Ranking 5 Teams Most Desperate for Change During 2025 NBA Offseason

Every NBA team enters the offseason hoping to change for the better. For some squads, though, the urgency to improve their outlook is more urgent than others.

Let's go ahead and rank the organizations who should be most desperate to turn over a new leaf, shall we?

Please note the emphasis on should. Certain teams clearly need to shift course but won't. They will not be spared from this exercise simply because they've consigned themselves to ill-gotten visions.

Rankings are not just determined by inflexible finances or empty asset stores. We are more focused on those spinning their wheels—squads who appear trapped in or are headed toward the middle of nowhere without a clear path out of the muck unless they embrace significant change.

5. Utah Jazz

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Three seasons into their rebuild, the Utah Jazz have yet to draft or acquire someone they know can be the foundation of their future. Lauri Markkanen comes closest, and he's a 28-year-old fringe star. After him, the closest option is...head coach Will Hardy.

None of this should force the Jazz into shortsighted action. They have plenty of assets and flexibility in the seasons and summers ahead. Mortgaging chunks of the future on the wrong building block could set them back by a factor of years.

Still, the pressure is on for them to find a guiding light. The No. 5 pick is the best crack they'll have at landing that player since this rebuild began.

If they don't believe that type of player is there, it may be time to cash in some chips and move up the board. Failing that, they might need to look at more aggressively loading up on future bites at the draft apple.

And if they don't have the stomach for that, then it's time to identify the right opportunity on the trade market.

4. Sacramento Kings

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Ending a 16-year playoff drought in 2023 has proved to be only a temporary respite from the Sacramento Kings' otherwise listless existence.

Shoddy organizational alignment probably cost them De'Aaron Fox's loyalty. But his exit at least paved the way for a reset. Sacramento went the other way, instead opting for a recreation of the DeMar DeRozan- and Zach LaVine-era Chicago Bulls.

Mapping the way out of this currently uninspiring spot is difficult. The Kings seemingly have too many guards yet no one capable of running the offense like a floor general. They have first-round picks to trade—including goodies from the Fox trade—and should have access to the $14.1 million non-taxpayer mid-level exception, but they are clearly more than one or two minor additions away from party-crashing the top of the West.

Sacramento does at least have more options at its disposal than those in front of it. It could swing for the fences via trade to land someone better than Domantas Sabonis. It could also get out in front of its deja-vu trajectory and strip it down.

Either route demands more than half-baked measures from leadership. The since-dismissed Monte McNair never deviated from team governor Vivek Ranadivé's middle-of-the-road script. Fans can only hope his replacement, Scott Perry, has both the agency and stomach to do more. 

3. New Orleans Pelicans

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There is a case to place the New Orleans Pelicans higher up this list if you consider them a serious organization.

You shouldn't.

Competently run franchises do not settle on Joe Dumars to succeed David Griffin as the lead basketball executive while (likely) prohibiting him from making key decisions on the futures of head coach Willie Green and franchise cornerstone Zion Williamson. This is first and foremost a failure of leadership, beginning at the top with team governor Gayle Benson.

New Orleans' apparent plan from here is neither concrete nor particularly inspiring. Dumars has doubled-down on continuing to build around Zion. That is justifiable from a basketball perspective, but only if they act like it.

There can be no more toeing the line. They should be surrounding him with higher-volume floor-spacers and different types of frontcourt partners. The luxury tax should not be treated as the plague if it means reeling in the right talent. And they must find a way to internally approximate or go outside the organization and acquire more playmaking while Dejounte Murray recovers from a ruptured right Achilles tendon.

Anything less than serious commitment to a singular vision (even if it's not the one laid out here) is a farce—the kind of scattershot logic and execution that landed the Pelicans here in the first place.

2. Chicago Bulls

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Virtually everyone outside the Chicago Bulls organization has spent the past decade or so calling for the franchise to embrace an overhaul. The team has instead doubled down on its treadmill of sub-mediocrity, seemingly going out of its way to average just over 38 wins for the past 10 seasons (after adjusting for shortened schedules).

Chicago has to its credit finally exited the DeMar DeRozan and Zach LaVine eras. But "What's the plan here?" remains an all-too common refrain when discussing the Bulls.

Nobody on the roster qualifies as a viable cornerstone, even if Chicago is about to pay Josh Giddey like one. Matas Buzelis could perhaps turn into that North Star, but if that's not a reach, it at least isn't the case right now.

The Bulls should spend this offseason repositioning themselves for the future. That direction includes getting what they can for the expiring contracts of Coby White, Ayo Dosunmu and Nikola Vučević and just about anyone other than Buzelis. Letting Giddey walk in restricted free agency would make for bad optics, but paying him in the ballpark of $30 million per year is potentially worse.

If history is any indication, Chicago will pull out all the stops to continue treading water in the bottom of the middle. But its fans deserve—and are likely desperate—for better.

1. Phoenix Suns

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Very little has gone right for the Phoenix Suns since Mat Ishbia completed his purchase for a majority stake in them and the Phoenix Mercury.

The Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal trades have been unmitigated disasters. Jordan Ott marks Phoenix's fourth head coach since Ishbia assumed control of the franchise in January 2023. The Suns do not control the rights to their own first-round pick until 2032. They have no blue-chip youngsters on the roster. And they blew past the second apron this past season for the right to win 36 games and miss the playoffs.

Significant change is coming. Durant could be dealt at any moment. But it remains to be seen how much of a difference that makes. Though the Suns are hoping for a return comparable to what they gave up for him, teams aren't forking over the equivalent of four unprotected first-rounders, one swap, Mikal Bridges and Cam Johnson for a soon-to-be 37-year-old on an expiring contract.

Meanwhile, Phoenix is stuck with the final two years and $110.8 million remaining on Beal's deal unless it finds a suitor who both wants him and for whom he'll waive his no-trade clause. Devin Booker's involvement in Ott's hiring bodes well for him sticking with the Suns, but the jury is still out on who and what will be around him moving forward.

Unless Phoenix pulls a rabbit out of its hat over the summer, this all seems doomed to end extremely poorly. At the very least, though, ironing out Durant's relocation is a step toward the reset this franchise so badly needs.

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Dan Favale is a National NBA Writer for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Bluesky (@danfavale), and subscribe to the Hardwood Knocks NBA podcast, co-hosted by Bleacher Report's Grant Hughes.