Ranking the Futures of Mavericks, Spurs, 76ers and Every 2025 NBA Draft Lottery Team
The Dallas Mavericks' improbable leap to the No. 1 pick in the 2025 NBA draft completely changed their fate.
It'll be a long time before anyone in Dallas forgets the deal that sent Luka Dončić to the Los Angeles Lakers, but lottery luck provided the Mavs with a means to build the next great version of the team. They won't be the only squad looking to set themselves up for success over the next half-decade or so.
Here, we'll rank all 14 lottery teams on the basis of how bright their futures are. That analysis will include young talent (age-25 season or younger in 2025-26), future draft picks, flexibility, quality of management and everything else that goes into building a winning franchise.
Let's see which 2024-25 lottery teams are likeliest to avoid finishing in that range going forward.
14. Sacramento Kings
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25-and-Under Talent: Devin Carter, Jake LaRavia (UFA), Keegan Murray
Tradable First-Round Picks: 6
2024-25 Record: 40-42
The Sacramento Kings own all their own first-round picks now that their 2025 selection has conveyed to the Hawks, and they also have unprotected selections coming from the San Antonio Spurs (2027) and Minnesota Timberwolves (2031).
And yet, their situation seems hopeless.
De'Aaron Fox extricated himself from Sacramento last year, and Domantas Sabonis reportedly plans to seek clarity on his own future this summer. Those two were among the most prominent figures in the Kings' only playoff trip since 2006. Another, head coach Mike Brown, was fired this past season.
Keegan Murray is a solid player, but he's stuck in a fifth-option role because Sacramento continues to onboard score-only vets who don't drive team success like Zach LaVine and DeMar DeRozan.
As long as owner Vivek Ranadivé presides over a chaotic operation defined by shortsighted decisions, poor talent evaluation and a revolving-door approach to hiring coaches and executives, the Kings aren't going to build anything sustainable.
13. Phoenix Suns
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25-and-Under Talent: Oso Ighodaro, Ryan Dunn
Tradable First-Round Picks: 3
2024-25 Record: 36-46
It may be a surprise to see the Phoenix Suns ranked somewhere other than last among lottery teams. Devin Booker's presence on the roster is the only thing keeping them from the cellar.
Phoenix could flip Booker for a massive haul of picks and young talent. In fact, that's the only realistic route out of encroaching purgatory. And no, the potential return for a 36-year-old Kevin Durant, who wants out and might be picky about his next destination, won't come close to replacing all of the assets the Suns have recklessly dealt away.
The Suns have already traded away control of their own first-round picks through 2021, and their 2032 first-rounder will be frozen if they don't get out of the second apron this coming season. Bradley Beal's contract is among the worst in the league, and owner Mat Ishbia recently named the inexperienced Brian Gregory as the general manager of a team with a brutal financial outlook and no head coach.
Ishbia's 2024 claim that 26 other GMs would trade their team's situation for the Suns' has never sounded more ridiculous than it does right now.
12. Chicago Bulls
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25-and-Under Talent: Matas Buzelis, Julian Phillips, Dalen Terry, Josh Giddey (RFA), Patrick Williams, Talen Horton-Tucker (UFA), Jalen Smith, Coby White
Tradable First-Round Picks: 5
2024-25 Record: 39-43
Buzelis, who just finished his rookie campaign and will turn 21 days before the 2025-26 season opener, is the Bulls' top prospect. The athletic forward shot 36.1 percent from deep, attacked the basket and showed defensive potential as a rookie, but he's still probably two years away from profiling as a high-end starter.
Other than that, the Bulls are short on projectable talent.
Josh Giddey surged late in the year, averaging 21.1 points, 10.7 rebounds and 9.3 assists while hitting 45.7 percent of his threes after the All-Star break, but his upcoming age-23 season will come at a higher pay grade following restricted free agency. In fact, it's possible the Brooklyn Nets hand him an offer sheet so large that Chicago declines to match. Long story short: Giddey isn't guaranteed to be on the Bulls' roster next year.
Odds are, the Aussie guard will be back. At which point, he'll have to prove his late-season production was real, and that it actually translates to sustainable team success.
11. Charlotte Hornets
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25-and-Under Talent: LaMelo Ball, Brandon Miller, Josh Green, Tidjane Salaün, Tre Mann (RFA), Mark Williams, Nick Smith Jr., Moussa Diabate (NG)
Tradable First-Round Picks: 7
2024-25 Record: 19-63
Ball is the headliner here, but he's played an average of 35 games in the three seasons since he made an All-Star team at during his age-20 campaign. Already on his rookie-scale max and still dogged by questions about his ability to run a winning team, Ball may not be viewed as a foundational piece.
Brandon Miller played even less than Ball last season, as a wrist injury limited him to only 27 games. Next year will be his age-23 season, and the 2023 No. 2 overall pick could soon overtake his teammate as Charlotte's face of the franchise. That transition could happen even more quickly if the Hornets decide to trade Ball.
Stocked with seven moveable future first-rounders and operating with a very long view under executive vice president Jeff Peterson, Charlotte seems like a good candidate to take short-term steps backward in the interest of future gains.
A potentially unprotected 2028 Miami Heat first-rounder looms as a crown-jewel asset.
10. Toronto Raptors
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25-and-Under Talent: Scottie Barnes, RJ Barrett, Ochai Agbaji, Ja'Kobe Walter, Gradey Dick, Jamal Shead, Jamison Battle (NG), Jonathan Mogbo
Tradable First-Round Picks: 4
2024-25 Record: 30-52
Scottie Barnes was the 2021-22 Rookie of the Year, earned an All-Star nod two years ago and is one of just six players in league history to average at least 17.0 points, 7.5 rebounds and 5.0 assists across the first four years of his career.
The rest of Toronto's young talent skews more toward quantity than quality, though, which means the second star whom the team hopes to put alongside Barnes likely isn't on the current roster. Free agents historically haven't flocked to Toronto, so it's a good thing that the Raps control all of their future first-round picks.
Brandon Ingram and Immanuel Quickley are both in their 20s, but they don't fall within our age cutoff. They'll have major roles in Toronto for the foreseeable future and are part of the reason why the team has some real upside over the next few seasons.
9. Atlanta Hawks
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25-and-Under Talent: Zaccharie Risacher, Dyson Daniels, Jalen Johnson, Onyeka Okongwu, Dominick Barlow, Kobe Bufkin, Mouhamed Gueye, Vit Krejci
Tradable First-Round Picks: 5
2024-25 Record: 40-42
There'd be greater optimism surrounding the Hawks if Johnson had played more than 36 games in what looked like a breakout age-23 campaign last year. He averaged 18.9 points, 10.0 rebounds and 5.0 assists, adding to a package that already included high-end athleticism and a 35.5 percent hit rate on threes in 2023-24. Health appears to be his last hurdle.
Though perhaps not a cornerstone, a fully fit Johnson would team well with Daniels, Risacher and Okongwu to give Atlanta four 25-and-under starters next year.
Trae Young is outside that window by two years and might find himself on the trade block if he can't reach an extension with the Hawks this summer.
Atlanta also owes the San Antonio Spurs two first-round assets—swap rights on its 2026 selection and an unprotected 2027 pick. That takes tanking out of the equation, which means it'll be tricky for the Hawks to add much more high-end young talent to the mix.
8. New Orleans Pelicans
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25-and-Under Talent: Zion Williamson, Trey Murphy III, Yves Missi, Jordan Hawkins, Karlo Matković, Brandon Boston Jr. (TO), Antonio Reeves, Jeremiah Robinson-Earl (UFA)
Tradable First-Round Picks: 5
2024-25 Record: 21-61
The New Orleans Pelicans have one of the best 25-and-under players in the league in Zion Williamson. However, his struggles to stay healthy and in shape are part of the reason why new executive vice president Joe Dumars may have to consider moving on from the 2019 No. 1 overall pick.
A Williamson trade might not bring back a major asset haul, but the Pelicans have all of their own first-rounders and could really cash in if the Milwaukee Bucks trade Giannis Antetokounmpo. New Orleans has swap rights on the Bucks' 2026 first-rounder and will also have Milwaukee's 2027 pick if it falls outside the top four.
With that said, New Orleans is not a free-agent destination, the team never pays the tax, and it's hard to be confident in the Willie Green-Joe Dumars head coach-executive duo.
7. Washington Wizards
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25-and-Under Talent: Alex Sarr, Bub Carrington, Bilal Coulibaly, AJ Johnson, Kyshawn George, Justin Champagnie (NG), Colby Jones (NG)
Tradable First-Round Picks: 8
2024-25 Record: 18-64
Sarr, Carrington and George all played at least 1,800 minutes as rookies last year, and they'll continue to feature prominently in the Washington Wizards rotation as the team slowplays its rebuild.
None of those three graded out as net-positive contributors, and Sarr (45.4 percent) was one of the least efficient two-point-shooting big men of the last 25 years. Those struggles earned the Wizards the second-worst record in the league, but the lottery gods spurned them and only conveyed the No. 6 pick in the 2025 draft.
Michael Winger and Will Dawkins are Washington's lead decision-makers, and they hail from the Oklahoma City Thunder. Knowing that, we should expect continued patience and pick-hoarding. The Wizards already have juicy swap rights on the Bucks' 2028 first-rounder, plus swap rights on the Suns' picks in 2026, 2028 and 2030.
6. Utah Jazz
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25-and-Under Talent: Cody Williams, Isaiah Collier, Brice Sensabaugh, Kyle Filipowski, Taylor Hendricks, Keyonte George, Johnny Juzang, Walker Kessler
Tradable First-Round Picks: 10
2024-25 Record: 17-65
Rookies Isaiah Collier and Kyle Filipowski flashed potential as rookies, but both also displayed flaws—shooting and defense, respectively—that mark them as imperfect prospects. Second-year guard Keyonte George didn't establish himself as a cornerstone, and sophomore forward Taylor Hendricks was lost for the season after just three games.
Combine those guys with Cody Williams, who turned in one of the worst seasons by a top-10 pick in recent history, and the Jazz don't have anything approaching a foundation.
Utah is flexible, laden with future picks and won't have any bad money on the books once John Collins, Collin Sexton and Jordan Clarkson hit free agency in the summer of 2026. But the Jazz just finished the third year of their rebuild and will have to hope they land a major talent after slipping all the way to No. 5 in the draft following their league-worst 17-65 campaign.
5. Philadelphia 76ers
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25-and-Under Talent: Tyrese Maxey, Jared McCain, Quentin Grimes (RFA), Adem Bona (NG), Justin Edwards (TO), Ricky Council IV (NG), Jared Butler (TO)
Tradable First-Round Picks: 3
2024-25 Record: 24-58
The Philadelphia 76ers are only here because Joel Embiid got hurt again, Paul George got old in a hurry and they unashamedly tanked down the stretch of a lost season. Lottery luck allowed the Sixers not only to keep their first-rounder, which would have gone to the Oklahoma City Thunder had it fallen outside the top six, but actually move up to No. 3.
Philly could trade that pick, but using it on a cost-controlled prospect to grow alongside Maxey, McCain and possibly Quentin Grimes makes more sense given the team's massive financial commitments to George and Embiid. Maxey has been an All-Star, McCain was the Rookie of the Year front-runner until he got hurt, and Grimes was one of the biggest breakout stars of the second half of the season.
The Sixers can trade up to three future first-round picks, including an unprotected 2028 first from the Clippers. They also have swap rights on the Clippers' 2029 first-rounder (top-three protected). That's a surprising amount of capital for a team that was built to contend last season.
Credit team president Daryl Morey for leaving himself some flexibility. He may need it if Embiid can't stay healthy enough to live up to the four years and $248 million left on his contract.
4. Portland Trail Blazers
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25-and-Under Talent: Donovan Clingan, Scoot Henderson, Shaedon Sharpe, Jabari Walker, Deni Avdija, Toumani Camara, Ryan Rupert, Kris Murray
Tradable First-Round Picks: 4
2024-25 Record: 36-46
Camara and Avdija will both play their age-25 seasons in 2025-26, putting them on the older end of the Portland Trail Blazers' youth corps. Those two are already quality starters who spent the second half of last year busting out.
They'll help provide a sense of stability as Henderson continues to develop as a lead guard and Sharpe looks to add more of the little things to his conspicuous athleticism and shooting talent. Meanwhile, Clingan unveiled superpowers as an offensive rebounder and shot-blocker last year.
Portland has plenty of undesirable money on the books, but it should be able to move off Jerami Grant and Deandre Ayton's contracts. The latter will make $35.5 million next year and could be useful as expiring outgoing salary in a star trade. Ditto for Anfernee Simons, who's only 26 and will make $27.7 million in the final year of his deal next season.
The Blazers have one of the top young cores in the league and established an exciting defensive identity last year. The arrow is pointing up here, and it has more to do with the talent on hand than the potential to add more through the draft.
3. Dallas Mavericks
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25-and-Under Talent: Dereck Lively II, Max Christie, Olivier-Maxence Prosper, Jaden Hardy, Kessler Edwards (RFA)
Tradable First-Round Picks: 3
2024-25 Record: 39-43
If Cooper Flagg is as good as advertised (a legitimate franchise-altering top prospect), and if the Dallas Mavericks don't trade the No. 1 overall pick that they were wildly lucky to acquire, there's a chance that their future will be brighter without Luka Dončić than it would have been with him.
That presupposes the Mavs' concerns about Luka's health and conditioning prove to be correct, and that imminent roster-balancing moves (way too many bigs at the moment) work out.
Very little is guaranteed in Dallas, other than the fact that the Mavs' prospects are immeasurably better after they jumped up 10 spots in the lottery. That good fortune was a lifeline, perhaps one that'll bring livid and alienated fans back into the fold.
The Mavericks infamously defended the Dončić deal by claiming it gave them a better chance at near-term success. Instead, lottery luck intervened to give them a much rosier long-term outlook.
2. Brooklyn Nets
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25-and-Under Talent: Cam Thomas (RFA), Ziaire Williams (RFA), Day'Ron Sharpe (RFA), Noah Clowney, Dariq Whitehead, Keon Johnson (TO), Trendon Watford (UFA), Maxwell Lewis (NG), Jalen Wilson (TO)
Tradable First-Round Picks: 12
2024-25 Record: 26-56
Cap space is often overrated, but that's not often the case when only one team has it. That's Brooklyn's major advantage as the offseason nears; nobody else comes close to the Nets' projected $45 million in spending power below the cap.
What Brooklyn does with that unique flexibility remains to be seen. But paired with a whopping 12 tradable future first-rounders, the Nets' assets are more than enough to offset their lack of present talent.
The Nets don't have any 25-and-under players on the current roster who project as starters on a good team, let alone a cornerstone. They still rank this high because they have the tools to remedy that.
1. San Antonio Spurs
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25-and-Under Talent: Victor Wembanyama, Stephon Castle, Devin Vassell, Jeremy Sochan, Blake Wesley, Malaki Branham, Julian Champagnie
Tradable First-Round Picks: 5
2024-25 Record: 34-48
When you have the last two Rookie of the Year winners and one of them is a generational megastar, you don't need a treasure trove of future draft picks.
So, despite owning fewer draft assets than some other lottery teams, the Spurs still top this list because they already have the one thing everybody else hopes to acquire using those selections: A no-questions-asked cornerstone who could conceivably be the best player on a championship team.
Wemby's stardom was a factor in San Antonio landing De'Aaron Fox in a midseason trade. Though Fox, 27, doesn't factor into these rankings, he's an example of the advantages that Wembanyama's presence affords the Spurs. He's a talent attractor, and Fox likely won't be the last big name he draws to San Antonio.
The Spurs lucked into the No. 2 pick in the 2025 draft and could trade it in a package for a star (Giannis, anyone?) or use it on a top prospect. Even if they don't find another keeper, the Spurs will also have other high-value shots at one as their record improves enough to devalue their own picks.
Swap rights in 2026 and outright ownership of Atlanta's 2027 first-rounder give San Antonio real options going forward.
Stats courtesy of NBA.com, Basketball Reference and Cleaning the Glass. Salary info via Spotrac.
Grant Hughes covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Bluesky and subscribe to the Hardwood Knocks podcast, where he appears with Bleacher Report's Dan Favale.
