The most helpful thing we could do for the NBA’s worst teams is provide a roadmap toward success, but it’s a lot easier to point fingers than it is to solve problems.
It’s time to play the blame game.
Ultimately, the buck stops at ownership. If a franchise is in rough shape, it’s generally fair to say the person signing the checks is at fault. A bad season here or there can stem from lots of causes. Multiple years of failure means something’s wrong at the top.
Listing owners would be too easy, though, so we’ll only go to that well once in this exercise. Trust me, it’ll be warranted.
Brooklyn Nets: Kevin Durant’s Toe
1 of 5
Let’s say Kevin Durant is a fraction of an inch behind the three-point line instead of a fraction of an inch inside it when he drills a shot with one second left against the Milwaukee Bucks in Game 7 of the 2021 Eastern Conference Semifinals.
Does that guarantee the Nets hold onto what would have been a one-point lead to win that series against the eventual champion Bucks? Does it assure Brooklyn would have gone on to beat the Atlanta Hawks and Phoenix Suns to secure a ring?
And does all of that create an alternate future in which James Harden, Kyrie Irving and Durant manage to stick together happily (and healthily) for at least another couple of title-chasing years, thereby saving the Nets from the trade-demand-fueled teardown that has them among the dregs of the league?
That last part about assuming Harden, KD and Irving could have been happy anywhere for more than 18 months is particularly iffy.
But still! If Durant’s toe isn’t on the line for that one shot nearly five years ago, there’s almost no way Brooklyn would be where it is today—lacking a cornerstone, having no control over its 2027 first-rounder and seemingly years away from relevance.
Washington Wizards: Lotto Luck
2 of 5
The Washington Wizards’ process hasn’t been the problem during their recent rebuild. It was objectively the right call to trade away Bradley Beal and engage in a multi-year stretch of losing and young-talent accumulation a couple of years ago.
The lottery just never paid off for them, which produced disappointing results.
The 2025 draft is the most recent example. Washington was coming off a historically poor season, but flattened odds gave it just a 14 percent chance at landing top pick Cooper Flagg. The Wizards slid all the way to sixth.
In 2024, the Wizards landed a No. 2 pick that felt fair given their 15-67 record, which was second worst in the league. But that draft class was laughably weak at the top. Alex Sarr looks like the right choice, but he doesn’t appear to have the ceiling you’d want from a pick that high.
Washington looks like a good bet to finish with a win total in the teens this season, but the relentless tanking of several other squads could mean it fails to finish with a bottom-four record. This is a loaded draft that might produce five or six superstar players, but history makes it pretty hard to believe the Wizards will luck into getting one of them.
Sacramento Kings: Vivek Ranadive
3 of 5
The Sacramento Kings have posted two winning seasons since Vivek Ranadive took control of the team in 2013-14, and that actually oversells the franchise’s general competency.
Zero playoff series wins, routinely bungled drafts, disastrous trades, a revolving door of coaches and top executives—the Kings have every hallmark of a dysfunctional franchise during his reign. Ranadive’s capriciousness, impatience and penchant for meddling (Stauskas!) are the lone constant in over a decade of losing.
His inability to identify or stick with capable coaches and talent-evaluators leaves the Kings crippled.
Most recently, when the Kings enjoyed those two winning seasons, things fell apart spectacularly. Mike Brown went from Coach of the Year to out of a job in a blink. De’Aaron Fox was wrongfully blamed and asked for a trade. Sacramento lit the beam for a hot second and then lit everything on fire.
Even when Sacramento has gotten things right under Ranadive, like when it drafted Tyrese Haliburton, impatience, which led to a trade, ruins the whole deal.
The Kings set a franchise record with 16 straight losses this year, and their saving grace could be the top pick in a loaded draft. But that outcome would be an undeserved windfall; Sacramento has stuck with a veteran roster that was supposed to win games this season.
Utah Jazz: Ill-Timed Competency
4 of 5
Danny Ainge was largely responsible for building some consistently excellent Boston Celtics teams, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that he made a bunch of shrewd moves upon taking a leadership role with the Utah Jazz in December of 2021. Within a few months, Utah blew up a perennial playoff team, hoarded first-round picks and, critically, reeled in Lauri Markkanen.
From that point on, Ainge’s Jazz were basically too good to properly tank. They started out the 2022-23 season too well as Markkanen exploded, earning an All-Star nod and Most Improved Player honors. What should have been one of the worst teams in the league had to sabotage itself to finish below .500—a brutal result leading into the draft that featured Victor Wembanyama.
The following season progressed similarly, only it mattered less because the 2024 class was so weak. This season, Utah has incurred fines for resting players that could actually help it win games.
If this reads like a backhanded compliment, that’s because it is. The Jazz have been too competent at the wrong times, and it may have forced this season’s risky trade for Jaren Jackson Jr.’s massive contract.
New Orleans Pelicans: The New Orleans Saints
5 of 5
The New Orleans Pelicans playing second fiddle to the New Orleans Saints under the Benson family’s dual ownership isn’t new.
Back in 2019, NBA executives were saying things like “the organization only cares about the Saints” to Tom Haberstroh, then with NBC Sports. Part of the reason Anthony Davis worked his way out of town was because sources told The Athletic’s Sam Amick that Davis didn’t believe the Pelicans were a real priority for ownership.
The Pelicans have shared their facilities and large numbers of staffers with the Saints for years, and the much more lucrative NFL team always standing first in line. Go further back, to 2016, and you’ll see things like a rash of Pelicans injuries being at least partly attributed to the medical staff led from the football side.
More recently, the Pelicans hired Joe Dumars and Troy Weaver to make personnel decisions. The Dumars move was one Locked On Pelicans host Jake Madison called “the laziest and most uninspired move the Pelicans could have made.” It was exactly the kind of decision you’d expect from an ownership group that just wanted a notable name and didn’t care to engage in a competent search process.
The first big act of the Dumars regime was to trade away the rights to what could become the No. 1 pick in the 2026 draft.
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.
