Final Regular-Season Grades for Every 2024-25 NBA Team
Another NBA regular season is officially in the books! And before we ever so gracefully belly flop into the play-in and playoff waters, we must first grade said season, for every single team, like the dedicated and responsible hoops heads we all know ourselves to be.
Please remember that this exercise is evaluating each squad's performance from opening night through Sunday's regular-season finale. Previous grades will be provided to showcase progressions (or regressions), as well as for the sake of transparency. Generally speaking, though, we will not glom onto snapshot stretches—unless they have proven to be season-defining.
Like usual, every team will be graded against preseason expectations. The Washington Wizards are not an automatic "F" because they won fewer games than the Oklahoma City Thunder. Every squad is judged on its own scale.
Injuries will not be held against teams, and we must adjust expectations for certain situations because of them. But critiquing flawed processes in the face of misfortune is fair game. Midseason transactions—i.e. trades and firings—are up for consideration as well. In select cases, then, poor marks are not always reflective of on-court performance.
Finally, please remember that "C" represents an average grade. Anything higher means a team is outperforming expectations. Anything lower is a nod to underachievement.
Atlanta Hawks: C+
1 of 30
Quarter-Season Grade: B
Midseason Grade: B
Three-Quarter Season Grade: C
Play-in territory is exactly where most expected the Atlanta Hawks to land. Some will even call them a disappointment. A team built around Trae Young aspires to do more than hover around the league average in offensive efficiency.
The path Atlanta navigated to get here, though, was neither easy nor ideal. Young's efficiency from the perimeter has ebbed—he remains a transcendent playmaker—and Jalen Johnson yet again finished the season injured. The team also moved De'Andre Hunter and Bogdan Bogdanović, the latter of whom battled a checkered healthy bill and play before he left.
Atlanta has nevertheless overseen the rise of Dyson Daniels, an All-Defense and Most Improved Player candidate; carved out adequate reps for rookie Zaccharie Risacher, albeit not always in crunch time; and finally indulged a higher-minutes role for Onyeka Okongwu. The Hawks are miles from terrible, and they appear to have a concrete vision for how they'd like to flesh out the roster around Young.
Boston Celtics: B+
2 of 30
Quarter-Season Grade: A
Mid-Season Grade: B
Three-Quarter-Season Grade: B
So many of the concerns people have for the Boston Celtics feel forced.
Yes, the offense can over-stagnate. And sure, shooting regression from Jaylen Brown and Jrue Holiday isn't great. And OK, they might be too reliant on a 38-year-old Al Horford.
Who cares?
Boston still finishes the season as a top-three offense and top-seven defense. No other team is doing the same. Yours truly will worry about Horford's workload when he actually stops delivering. Payton Pritchard's breakout helps offset any slides from Brown and Holiday.
Worrying about the state of Brown's right knee, along with the general availability of Kristaps Porziņģis, is perfectly fair. Pretending the Celtics have done anything other than overdeliver relative to championship fatigue is not.
Brooklyn Nets: B+
3 of 30
Quarter-Season Grade: B
Midseason Grade: B
Three-Quarter-Season Grade: B
Grading the 2024-25 Brooklyn Nets always incites a mental tug-of-war.
Do we reward them for their overachieving out of the gate, the energy and experimentation they've played with since shedding talent, and the way head coach Jordi Fernandez's offense has empowered and ensured Cam Johnson's efficiency, even as the team steered into a creation deficit? Or, conversely, do we ding them for closing the first of a two-year tanking window without nabbing top-five lottery odds?
Skewing towards the former makes the most sense. Outstripping expectations has armed the Nets with a ton of information on their current players, fliers and placeholders included, without ruining their prospects of bagging a top-10 selection.
General manager Sean Marks also deserves credit for acting early on the trade market. He restocked Brooklyn's second-round cupboard while improving the team's lottery chances, all without taking on a single cent of guaranteed money for next season and preserving the organization's league-best cap space ahead of what should be a busy summer.
Charlotte Hornets: C-
4 of 30
Quarter-Season Grade: C
Midseason Grade: C-
Three-Quarter-Season Grade: D
Injuries make it difficult to assess the Charlotte Hornets' progress. Tre Mann (back), Brandon Miller (wrist) and Grant Williams (ACL) all saw their seasons end before Feb. 1. LaMelo Ball (ankle) finished another year on the shelf, too. Mark Williams barely played in half of the team's games
Charlotte showed some defensive fight under new head coach Charles Lee when closer to full strength. It maintained some of that energy after its relative gutting before cannonballing into total tank mode.
Rookie Tidjane Salaun looks like the wrong pick at No. 6. But his end-to-end hustle is infectious, and he's churned out better late-season stints.
The Hornets' ultimate saving grace is a front office regime that understands the importance of gradual, non-linear progression. They have stayed the big-picture course, prioritizing draft-pick acquisitions and their own lotto odds at consecutive deadlines, telegraphing a patience and process this franchise has never known. The returns on this season are a little discouraging, even relative to the caveats, but not yet damning.
Chicago Bulls: C
5 of 30
Quarter-Season Grade: C
Midseason Grade: C-
Three-Quarter-Season Grade: C
Separating the Chicago Bulls' bright spots from their overarching direction is impossible. They traded Zach LaVine, but multiple deadlines too late, and never even attempted to divert from their play-in course.
When your lead executive, vice president of basketball operations Artūras Karnišovas, basically intimates your big-picture plan is to hopefully come up with a big-picture plan, your big-picture plan is problematic.
HOWEVER: The Bulls by and large play a fun brand of hoops, racing up and down the court and firing so many threes they might as well be flipping off the 1990s enthusiasts. Josh Giddey has proven to be a useful offensive addition, obvious limitations and all, which is equal parts promising and terrifying when you consider Chicago will now give him a new contract.
Matas Buzelis has a chance to make First Team All-Rookie. Coby White has done nothing but reiterate his status as one of the league's most underpaid players. Nikola Vučević has trade value again...and not just because he'll soon be on an expiring contract.
The Bulls top out as first-round fodder anyway. But the future is marginally less bleak than it was to start the season, at least for now—or until it isn't.
Cleveland Cavaliers: A
6 of 30
Quarter-Season Grade: A
Midseason Grade: A
Three-Quarter-Season Grade: A
Do not let the Cleveland Cavaliers' less-than-annihilatory close to the regular season color your overall view of their performance.
We have, like, 65-plus games' worth evidence they are better than they've recently shown. And more to the point, it's tough, verging on slightly reckless, to keep your foot on the gas when you (basically) long ago wrapped up the No. 1 seed.
Plenty of people envisioned the Cavs entering the title-contender clique prior to the season. Nobody predicted total domination on the back of a Most Improved Player-worthy leap from Evan Mobley, the most plug-and-play version of Donovan Mitchell we've ever seen, an actually healthy Darius Garland, a more dynamic offensive attack under head coach Kenny Atkinson and, suddenly, one of the league's deepest rotations (shout-out Ty Jerome).
This only begins to scratch the surface. And we needn't go any deeper. Cleveland's iffy close—especially on defense—is enough to hold back the "A+." But turning in one of the 15 highest point differentials per 100 possessions in league history deserves nothing less than the big, fat, glittery, neon "A" they've held all along.
Dallas Mavericks: F
7 of 30
Quarter-Season: B
Midseason Grade: B
Three-Quarter-Season Grade: F
Imagine trading Luka Dončić with the (alleged) goal of improving your long-term viability while receiving only one first-round pick in return.
While you're busy conceiving hell-on-Earth, Dallas Mavericks team president Nico Harrison is living this reality—by his own hand.
Handing out an "F" somewhat undermines what we've seen from others on the roster. (Gold star for you, Naji Marshall.) The Mavs have also lost more value to missed games this season than any other team, according to BBall Index.
That's enough to spare them the dreaded "F-." Just let it be known this isn't about the players. This is about a team willingly trading a generational 25-year-old superstar and then having the audacity to try defending it by character- and fat-shaming him on the way out.
The Mavs' reward at the end of it all? Losing Kyrie Irving to a torn left ACL; having Luka hang 45 points on them in his return to Big D, unnecessarily reminding the front office and fans and public at large that this team's short- and long-term trajectories are irreversibly screwed; and now, competing for the chance to get disemboweled by Oklahoma City in the first round.
Denver Nuggets: D
8 of 30
Quarter-Season Grade: D
Midseason Grade: B
Three-Quarter-Season Grade: B
What in the actual hell are we supposed to do here? I'm genuinely asking.
Recent developments shouldn't drag down the Denver Nuggets' grade this much. But their recent developments included dismissing head coach Michael Malone and general manager Calvin Booth with three games left in the regular season. They then released a statement that explained...absolutely nothing...while insisting these decisions were made with the "intention of giving our group the best chance at competing for the 2025 NBA Championship."
Literally, actually, what?
Upending your decision-making structure a stone's throw away from the playoffs is bonkers at its best. Does interim head coach David Adelman practice voodoo that'll juice Russell Westbrook's self-awareness? Or make the Nuggets hit more threes? Or turn Jalen Pickett into the Shelvin Macks of Kyle Lowrys?
Nikola Jokić is having his best individual season ever, Jamal Murray recaptured second-in-command form before his hamstring injury, and Christian Braun has taken measurable steps forward. Virtually all of that is now overshadowed by a C-Suite that should be required to take a crash course in tact.
Moving on from Booth and Malone isn't necessarily wrong. The timing of it all, and what it says about your lack of preparation, particularly on the Malone front, borders on malpractice.
Detroit Pistons: A
9 of 30
Quarter-Season Grade: B
Midseason Grade: A-
Three-Quarter-Season Grade: A
Working off consecutive sub-20-win campaigns left plenty of room for the Detroit Pistons to improve entering this season. They have obliterated consensus sentiments even by those standards.
Cade Cunningham looks the part of an All-NBA player with better spacing around him. Detroit's offense continues to show cracks in the half-court, but his minutes give them a much higher floor to go along with a fairly lofty ceiling.
Head coach J.B. Bickerstaff has extracted more defense out of this core than anyone could have foreseen. Pretty much everyone has improved, including Cunningham.
Jalen Duren's follies as a baseline rim protector remain, but his movement away from the basket is a deterrent in its own right. Ausar Thompson and Isaiah Stewart would be generating All-Defense buzz if they qualified for the ballot. Ron Holland II already looks frisky on that end.
Oh, and the Pistons are headed to the playoffs—not the play-in, the playoffs.
Golden State Warriors: B
10 of 30
Quarter-Season Grade: B
Midseason Grade: D
Three-Quarter-Season Grade: B
Though many appreciated the Golden State Warriors' offseason machinations, not even their scorching-hot start convinced people they had reopened their title window. Before long, the sheen of their depth faded, and it looked like they'd bow out in nondescript fashion, making a splash no bigger than Dennis Schröder, forfeiting another year of Stephen Curry's superstardom.
Then came the Jimmy Butler trade.
The fit isn't perfect. Butler's scoring aggression waxes and wanes, and the reintroduction of Jonathan Kuminga features his usual peaks and valleys. But the team overall is better off.
Falling back into play-in territory lowers the grade a tad. It's not as much of a demerit when you're in the West. Golden State has propped up a top-seven offense and defense since Butler's debut. Curry has forced himself back into First-Team All-NBA consideration during this time, and equally critical, the Warriors are handedly winning the minutes Butler logs without him.
Between all of this, Draymond Green's don't-call-it-a-renaissance defense and the increased reliability of Brandin Podziemski and Moses Moody, you might even say that Golden State has, ahem, Jimmied its title window back open.
Houston Rockets: A+
11 of 30
Quarter-Season Grade: A
Midseason Grade: A
Three-Quarter-Season-Grade: A
What actually went wrong for the Houston Rockets this year?
It would have been cool for Cam Whitmore to take a bigger step forward, and for rookie Reed Sheppard to have a larger impact in general. Everything else about this team has essentially annihilated expectations.
Houston's ascent is reflected in the standings. It enters the postseason with the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference on the back of a furious transition attack, stalwart defense and depth that is the envy of no fewer than 28 other teams. (Take that, Mat Ishbia.)
Distrust from the outside remains high as this core prepares for its first playoff trip together. The Rockets offense wants for better bucket-getting and spacing versus set defenses. They rank in the bottom 10 of half-court efficiency, a weakness that'll become more glaring if and when a playoff opponent slows down their transition sprees.
Or maybe, when faced with that dilemma, Houston will simply turn to the Alperen Şengün-Steven Adams frontcourt combo and grab every possible offensive rebound and figure out how to rattle off wins anyway.
Indiana Pacers: B+
12 of 30
Quarter-Season Grade: D-
Midseason Grade: B
Three-Quarter-Season Grade: B
It looked like the Indiana Pacers were tracking toward a letdown campaign through their first 25 games. Since then, though, they have the NBA's fifth-best net rating to go along with a top-five offense and top-10 defense.
A healthy Tyrese Haliburton, Andrew Nembhard and Aaron Nesmith matters. Who knew?
Midseason stretches can be fluky. This one is not. It has lasted more than 50 games, and Indy is one of only three East teams on the year with a winning record against opponents .500 or better.
Interior defense remains a question mark looking ahead to the playoffs, even as the Pacers' rim-protection numbers have trended in the right direction. Less debatable: Indiana has proven last year's conference finals romp wasn't some one-hit wonder.
Los Angeles Clippers: A+
13 of 30
Quarter-Season Grade: A
Midseason Grade: B
Three-Quarter-Season Grade: B
If the Detroit Pistons are the NBA's best feel-good story, the Los Angeles Clippers are a close second. Regardless of your preference, their defiance of expectations trails nothing and no one.
Basically everyone Sharpie'd in these Clippers as dead-on-arrival. Paul George left. Kawhi Leonard was injured. The defense would be ferocious, but the offense would flail under a weight 35-year-old James Harden was no longer capable of carrying.
So much for that.
The Clippers are now in the playoffs. Not the play-in. Playoffs. As the five-seed. Los Angeles' offense hasn't always looked pretty, but it has turned a corner thanks to better availability from Leonard, a mega leap from Norman Powell, a more subtle but no less significant leap from Ivica Zubac, the addition of Bogdan Bogdanović and the enduring durability of Harden. Even no-big lineups with Ben Simmons are working!
Kawhi's shaky health will always loom over the specter of this team. Catch the Clippers at full strength, however, and they may just be one of the three biggest threats to emerge from the West—just like none of us predicted.
Los Angeles Lakers: A
14 of 30
Quarter-Season Grade: C-
Midseason Grade: C
Three-Quarter-Season Grade: A
To what end the Luka Dončić trade must factor into the Los Angeles Lakers' mark is debatable. That deal was more about the Dallas Mavericks front office snorting crushed-up ignorant pills, but vice president of basketball operations Rob Pelinka deserves credit for keeping their trip down Self-Sabotage Lane a secret and also realizing that, yes, Mavs team president Nico Harrison was being totally serious.
Still, even without the Luka trade, the Lakers have actualized various best-case outcomes.
Virtually nobody had them winning 50 games and bagging third place in the West. And absolutely no one would have forecasted them this finish if they knew LeBron James' on-off splits would be the worst of his career.
New head coach J.J. Redick has overseen a defense with stopping power that belies its personnel, as well as individual jumps from Rui Hachimura and Austin Reaves. The Lakers have outperformed their point differential more than any other squad, which both buoys their grade and suggests they could be in for a rude awakening come playoff time, though their performance against top-10 teams begs to differ.
Either way, Los Angeles' regular season goes down as nothing less than a rousing, if not shocking, success.
Memphis Grizzlies: D+
15 of 30
Quarter-Season Grade: A
Midseason Grade: A
Three-Quarter-Season Grade: B
Remember when the Memphis Grizzlies were the league's only team with a top-five offense and defense? You know, back when we were gushing over their depth? And worshiping at the altar of their non-traditional offense? It feels like forever ago.
Those Grizzlies are no more. They imploded. The defense pinballs between mediocre and bad. The offense has regressed—and contributed to the team firing head coach Taylor Jenkins inside 10 games to play and relative displeasure from Ja Morant.
A first-round exit feels imminent, maybe unavoidable. This presumes the Grizzlies even make it that far. Their midseason descent has looped them back into the play-in fracas.
Flirting with 50 victories should qualify as a success. It certainly does relative to Memphis' preseason over/under. But similar to the Denver Nuggets, the 11th-hour upheaval is inexcusable. Especially after all the Grizzlies did at the trade deadline was salary-dump Marcus Smart.
And while the timing of Jenkins' exit never would have flown, it is eons worse knowing they overhauled his assistant coaching staff during the offseason. This is not a dynamic that suddenly deteriorated. The Grizzlies, it seems, were on the fence for a while. Not acting sooner, even if earlier in the season, is a categorical failure on their part.
Miami Heat: D+
16 of 30
Quarter-Season Grade: C
Midseason Grade: C
Three-Quarter-Season Grade: D
Allow us to count the Miami Heat's 2024-25 silver linings:
- Tyler Herro's ascent into All-Stardom
- The emergence of Kel'el Ware
- Bam Adebayo's defense
The list ends here. And even these bright spots have proven rickety at times.
Placing blame upon the Jimmy Butler saga and, ultimately, the front office is the way to go. Both player and team could have handled the situation better. The Heat definitely deserve to take lumps for letting the discord fester and then linger for too long.
That still doesn't quite explain why Terry Rozier no longer looks like an NBA player. Or Jaime Jaquez Jr.'s dalliance with face-on-a-milk-carton status. Or Miami leading the league in blown double-digit leads. Or the team ranking as a bottom-five crunch-time squad for a second straight year.
This list of transgressions goes on, as it tends to do nine- and 10-seeds with designs on being so much better.
Milwaukee Bucks: C-
17 of 30
Quarter-Season Grade: C-
Midseason Grade: B
Three-Quarter-Season Grade: B
Giannis Antetokounmpo ratcheting up his already-gaga numbers (the playmaking!) to close the regular season spares the Milwaukee Bucks from nosediving into "D" territory. But not by much.
Damian Lillard's indefinite absence with deep vein thrombosis (blood clots) in his right calf provides some cover, albeit not enough to paint Milwaukee in a rosier light. It took too long for the defense to find a happier medium. When it finally did, it still put the "mid" in middle.
Getting contributions from AJ Green and, more recently, Ryan Rollins count as hits. Despite onset thorniness, the Taurean Prince and Gary Trent Jr. additions are paying dividends. The Khris Middleton trade simultaneously feels inconsequential and, when evaluated against Kyle Kuzma's pinnacles and pits, like a total flop.
Milwaukee ends the season on an all-over-the-place trajectory. Could it win a playoff series? Sure. Two? With or without Dame? Probably not. Even if you penciled in the Bucks for regression, a ceiling that doesn't reasonably extend beyond the second round qualifies as a major letdown.
Minnesota Timberwolves: C-
18 of 30
Quarter-Season Grade: D
Midseason Grade: D
Three-Quarter-Season Grade: C-
Making sense of this Minnesota Timberwolves season presumes that these Minnesota Timberwolves make any sense at all.
On the one hand, they have blown more fourth quarter leads than any team other than the Miami Heat; underperformed their point differential more than every other squad; spent most of the season tethered to the play-in ranks before juuuust rising above it; and struggled too often to sustain an offense with more zest than unflavored oatmeal. That is not the encore you want for a 2024 Western Conference Finals appearance.
On the other hand, the Timberwolves have explored some truly lofty highs. Only the Boston Celtics, Cleveland Cavaliers and Oklahoma City Thunder have a better point differential versus teams with top-10 net ratings. Oklahoma City and the Los Angeles Lakers are also the only West squads with a higher winning percentage against conference foes.
Minnesota has turned on the jets since the start of March. If there's anything we know about the NBA, it's that we can totally trust everything that happens after Mar 1. (Yes, this is written in sarcasm font.)
Are the Timberwolves a playoff giant hiding in plain sight? Or a paper tiger capable of only mustering the occasional roar? That we even have to ask says it all.
New Orleans Pelicans: C-
19 of 30
Quarter-Season Grade: D-
Midseason Grade: C-
Three-Quarter-Season Grade: C-
Wins and losses cannot too heavily shape the New Orleans Pelicans' grade. They were expected to collect more than double the number of victories they actually did, but injuries hit them harder than any team outside Dallas and Philadelphia.
The "should have traded Brandon Ingram sooner" slant holds real validity. It's also more like a multi-season issue—one that may factor into the future, or lack thereof, executive vice president of basketball operations David Griffin has in The Big Easy. This season alone, though, there clearly was not a better offer on the table, at any point this season, than the one New Orleans accepted from Toronto.
Receiving standout play from rookie Trey Murphy and Zion Williamson when healthy bodes well for the bigger picture. The same goes for Yves Missi, a shoo-in for an All-Rookie team who also figured out how to navigate the floor around Zion before the Pelicans shut down their star with a back injury.
Prioritizing top-four lottery odds and information-gathering was the only way to go in the end. With all of that said, none of us should excuse the Pels finishing inside the bottom eight of three-point-attempt rate for a fifth consecutive season.
New York Knicks: B-
20 of 30
Quarter-Season Grade: B
Midseason Grade: B
Three-Quarter-Season Grade: B
Congratulations to the New York Knicks on their (near-)clean sweep of Bs.
There is an argument to drop them into the "C" range. Their offseason activity—specifically, the Mikal Bridges trade—demands they be measured against foremost contenders.
New York falls short in that arena. It is 6-15 against opponents with a top-10 net rating and winless (0-8) against both Boston and Cleveland, the two teams sitting above them in the Eastern Conference standings.
We can't pretend that doesn't matter, or that it isn't disappointing. Nor can we ignore that the Knicks' dependence on Jalen Brunson is still too high after just about draining their asset stores to surround him with higher-end talent.
At the same time, we also cannot downplay the significance of clearing 50 wins. This is the first time New York has won 60 percent or more of its games in consecutive seasons since Pat Riley was meandering up and down the sidelines.
Empowering OG Anunoby to expand his offensive usage and aggression counts for something, too. And for all the concerns about the Knicks defense—of which there are many—they are allowing fewer points per possession overall than the league average.
Oklahoma City Thunder: A+
21 of 30
Quarter-Season Grade: A-
Midseason Grade: A
Three-Quarter-Season Grade: A
Knocking the Oklahoma City Thunder out of perfect-score territory is much harder than it reasonably should be.
Spotlighting their offensive warts beyond Shai Gilgeous-Alexander remains the path to travel down if you are so compelled. Oklahoma City's supporting cast ranks inside the 6th percentile of half-court shot creation and 1st percentile of self-created shot-making, according to BBall-Index. Not even Nikola Jokić's supporting cast in Denver grades out as poorly.
Expressing concern here is fair game. Especially when viewing this team through a playoff lens. But this "limitation" has not harshed the Thunder's 2024-25 vibes in any way, shape or form.
Oklahoma City will win damn near 70 games and has maintained a stranglehold on No. 1 in the West all year. It also owns the second highest net rating of all time...while having lost more value to player games missed than all but three teams. That is absurd!
Equally notable: When at least two of Jalen Williams, Chet Holmgren and Isaiah Hartenstein are on the court without SGA, the Thunder are generating nearly 120 points per 100 possessions, per PBP Stats—the equivalent of a top-five offense.
Orlando Magic: D+
22 of 30
Quarter-Season Grade: A
Midseason Grade: B
Three-Quarter-Season Grade: C
Normalize being harder on the Orlando Magic. It may be tough to stomach, but it's a sign of respect.
Injuries initially inoculated them against grimmer critiques. They still kind of do. Orlando's year looks waaay different if Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner do not miss extended time, some of which overlapped, and if Jalen Suggs and Mo Wagner never suffer season-ending injuries.
This effectively explains why the Magic aren't in 50-win waters. It is no longer enough to write off the tough-to-watch offense. Orlando ranks in the 35th percentile of points scored per 100 possessions with both Paolo and Franz on the court. This is either an indictment on one or both of them, the surrounding personnel, the front office, head coach Jamahl Mosley or a combination of everyone.
The Magic's front office should bear the most responsibility. They didn't do enough over the offseason to glitz up the offense. Their headlining addition, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, will finish the season shooting under 35 percent from three and was never going to deliver the type of shot-making and initiation this team so sorely lacks in the half-court.
Philadelphia 76ers: D
23 of 30
Quarter-Season Grade: D+
Midseason Grade: D+
Three-Quarter-Season Grade: F
Latitude must be afforded to the Philadelphia 76ers for what they could not control. That variable, of course, is injuries.
The Big Three of Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey and Paul George played in just 14 games together, for a total of 294 minutes. That is a hopelessly low number even when baking in the measure of skepticism with which this group's durability should have been viewed.
Losing the minutes that featured at least two of their stars on the court, per PBP Stats, is harder to forgive. Ditto for the lack of transparency and overall handling of Embiid's left knee injury.
Discovering Justin Edwards, Adem Bona and Jared McCain (also injured) and acquiring Quentin Grimes gives Philly silver linings to point toward. The team has also positioned itself with a viable crack of retaining its first-round pick.
This grade must still reflect on the expectations missed—and the not-insignificant possibility the Sixers pick lands outside the top six and gets sent to Oklahoma City, rendering this season (mostly) for naught.
Phoenix Suns: F-
24 of 30
Quarter-Season Grade: D
Midseason Grade: F
Three-Quarter-Season Grade: F-
Devin Booker perfectly summed up the Phoenix Suns' disasterclass of a season after they were eliminated from play-in contention (via Cameron Cox of NBC Sports 12 in Arizona; h/t SI.com's Ben Stinar):
"It's been a slow bleed out. I've been feeling this way for the majority of the season. I think the small glimpses of good stretches that we've played, I know gave me hope...You never want it to be that you're squeezing into the last spot of the play-in in the first place."
Finishing outside the West's top 10 while having zero control over your own first-rounders through 2031 is failure of the highest order. It is, somehow, made even worse knowing what's to come.
Kevin Durant is good as gone. Bradley Beal still has a no-trade clause. Head coach Mike Budenholzer seems like a one-and-done candidate relative to how this season played out, particularly on the defensive end, and the under-utilization of rookies Ryan Dunn and Oso Ighodaro.
Suns team governor Mat Ishbia is determined to win and seems unfazed by second-apron expenses and restrictions. This is sort of admirable, until you realize it's the same mindset that led Phoenix here, to basketball purgatory—its own special kind of hell that may force the team to move on from Booker himself.
Portland Trail Blazers: B+
25 of 30
Quarter-Season Grade: C-
Midseason Grade: C
Three-Quarter-Season Grade: B
Impressions of the Portland Trail Blazers' 2024-25 campaign will be punctuated by stark divides. There is no denying they have exceeded expectations. Most preseason projections set their win total over/under at 21.5. But this performance comes at the expense of lottery odds, and it can ring a little hollow if this season doesn't portend a sustainable breakout.
Related: This season might portend a sustainable breakout.
Portland has played above-.500 basketball while fielding a top-10 defense for approximately half of the season. That stretch is extended enough to buy into its groundwork. And it should be appreciated in the face of lower-than-desired lottery odds when so many of their most important players moving forward—Deni Avdija, Toumani Camara, Scoot Henderson, Donovan Clingan, Shaedon Sharpe—have helped power it.
Questions remain. The offense lacks defining principles. It isn't clear if head coach Chauncey Billups is the person capable of taking the Blazers to the next level, but he was just extended, so we're about to find out. Henderson and Sharpe have improved, yet neither is a surefire face of the future.
This stuff matters. It is not damning. The Blazers are trending up in a way that doesn't negate big-picture ambiguity but softens it. And hey, karmically speaking, their commitment to chasing wins for so long just might resonate with the Ping Pong Ball Deities.
Sacramento Kings: D
26 of 30
Quarter-Season Grade: C-
Midseason Grade: B-
Three-Quarter-Season Grade: C-
Ending up in the Western Conference play-in tournament is far from an embarrassment if you're the No. 7 or No. 8 seed. The Sacramento Kings are ninth, with a sub-.500 record.
This would be somewhat digestible if they arrived here relatively free from dystopian dysfunction. They have not.
The firing of head coach Mike Brown was awkward, though admittedly timed far better than dismissals in Denver and Memphis. You can say the Kings did well in the De'Aaron Fox trade under the circumstances, but they still played a role in creating those circumstances. Any time you end up at a point in which you don't see a realistic path to keeping a homegrown star, you've failed, likely miserably.
Installing Doug Christie as interim head coach originally looked like it might galvanize the team. That's half-true. The Kings' crunch-time splits have steadied since he took over, and they've posted a winning record overall. Their dependence on the top of the roster remains, but we've seen noticeably more Keon Ellis.
Bringing in DeMar DeRozan never looked like a stroke of genius, but it was justifiable. Not so much anymore. Reuniting him with Zach LaVine alongside Domantas Sabonis is a Chicago Bulls front office fever dream—and further proof that Sacramento has no discernible long-term vision.
Everything will come to a head, again, this summer. Sabonis intends to "seek clarity" on the organization's future, which is never a good sign. There will presumably be a head coaching search and maybe even a lead-basketball-executive vacancy. This existential limbo is all too familiar. If past precedent is any indication, it will also be damning.
San Antonio Spurs: B-
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Quarter-Season Grade: B
Midseason Grade: C
Three-Quarter-Season Grade: C-
Landing outside the play-in tournament is right on par with where the San Antonio Spurs should be after losing Victor Wembanyama for the rest of the season coming out of the All-Star break. That lends itself to something in the ballpark of a "C."
Acquiring De'Aaron Fox accounts for the slight bump, not necessarily because of what he did during his 17 appearances, but because of what his arrival represents: a commitment to accelerating the team's competitive timeline around Wemby.
The Spurs won the minutes with their 21-year-old star on the floor, which is no small feat when you consider their performance without him. Certain teams would be inclined to hold serve knowing their best player is only a sophomore, including previous iterations of San Antonio.
These Spurs found the middle ground, pouncing on a big-time player without surrendering too many premium assets, nuking this summer's flexibility or even jeopardizing internal development. Castle has still gotten plenty of reps, and San Antonio started varying Jeremy Sochan's usage before Wemby's blood-clot diagnosis. So while the Spurs failed to emerge as the postseason curveball many hoped, they will still exit this year with a brighter overall outlook.
Toronto Raptors: C+
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Quarter-Season Grade: B
Midseason Grade: C
Three-Quarter-Season Grade: C
After wading through a lot of muck, including a ton of injuries to start the year, the Toronto Raptors are coming out of 2024-25 with a more intriguing long-term trajectory.
Handing them an above-average grade is not beyond reproach. The Brandon Ingram trade and subsequent extension is a dice roll. The offense is not world-beating. Scottie Barnes' perimeter touch remains a question mark. Sophomore Gradey Dick's onset leap did not hold before a knee injury shut him down for the season.
Tanking shenanigans are part of the story as well. You either appreciate the Raptors' opportunism or want them to compensate you for every minute of fourth-quarter basketball of theirs that you've watched.
Really, embracing the gap year was a smart call. It is a chance for Toronto to add another higher-lotto talent to a core that'll be under much more pressure next season.
Watch enough of the Raptors, and you come to believe they'll have the tools to handle it. The defense has floated around top-five territory for almost half the year, the Barnes-Immanuel Quickley dynamic is budding, Ochai Agbaji looks like a keeper, and rookies Jamal Shead and Ja'Kobe Walter may both end up being steals. The vision remains unfinished, but it at least appears worth following through with.
Utah Jazz: C
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Quarter-Season Grade: C-
Midseason Grade: C
Three-Quarter-Season Grade: C
Be offended by the Utah Jazz's 2024-25 arc if you're so inclined. This season was necessary collateral damage, the offshoot of not rock-bottoming-out hard enough in each of the previous two years.
Steering into top-four lottery odds was the expectation. The Jazz met it. You can't ding them for the absence of an emergent tent-pole building block. We already knew they didn't have one. If you must penalize them for something, it should be turning the race to the absolute bottom into actual competition rather than claiming sole ownership of last place and ensuring their floor in the draft is No. 5.
Showing some concern for Lauri Markkanen's performance on the heels of his renegotiate-and-extend is within reason. But you have to assume he will be more efficient as the talent around him improves.
Plus, it is not as if Utah didn't enjoy meaningful internal development. Kyle Filipowski so far looks like the most polished offensive player of the 2024 draft class. Isaiah Collier's passing is tantalizing enough to overlook the complete absence of touch outside four feet.
Brice Sensabaugh has shown he can fill it up in a complementary capacity. Walker Kessler is back to looking like he can be a viable defensive anchor on a version of the Jazz that deploys any perimeter resistance whatsoever. And Cody Williams—well, yeah. He's still young. And related to Jalen Williams. So, there's that.
Washington Wizards: C+
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Quarter-Season Grade: D
Midseason Grade: C-
Three-Quarter-Season Grade: C
Turning in a second consecutive campaign with fewer than 20 wins can be difficult to stomach. It also means the Washington Wizards are right on schedule—and, more critically, devoted to the bigger picture.
If anything, this team is slightly ahead of its timeline. Less than two full years into their rebuild, the Wizards have more than a handful of intriguing youngsters worth keeping an eye on.
A right hamstring injury effectively ended Bilal Coulibaly's season, and he did not prop up enviable efficiency. But he has displayed developing on-ball feel, a willingness to work away from it and defensive chops that may eventually earn him end-of-the-year awards consideration.
Alex Sarr delivers in flickers and flashes. He needs to get stronger for the sake of his offensive finishing and defensive physicality, but he's peppered in moments of outside touch, standout vision and disruptive playmaking at the less glamorous end.
Kyshawn George is better at everything than expected—except finding the bottom of the net. Bub Carrington plays with the poise of someone who will one day lead his team in assists and finish second in scoring. Jordan Poole cleared 20 points per game while downing almost 38 percent of his triples.
Washington has at times felt like it over-indexed on veterans. There are worse things to do, particularly when you finish the year with high-character guys like Khris Middleton, Marcus Smart and Malcolm Brogdon on the roster.
And finally, there are signs this team might experience a Portland Trail Blazers-type rise on defense next year. They have a ton of players who can hold their own, don't stiff-leg it after misses and have shown they will allow the right kind of shots when given a chance to get set.
Dan Favale covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Bluesky (@danfavale), and subscribe to the Hardwood Knocks podcast, co-hosted by Bleacher Report's Grant Hughes.
Unless otherwise cited, stats courtesy of NBA.com, Basketball Reference, Stathead or Cleaning the Glass. Salary information via Spotrac. Draft-pick obligations via RealGM.
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