phoenix desperately needs, but he is another deeply flawed offensive player. The shot selection between Green and Brooks is bound to frustrate Booker, who now has more on his plate than ever. Williams should set screens and gobble up points in the paint, but Suns fans are probably overestimating the impact of a "real" center. Especially when the offense took a huge step back post-KD trade.
Phoenix also took on a ton of dead money with the Bradley Beal buyout. It was past time for the Suns to reset and look to the future, but the Suns are still asset-poor. They have a first-time head coach, a GM who happens to come from Mat Ishbia's alma mater of Michigan State and not nearly enough established talent to earnestly compete in the West.
3. Milwaukee Bucks
The Milwaukee Bucks waived and stretch Damian Lillard and used the leftover cap space to overpay Myles Turner, all without even securing an official long-term commitment from Antetokounmpo. Between Turner and Lillard's dead money, the Bucks will be spending roughly $48.5 million annually for the next four years. So you could say that Milwaukee traded Jrue Holiday (and additional assets) for Myles Turner on Dame's old salary.
That is bad business all around. Turner can more or less replace Brook Lopez's 3-and-D presence in the frontcourt, but the 29-year-old's defense has been on the decline for a while now. He's not the DPOY candidate he was a few years ago and the Bucks can't expect Turner to anchor anything resembling a top-five defense like Lopez used to.
The Cole Anthony signing was a nice bargain-bin pickup, but what else has Milwaukee done? They burned their only draft pick on a draft-and-stash prospect, despite reports that Giannis was closely monitoring their selection. Milwaukee brought back Thanasis Antetokounmpo, which probably means Giannis is sticking around, but he's not playable. The starting backcourt consists of Kevin Porter Jr. and Gary Trent Jr., neither of whom would start on 29 other teams. Andre Jackson, one of their few young players with something resembling upside, is suddenly on the chopping block.
Milwaukee couldn't get rid of that ghastly Kyle Kuzma contract. The roster as a whole looks just about the same as it did last season, with maybe a marginal improvement at the five spot. Giannis is an MVP candidate, so we can't rule the Bucks out yet, but Mikwaukee's aging, thin roster feels destined to implode.
2. New Orleans Pelicans
The New Orleans Pelicans made the utterly baffling (and extremely funny) decision to fire David Griffin as president of basketball operations in favor of ex-Pistons exec and Hall of Fame shooting guard Joe Dumars. The Louisiana native once led Detroit to the NBA Finals — both as a player and as a GM. But he also drafted Darko Miličić and drove the Pistons into the ground before spending a long time in the league office.
Dumars' hire was a surprise — and it came with immediate trepidation from Pelicans fans. Dumars' first move was to trade CJ McCollum's expiring contract for Jordan Poole's non-expiring contract. Poole was better than he gets credit for last season, but willingly paying him north of $30 million annually for each of the next two years is ... a choice.
Then he dropped the hammer. Dumars sent the No. 20 pick and New Orleans' unprotected 2026 first-round pick (!!!!) to Atlanta for the rights to Derik Queen with the No. 13 pick. Like, what? New Orleans won 21 games last season. Zion Williamson has played 60-plus games twice in six NBA seasons. There is no reason to believe this team is a contender. Giving up what could realistically be a high lottery pick in a loaded 2026 draft for Derik Queen is absurd. And I like Derik Queen.
New Orleans kneecapped its future, complicated its cap sheet and did very little to meaningfully improve the roster around the never-healthy Williamson. Queen and fellow lottery pick Jeremiah Fears are incredible talents, but neither projects to move the needle much as a rookie. The Pelicans basically saw a rock and a hard place and leapt between them for no discernible reason.
1. Golden State Warriors
The date is Sept. 6, 2025. NBA media day is scheduled for Sept. 23, 2025 — less than three weeks from now. The Golden State Warriors currently have nine players on standard NBA contracts and one (1) on a two-way contract. Jonathan Kuminga has not re-signed or been traded. And otherwise, there is deafening silence around what's next on the docket for Golden State's front office.
We know the Dubs are waiting on Al Horford, but with all due respect, a 39-year-old backup center is not worth putting your entire summer on hold. Especially when there's no guarantee that Horford even keeps playing. The man is considering retirement for a reason.
Kuminga will probably come back on the qualifying offer and spend the next few months trying to force a trade. That won't help things. It's impossible to rule out Stephen Curry, Jimmy Butler and Draymond Green, but man, who are the Warriors going to play around that core? Unless Brandin Podziemski and Moses Moody take huge leaps, Golden State is looking awfully thin.
There are a few worthwhile free agents left on the marketplace, but Golden State doesn't exactly have a huge reserve of open cap space. Malik Beasley, Malcolm Brogdon and old friend Gary Payton II are all worth a look in addition to Horford. Hell, at this point, even Russell Westbrook might be better than nothing. But the Dubs are waiting way too long to put a legal roster together. Old teams with depth issues don't have the best track record in recent years.