NBA League Pass rankings: Wemby puts Spurs at No. 1, Lakers and Warriors crack top five

We're a little more than a week into the NBA season, which would generally be a small sample size. But for the purposes of this exercise it's enough material to roll out my first League Pass rankings.

The idea here is to place the teams in order of watchability, which factors in a whole bunch of super-subjective criteria. How good is the team in question? Who are their stars? Do they have compelling on- or off-court storylines? What's the broadcast team like? How are the vibes? What about the uniforms, the court, the arena, the fans? 

The NBA is first and ultimately entertainment, so the core question really comes down to how much do I enjoy watching a particular team -- or, in certain cases, how much do I enjoy hate watching them?

This is, of course, my list. I understand if your mileage may vary. 

NBA League Pass Rankings

30. Utah Jazz
29. Brooklyn Nets
28. Charlotte Hornets
27. Washington Wizards

This isn't a tiers ranking but we're going to lump some of these back-end teams together to start in the interest of expediency. This is the break-glass-in-case-of-emergency group. Did your plans fall through for the evening? Are you unspeakably bored? Are you such an NBA junkie that you can't help yourself and you'll take your hoops fix however you can get it? If you answered yes to any of these questions, fire up one of these squads and stand back a safe distance from your television. Viewer discretion is advised. 

26. Phoenix Suns

They moved on from Kevin Durant, which was the right and overdue plan long-term but doesn't do them any favors on the court this season. Jalen Green has yet to make his debut and when available Dillon Brooks has evidently been cleared to launch all the shots he can manage. Can't wait to see those two guys mud wrestle Devin Booker for the ball. 

They traded two first-round picks for Mark Williams and drafted Khaman Maluach. So naturally Oso Ighodaro is still getting minutes and they've played some small ball with Royce O'Neale at the five. Also Nick Richards is still on the team? 

Oh, and the owner is extremely online and continues to insist the Suns will be good. Spoiler, they will not. 

25. Chicago Bulls

Off to a 4-0 start. Not sure I buy it. Josh Giddey is a good counting stats/bad play-in team All-Star. Coby White (out to start the season with a calf injury) and Matas Buzelis are fun. Despite me trashing Giddey the three of them were an entertaining watch in the final third of last season. Maybe they will be again. Nikola Vucevic remains on the team, having been cruelly denied parole in perpetuity. 

Unimpeachable uniforms and court. Sometimes the broadcast team does good impressions. 

24. Toronto Raptors

On paper there are things to like about the starting five: Brandon Ingram, Scottie Barnes, RJ Barrett, Immanuel Quickley and Jakob Poeltl. Those are useful pieces. I picked them to make the play-in. 

Naturally they started the season 1-4.

23. Portland Trail Blazers

They have Deni Avdija, Toumani Camara and Shaedon Sharpe locked in. Jrue Holiday is a professional two-way guard who adds veteran experience. They brought Damian Lillard home in a feel-good addition even though he'll be 36 when he can finally play for them again after recovering from an Achilles injury. They shocked pretty much everyone when they selected Yang Hansen with the 16th pick in the draft and started a whisper campaign about him being Chinese Joker. He's averaging six minutes through the first four games. It's a perfect Portland team. 

22. New Orleans Pelicans

In terms of heists over the last year, the Louvre robbery was surpassed only by the Atlanta Hawks getting an unprotected first-round pick in the 2026 draft (better of Pelicans or Bucks) from Joe Dumars so he could trade up 10 spots and select big man Derik Queen. He might even be good, by the way. It just made very little sense. Pick value aside (and it is a very valuable asset), Yves Missi was one of the few bright spots a year ago. Then it made even less sense when the Pelicans added Kevon Looney. And then they recently signed DeAndre Jordan. Because of course. And while we're on baffling decisions, they also swapped out C.J. McCollum on an expiring deal for more years and money of Jordan Poole. 

Dejounte Murray is still working his way back from an Achilles injury. The uniforms and court are garish. Zion Williamson plays for them. Sometimes. 

21. Indiana Pacers

[Deep sigh] Following one of the great one-man postseason runs in recent memory, Tyrese Haliburton will miss the season with an Achilles injury suffered in that fateful Game 7 loss to OKC in the Finals. That gave the Pacers cover not to pay Myles Turner and watch him leave town for Milwaukee. As a consequence, the Pacers are down two of their five starters from last season. That's a lot.

Rick Carlisle teams generally punch above their weight. Pascal Siakam is the main man and will do a lot of heavy lifting this season, but the Pacers are -- and have always been -- about doing more with less. If you like scrappy underdogs who are gonna play hard most nights (yes they lost their first four, but three of those were decided by an average of four points and several of the key cogs were alternately unavailable), the Pacers are for you.

20. Boston Celtics

No Jayson Tatum this season (probably) while he recovers from an Achilles injury. Jrue Holiday, Kristaps Porziņģis and Al Horford were all cost-cutting casualties and now play elsewhere. Derrick White is criminally underrated at both ends of the floor and should put up big numbers this season. Ditto Jaylen Brown if he can stay healthy. 

Also this happened and it's maybe my favorite moment of the season. 

19. Miami Heat

Norman Powell had a career year last season and is off to an excellent start. I'm buying all the Kel'el Ware and Nikola Jovic stock. Bam Adebayo remains very good. They placed a tacit bet on Tyler Herro leveling up when they moved on from Jimmy Butler. We'll see if that pays off when Herro returns from an ankle injury. 

They have one of the most respected front offices and arguably the best head coach in the league. It's hard to beat this group of uniforms, particularly the Miami Vice font. And poking fun at HEAT CULTURE is always a good time. 

18. Orlando Magic

Not crazy about the 1-4 start. Paolo Banchero, Franz Wagner, Jalen Suggs and new addition Desmond Bane should work ... right? They finished second in defensive rating last season and project to be one of the best teams at that end again (though they're having a rough go in that department right now). The problem for Orlando is generally at the other end of the floor. Last season they finished with a bottom 10 offense for the 13th straight season. That should not be possible. It frequently makes the Magic a tough watch. 

At least they went back to the pinstripes. 

17. Sacramento Kings

Our first and maybe best example of a so-bad-it's-good watch. Because they cannot stop being the Kangz. 

The new front office added Dennis Schröder as the point guard on a team already employing two other high-usage ball-dependent players in Zach LaVine and DeMar DeRozan. To make that happen, they offloaded Jonas Valanciunas (who can still play) to Denver for Dario Saric (who cannot) to save money. And then for good measure they went full YOLO and signed Russell Westbrook. If you are thinking that Russell Westbrook -- like Schröder, LaVine and DeRozan -- also enjoys having the ball and so now you're wondering how is that possibly gonna work, reader we are tilting our heads at the very same question. 

Last week against Utah, the Kings closed with Russ, Schröder, DeRozan, LaVine and Domantas Sabonis. It was so startling and inadvisable I texted Sam Quinn to alert him so he could rubberneck the crash. Somehow Sacramento won. Then they doubled down and started that same lineup against OKC in a loss this week. That's the kind of brash decision making that might prompt family and friends to stage a basketball intervention. Outside of Keon Ellis and Keegan Murray (unavailable while recovering from a UCL tear), no one plays defense. 

They started 1-4. Pick a metric and it likely hates them. The Kings are a mess everywhere you look. I kinda love them. 

16. Los Angeles Clippers

The Clips are one of the deepest teams in the NBA. They're also one of the oldest. That doesn't account for their mid-pack ranking so much as them just being the Clippers. Kawhi Leonard and James Harden are both still very good, but that has not gotten them very far over the last few seasons. The defense is legit but I have concerns about how they generate offense. Harden had to do a whole lot the other night at Golden State and the Warriors still dusted them. There's only so much Leonard and Harden iso while everyone else runs to the corners or hits the boards that a person can watch. 

The local broadcast team is terrific. The uniforms are better than they used to be, which isn't saying a lot. This ranking feels simultaneously slightly disrespectful but also about right. 

15. Dallas Mavericks

Come for the Cooper Flagg highlights.

Stay for the Cooper Flagg posters.

The green throwbacks uniforms are top tier, as is the court with the cowboy hat sitting atop the M logo. 

14. Memphis Grizzlies

When Ja Morant is healthy, he's one of the most exciting players in the NBA. The problem is that what makes him so good and entertaining -- an off-the-charts athlete who can jump out of the gym in a slender frame with absolutely no regard for his personal well being -- also renders him frequently unavailable. Between injuries and suspensions Morant played just 59 games over the last two seasons combined. When he's on the court, though, what a show. 

Jaren Jackson Jr. is a two-way star and the best player on the team. Jaylen Wells, Kentavious Caldwell-Pople and eventually Ty Jerome (calf) will be tapped to replace some of the production they lost when Bane was shipped to Orlando. Zach Edey (ankle) will be back eventually.

Last season they brought back these beauties in honor of the Vancouver Grizzlies expansion team tipping off 30 years before. They should be the primary uniform. They're gorgeous. 

13. Milwaukee Bucks

On one hand they have Giannis Antetokounmpo which makes them watchable on any given night. On the other, the roster is pretty thin beyond him and Myles Turner (who's off to a slow start offensively). Their third-best player will be up for debate on most nights. (Keep an eye on Ryan Rollins. They might have found something there.)

All of which has made people wonder if the Bucks can be competitive enough to keep Giannis happy and prevent him from asking out. So far, so good. They've been a pleasant surprise to start the season, winning three of their first four including a victory over the Knicks that had Giannis playing to the home crowd. 

Also, if you tune in at pretty much any time to any game at any point in the season, there's a good chance you'll see an exasperated Doc Rivers. Always a delight.  

12. Detroit Pistons

Now we're getting somewhere. This is when (some of) the snark is replaced with actually and earnestly wanting to consume the product. Two years ago the Pistons won 14 games. They were nearly unwatchable. Last season they won 44 games and earned the six seed, making them the first team in NBA history to triple their win total year over year.

Dennis Schröder, Tim Hardaway Jr and Malik Beasley are gone. The Pistons will look to replace their production with a combination of Caris LeVert, Duncan Robinson and eventually Jaden Ivey, who is out to start the year after having surgery during the preseason to address discomfort in his knee.

But the Pistons experience revolves around Cade Cunningham. He made his first All-NBA team. He's only 24. Look at this guy.

11. Atlanta Hawks

The new front office and general manager Onsi Saleh got full marks for the roster upgrades this offseason. They snagged Porziņģis, added an excellent two-way piece and potential Sixth Man of the Year candidate in Nickeil Alexander-Walker, and a useful rotation shooter in Luke Kennard. 

For years the Hawks were reflexively thought of as Trae Young's team. He's a good player and fun to watch, especially when he's doing his Ice Trae thing and/or trolling the Knicks. But there's a reason the Hawks didn't give him a max extension this offseason. Also he left the Nets game early on Wednesday; it didn't look great. 

The best addition Atlanta made was simply getting Jalen Johnson back healthy. He's the Hawks best player. Johnson was having a make-the-leap season last year before getting hurt and playing just 36 games. If he stays healthy, even casuals will notice how good he is. 

10. Philadelphia 76ers

Initially I slotted the Sixers in the 20s. That's probably due to reflexive Philly-sports fatalism, a consequence of being from there and watching too much bad basketball for too long. Then I bumped them up to 15. Then I remembered whether they win (rare) or lose (historically much more likely) they are invariably tremendous content. This is an organization that drafted two No. 1 overall picks who forgot how to shoot and briefly employed a general manager who was fired because he had a burner Twitter account. And that's just a small sample of Sixers drama over the years. 

Who knows how much we'll see Joel Embiid or Paul George this season. Embiid was limited to just 19 games last season. He might never play back-to-backs again. He had 25 points in 23 minutes in a win over the Wizards where he didn't close because he's still on a minutes restriction. George has yet to appear. Those two are among the worst contracts in the league. George has a player option on the back end that will pay him $56.5 million in the 2027-28 season. Embiid has a three-year extension worth $188 million that kicks in starting next season. That's all pretty ugly.  

In spite of that the Sixers started 4-0 and have the best offensive rating in the league. (The defense is less good in that it's very bad.) They have a young, exciting backcourt headlined by Tyrese Maxey and hyper-athletic rookie VJ Edgecombe. 

The Sixers lead the league in doing just enough to keep you on the hook. They're also going full early-aughts nostalgia and bringing back the Allen Iverson-era throwbacks. 

For the umpteenth consecutive season I have just convinced myself to watch a team that has not won a championship since 1983 and hasn't been to the conference finals since 2001. I am perhaps not a reliable narrator on this particular subject. 

How 76ers' Tyrese Maxey has leveraged his elite shooting into a superstar leap

Brad Botkin

9. Cleveland Cavaliers

The Cavs had a great regular season last year followed by a disappointing playoffs where they got bounced by a nearly unstoppable Pacers squad. These things happen. The good news here is they are spoiled with shooting and feature four starters who have been All Stars. Donovan Mitchell made first team All-NBA, and Evan Mobley took home Defensive Player of the Year because Wemby, for all his talents, couldn't clear the 65 game threshold required to qualify for awards. 

Kenny Atkinson's group is once again deep and has gobs of talent at both ends. Along with the Knicks, they are the favorites to come out of the East. 

They get docked for some pretty boring primary uniforms and court. But if the leak is real, they'll make up for it with their new City Editions.

8. Minnesota Timberwolves

There's a lot to like with the Wolves. Two straight Western Conference finals appearances proves they can compete in the stacked West. Julius Randle -- whom I was generally not a fan of for much of his career -- played great in the second half and limited some of his worst ball stopper tendencies on offense. Jalen McDaniels took a step forward offensively. And of course Anthony Edwards is one of the most entertaining players in the league in just about every respect. 

Unfortunately for the Wolves, Edwards tweaked his hamstring against the Pacers. So not only were denied a delicious early season matchup between Edwards' Wolves and Nikola Jokiċ's Nuggets, but Minnesota will have to do without Ant's services for a short while.

While we wait for his return, let's distract ourselves with these Prince Purple Rain inspired beauties. 

7. New York Knicks

The Knicks swapped out Tom Thibodeau for Mike Brown this offseason. It was the obvious and right move. Thibs ushered in this latest era of quality Knicks hoops, but he was far too stubborn about running his starters into the ground during the regular season. Brown is likely to ease off the throttle a little bit there.

The first four of Karl-Anthony Towns, OG Anunoby, Mikal Bridges and Jalen Brunson are as good a quartet as any in the league. (Brunson had a bit of an injury scare the other night against the Bucks but closed out the game. Something to monitor.) The bench is greatly improved with the additions of Guerschon Yabusele and instant offense Jordan Clarkson. And they still have Swiss Army knife Josh Hart to throw at various situations. 

Madison Square Garden is the best arena in the league. It makes every game feel bigger. And there is maybe no better announcing team than Mike Breen and the resplendent, stylin' and profilin' Clyde Frazier. They're the Double Bang of broadcasters. 

6. Houston Rockets

I get that the Rockets aren't for everyone. They are frequently and confusingly not for their fans, either. (Tune into any Houston game and you'll see lots of empty seats in the lower bowl.) After losing Fred Van Vleet for the season with an ACL injury, they were forced to deploy 6-foot-7 Amen Thompson as defacto point guard. Losing FVV isn't ideal, but the more Thompson we get in our lives the better. He is an absolute terror on defense, and if he can tighten up that handle he's going to be an even bigger problem than he already is. 

With Thompson at the point, the Rockets have experimented with a monster lineup that includes four guys who are all 6-foot-11: Kevin Durant, Jabari Smith Jr., Alperen Sengun, and Steven Adams. The results have been mixed so far in terms of their record, but in fairness one of their losses was a double-overtime thriller to the defending champs. The shooting is still a question mark and they don't have much in the way of backcourt playmaking. It's a wild way to play and it might not yield the results they ultimately want, but it won't be boring. 

5. Los Angeles Lakers

Luka Dončić famously slimmed down this summer, then opened the season with 92 points in his first two games -- crushing Jerry West's longtime franchise record of 81 points to begin a campaign that had stood for 56 years. Unfortunately for Luka and the Lakers, he's out at least a week with a sprained finger. LeBron James has not played yet while dealing with sciatica. 

That means long nights at the office for Austin Reaves until they're back. He's in a contract year (he has a player option that he's certain to decline) and all too happy to post supersized numbers in their absence. Through the first four games Reaves averaged 35.8 points, 6.8 rebounds, 8.5 assists and 1.8 steals per game with 57.3/42.9/88.2 shooting splits. That man is going to get paid. 

The Lakers are top heavy for sure. The bench gets real thin, real quick. They might not be much better than a play-in team. But when those are your main three guys, they're going to attract a lot of eyeballs on most nights including mine.

4. Golden State Warriors 

The Warriors have the best shooter of all-time in Steph Curry, who despite being 37 still made second-team All-NBA last season. At the deadline last year, they added one of the most mercurial figures of his era in Jimmy Butler and immediately took off, going 23-8 with the best defensive rating in the NBA. They addressed a big need by adding big Al Horford at center this offseason. Jonathan Kuminga is suddenly starting and playing well after a summer of bitter contract negotiations. And they still have one of the biggest wild cards (simultaneously derogatory and complimentary) in the league in Draymond Green. 

It took Green all of seven minutes into opening night against the Lakers to get his first technical. The best part: he wasn't even on the floor. A classic of the genre.

Then he followed it up a few nights later with this encore performance.

Draymond is not for everyone, but he is most certainly for me. 

3. Denver Nuggets

SGA is the defending MVP and Wemby is gaining ground fast, but Nikola Jokić is still the best player in the world and the best passer in the league. He's famously never played alongside an All-Star. Maybe that changes this year if Aaron Gordon (who greatly improved his 3-point shooting last season and already posted a career-high 50 points this year) or Jamal Murray stay healthy. Either way, after flipping Michael Porter Jr. for Cam Johnson, then bringing in Bruce Brown, Tim Hardaway Jr and Jonas Valanciunas, this is probably the deepest supporting cast that Joker has ever had. 

They get docked theoretical non-existent points for three of their uniforms -- but they make up for it this season with their fourth and the return of these City Edition classics. 

2. Oklahoma City Thunder

The defending champs were the first team in NBA history to start the season with back-to-back double-overtime games. They won both. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has already gone for a career-high 55 points. The Thunder are monsters at both ends of the floor who can win in so many different ways, field (in)arguably the deepest team in the NBA, and have a rabid fanbase with a wild homecourt advantage. 

I don't understand people who don't get down with OKC. One of them is a buddy of mine who tried to argue that no one cared about last year's Finals against the Pacers. But Commissioner Adam Silver recently told Pat McAfee that the ratings were better for that series than the year before when the Mavs played the Celtics because OKC-Indiana went to Game 7 and the competition was better. I haven't said this a lot recently, but the commissioner is right. If you don't care about the Thunder, maybe you just don't like basketball. 

1. San Antonio Spurs

This is primarily (but not only) a vote for Victor Wembanyama. Stephon Castle and Dylan Harper have looked really good to start the season in the absence of De'Aaron Fox who's still recovering from a hamstring injury. (How the guard rotation shakes out when all three are healthy should be interesting). The uniforms are classic, the broadcast is top tier, and the overall vibes for the young ascendant team are terrific. 

But the big thing here (literally and figuratively) is Wembanyama. The man is appointment viewing. The other night he grabbed a rebound, put the ball behind his back, then threw an outlet pass to Devin Vassell for an easy dunk. It was beautiful. 

He also did this on opening night which…what and how?

If Wemby is playing, what else could you possibly be watching?