In today’s NBA, teams look to be in one of these two tiers: the bottom feeders of their conferences, hoping to get lucky in the lottery, or contenders, with real championship aspirations. Toiling in mediocrity, however, is no longer an option.
Even with the new lottery system implemented in this past week’s shafting of the tanking franchises, teams who are stuck in NBA purgatory cannot rely on the wackiness of it to bail them out of mediocrity. These teams have managed to put themselves in this position through bad trades, bloated contracts, whiffed draft picks, and overall, bad management of their assets.
This offseason is pivotal for many of these teams, as some of them are perhaps one or two key decisions away from either going back into contender status, setting themselves up for a future with a stockpile of young assets, or fading back into irrelevancy, hoping for the lucky bounce of their ping pong ball. If their plans don’t go their way, however, they are stuck with the age-old question: retool and make a magical playoff run or just blow it up?
With that being said, it’s now time to take a look at seven teams who have significantly challenging futures, and perhaps an idea as to how to dig themselves out of their respective hole.