Welcome back to ESPN's Now or Later rankings, where I order all 30 NBA teams on a spectrum: Which need to win now, with their current cores, and which are able to bide their time and win later instead?
The Now or Later rankings use a mathematical formula that ranks teams in two categories. Money score is based on each team's projected total payments across upcoming seasons; the team ranked first has the least financial flexibility, while the team ranked 30th has the most. Draft score is based on the value of the future first-round picks that each team holds, factoring in pick protections and swaps; the team ranked first holds the least future draft value, while the team ranked 30th holds the most.
Those two factors combine to produce an overall rank, encapsulating not just each team's competitive timetable but its future optionality, as well. A franchise that already has dealt all its picks and signed its core to expensive long-term extensions is displaying clear win-now urgency and can't easily make adjustments to plug roster holes.
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. I'll start with a close battle at the top, as the top three teams are separated by the smallest margin in Now or Later rankings history.
Jump to a team: ATL | BOS | BKN | CHA | CHI | CLE DAL | DEN | DET | GS | HOU | IND LAC | LAL | MEM | MIA | MIL | MIN NO | NYK | OKC | ORL | PHI | PHX POR | SAC | SA | TOR | UTAH | WAS
1. Phoenix Suns
Money rank: 5th | Draft rank: 2nd 2025-26 rank: 5th
After a year out of the No. 1 spot, the Suns are right back at the top, after trading yet another future unprotected first-round pick, this time for Miles Bridges.
Phoenix doesn't seem like a team that should be adopting the most win-now stance of any in the league. The four other teams in the top five of these rankings, for instance, all won a playoff series last season and have reasonable ambitions to win more next spring.
But the Suns went 45-37 before bowing out in a first-round sweep, and they don't have anywhere near the talent level to justify a maximally all-in approach. To be fair, they already traded most of their draft assets a few years ago for Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal, and owner Mat Ishbia deserves credit for continuing to spend big money even as his team has scuffled. Yet it's still odd to see the Suns atop this list, directly ahead of teams that should win many more games this season.