NBA pressure rankings: 10 teams and players who will be feeling the most heat this season

When you're in the NBA in any capacity — player, coach, executive, the guys and gals who fire off the T-shirt cannons — it's a bit of a high-wire act. All eyes are on you to some extent. Of course, not all situations are the same. Some gigs come with added (and sometimes unwanted) attention. With that in mind, here are our pressure rankings as the 2026-27 season approaches. 

10. Steph and the Warriors

No one is really expecting anything out of Golden State. Steph Curry and the Warriors only land on the list by their own volition. There's not a ton of pressure here — except to the extent that they put it on themselves. Curry put to rest any questions about him jumping ship in search of a team better suited to win now when he signed a two-year $115 million extension that will carry him through his age-41 season. In doing so, he noted that part of the reason why he took a discount — he was eligible for up to $137 million in that new deal — was to give the Warriors flexibility when trying to improve the roster. Put another way, Mike Dunleavy and the Golden State front office are once more tasked with not wasting what's left of Curry's career. 

Maybe the added savings help, but turning these Warriors into contenders for one last run before the core rides off into the sunset won't be easy. Jimmy Butler is still on the mend from an ACL injury. Kristaps Porziņģis has suffered a litany of injuries and health issues. Curry will be 39 in March. The clock has been ticking for a while now, and time is running out on the lot of them. Which is something Curry doesn't necessarily want to hear. When he signed the extension, he declared that "this team should be competitive and go win." OK. Except the West is loaded and making the playoffs proper, rather than just fighting out of the play-in as they attempted and failed to do last season, won't be easy. That's something else Curry doesn't seem keen on. 

If the next couple of seasons don't produce much in the way of winning and this is a soft launch on the inevitable goodbye, so be it. Curry and the Warriors already made their marks. 

9. New York Knicks

Winning the first title in 53 years buys you a lot of leeway. You get to do fun things like stroll past Michael Porter Jr. on your way inside an establishment or even host Saturday Night Live.

The cause for concern at present is the stalled negotiation between Karl Anthony-Towns (as well as Josh Hart) and the front office. That's not nothing, especially with the Knicks announcing via a spokesperson that "we will not be negotiating contract extensions until later in the season." But, hey, to hear Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart tell it: Don't sweat it, Knicks fans. 

Beyond that, the Knicks are mainly on this list because they're the defending champs and they'll attempt to do something no one has pulled off in the last eight seasons -- win a second straight title. The last back-to-back champs were the Warriors in 2017 and 2018. 

The Knicks face pretty stiff competition to join Golden State in the record books. The East looks as stacked as ever, and whichever team wins the conference will run into whichever behemoth survives from the West. Not easy. If the Knicks pull it off and host another parade, they'll be (even bigger) legends. If not, they'll never have to buy a drink again anyway.

8. Wemby and the Spurs

Only slightly more pressure than the Knicks after losing to New York in the Finals, but they're not exactly feeling the heat. The Spurs are way ahead of schedule with an impressive young core that figures to be together and compete for championships for the foreseeable future. Dylan Harper, who outplayed De'Aaron Fox for much of the postseason, including in several critical stretches against the Knicks, is only 20. Stephon Castle, 21, is an All-Defense-caliber player who upped his free-throw and 3-point shooting in the playoffs. And Wembanyama can already do everything. At 23, he was the first unanimous Defensive Player of the Year in league history and the youngest player ever to make first-team All-NBA and reach the NBA Finals in the same season.

Which does not mean that he hasn't had some sleepless nights thinking about what could have been his first championship, only for it to slip away. 

"It's been hard to fall asleep sometimes," Wembanyama said. "Hard emotions. But there is a point where you accept that you have to go through it. You have to feel all of it. We don't want to hide from anything."

An even more motivated Wemby. Woe unto the rest of the league. 

7. Joker and the Nuggets

This is where things start getting a little trickier. Nikola Jokić is a three-time MVP. He's made eight All-Star and All-NBA teams. Barring another unfortunate flirtation with the absurd 65-game threshold, you can pencil both of those in for nine each. He's also won a title and has a finals MVP on his résumé. He is unquestionably one of the two or three best players in the world. 

And yet, precisely because of his greatness, there's still this sense that the Nuggets should be achieving more. That's not a knock on Joker so much as it's a failure of Denver's various front office leadership over the years to maximize the roster around him. Jamal Murray is coming off the best season of his career, while Aaron Gordon, Christian Braun and Cam Johnson — who all missed significant time last season — are ostensibly healthy. On paper, the Nuggets have one of the best starting fives in the NBA. After that, things get dicey as always. The bench is once again thin — apologies to DeMar DeRozan, Spencer Jones, Cam Whitmore, Julian Strawther and company — and the flexibility to fix it is minimal. The Nuggets are the most expensive team in the league and the only one in the second apron, which has a lot to do with why last year's breakout wing Peyton Watson is now playing in Cleveland instead of Denver. 

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Making matters more complicated for the Nuggets: the Thunder and Spurs are deeper and younger, and any chance of Denver adding another title means having to go through them until further notice. One championship is not nothing. There are countless Hall of Famers who don't have that many. But someone as good as Jokić not getting one more chip would feel like a missed opportunity.

6. Giannis and the Heat

Antetokounmpo's long goodbye in Milwaukee is finally over. It took a while for the team and the player to realize it was fun while it lasted and then turn out the lights on that era. Now Giannis is trying to reclaim some of his previous glory. Antetokounmpo is a two-time MVP, finals MVP and NBA Champion. He's made nine All-Star teams and gotten 10 All-NBA honors. He's been selected All-Defense five times. Like Joker, he has nothing left to prove as an individual. Like Joker, winning another title would go a long way to elevating his already Hall of Fame status.

The difference between Giannis and Jokić is that Joker still plays in Denver and still has a good chance of competing with the Nuggets while Antetokounmpo had to decamp for South Florida and is now tasked with revitalizing a team that has lately fallen on hard times. The Heat got extinguished in the play-in last season, and they lost in the first round in each of the two seasons prior. Now here comes Giannis with designs on changing all that. 

"I've never been a part of something like this," Giannis said. "I want to leave my mark. I want to know when this chapter is over, if I'm only here for a year, two or whatever it's going to be, I want to leave my mark."

The "never been a part of something like this" component might not sit well with Bucks fans. The only being around for "a year, or two, or whatever it's going to be" might have made Heat fans tilt their heads. Giannis probably didn't need to make life any harder on himself, but he did. 

5. Pistons, Cavaliers, and the 'other' East teams

Let's consider the Eastern Conference big picture. The New York Knicks are the defending champs. LeBron James and Jaylen Brown now play in Philly. Kawhi Leonard is in Toronto. Jayson Tatum is primed for a full season in Boston. Where does that leave the rest of what is shaping up to be a stacked conference and a brutal race to reach the finals?

The Pistons have one of the best young guards in the NBA in Cade Cunningham, who made his second All-NBA team last season and finished top-five in the MVP voting. But after perching atop the conference standings for much of the season, they washed out against the Cavaliers in the second round. Meanwhile, the contract negotiation with their ostensible 1A complement to Cunningham, Jalen Duren, did not exactly go well. Duren threatened to sign the qualifying offer until the last possible second before inking his new deal, but what will the relationship between the player and the front office be like moving forward? And while the Pistons are likely thrilled that Duren is staying put, he wasn't nearly as good in the playoffs as he was during the regular season. If he doesn't immediately snap back to form, it will lead people to wonder whether the Pistons have already been left behind in the East.

What about the Cavs? They reached the conference finals for the first time without LeBron, and the first time in Donovan Mitchell's career — only to get swept without compunction by the Knicks. They added Peyton Watson to the starting lineup, but as good as their first five look, can they reasonably say they're appreciably better this season? Or are they at best in a grab bag of teams that's just hoping to make it through what figures to be an unforgiving slog of a postseason?

Speaking of that grab bag, it's practically bursting. Between the Knicks, Sixers, Celtics, Raptors, Cavs, Pistons, Heat, Pacers (who reached the finals just two years ago and have Tyrese Haiburton back), Hawks (the only team to beat the Knicks more than once last postseason) and Hornets, you have 10 teams that feel like they should be firmly in the playoffs. Two of them won't even make it out of the play-in. Yikes. Should be fun for the rest of us, if not those teams. 

4. Kawhi Leonard and the Raptors

Things didn't exactly end well for Kawhi in Los Angeles. You might have noticed. Leonard's former team was hit with one of the largest penalties in NBA history after the league's investigation found the Clippers guilty of a cap circumvention scheme that funneled tens of millions of dollars to Kawhi in exchange for no-show endorsement deals. As a result, the Clippers were docked five first-round draft picks, while owner Steam Ballmer was suspended from team and league activities for a year. President of business operations Gillian Zucker was suspended without pay for a year, while president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank will be forced to sit out without pay for half a season. Ouch.

Kawhi got off easy by comparison. He had to repay $700,00 in restitution. Now he's back in Toronto, playing for the last team he won a championship with before the Clippers folly unfolded. To bring him back to Canada, the Raptors shipped Brandon Ingram, Gradey Dick, two first-round picks, a first-round pick swap and two seconds to LA. The Clippers were thankful for the draft capital, if not necessarily the players.

The Raptors upgraded big-time with Kawhi over Ingram at both ends of the floor. But Leonard can only help them if he's available. Leonard played 65 games last season, but over the last 10 years, he's cleared the 60-game mark just three times.

Upon returning to Toronto, Leonard inked a new two-year, $115 million extension. Assuming he picks up the player option on the back end, he'll be 37 at the end of that deal. That gives the Raptors a three-season runway to make a deep playoff run and try to win a second title with Kawhi. He and Scottie Barnes will immediately form one of the best two-way wing combinations in the NBA. But they're hardly on the same timeline. Barnes is 11 years younger. What happens if three years come and go and the Raptors are no closer to another title? In that scenario, Toronto won't regret trading Ingram for Leonard, but they might very well miss the cash of picks and swaps they sent to Los Angeles when they're trying to figure out how to (re)build around Barnes — and prevent him from moving on as Leonard has several times in his career. 

3. Oklahoma City Thunder

At first glance, this might seem high given how unmatched Sam Presti has been at identifying talent while transforming the Thunder into perennial contenders. They have the reigning two-time MVP in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, an ostensibly healthy two-way superstar in Jalen Williams, and an All-NBA forward in Chet Holmgren who finished second to Wemby in the Defensive Player of the Year race. Beyond that, they have a stacked roster of complementary pieces that can help them at both ends of the floor and give head coach Mark Daigenault endless mix-and-match combinations to crack any given scenario. The Thunder are unquestionably the deepest team in the league.

And yet consider the position they now find themselves in: After winning a championship two seasons ago, they were sent home by the even younger Spurs in the conference finals. SGA is the best player in OKC. He's 28. Wemby is 23. While Holmgren and Williams are 24 and 25, respectively, San Antonio's young guards are even younger. Harper can't even legally drink yet. Eventually, the Spurs age will catch up to them and they'll have to pay all their stars. But, for now, San Antonio is ahead of schedule and their books are relatively clean. (They'd look a lot better if they can jettison De'Aaron Fox and his four-year $221 million deal that's set to kick in this season.) 

That's not quite the case for OKC. The Thunder aren't so much ahead of schedule as on it. They won a title, but all three of their main men are on mega contracts. Yes, they have a conveyor belt of talent, but you can't pay and keep everyone — which is why useful rotation pieces such as Lu Dort, Andrew Wiggins and Isaiah Joe will play elsewhere this season. That doesn't mean that Presti won't keep restocking the cupboard, it's just that finding the supplies at the proper price points won't get any easier. 

Even if everything goes to plan for OKC, as it did until last season, they'll have the Spurs to spar with for the next half decade — at least, if not longer — as well as the rest of the unforgiving Western Conference. 

2. Brad Stevens and the Celtics

There's some revisionist history happening in the NBA right now, or at least some hoping and coping. A few months ago, when the Celtics traded Jaylen Brown for Paul George, an unprotected first-round pick, a first-round pick or swap depending on where it lands, and two second rounders, news of the deal exploded like a bomb. Brown is  a former NBA Finals MVP coming off the best regular season of his career, while George is seven years his senior and is on what some considered one of the worst contracts in the NBA. Fans, media members and the league were blown away. As one incredulous league executive put it in the aftermath, Brown "got traded for less than Walker Kessler." (On behalf of Kessler and his family: Ouch.)

Brad Stevens did his best to explain his thinking, but breakdowns of salary cap percentages hardly seemed to placate the Celtics faithful who were aghast at swapping Brown for PG, not to mention that they'll now have to watch Brown play against Boston while wearing a Sixers uniform — one of Boston's most hated foes and the very team that dismissed them from the playoffs in a surprise first-round upset in the spring.

To the extent that there's good news in Boston, Jayson Tatum is back for a full season after returning at the end of the last campaign from an Achilles injury. And the Celtics have long been one of the best-run organizations in the NBA — not just in recent history, but history full stop. But when you trade one of your best and most popular players to Philly of all places, especially after first dangling Brown for Giannis and creating all sorts of drama when they missed out, it had better work out in your favor or you'll never hear the end of it.

1. The Sixers 

Pretty much everyone in the organization will be feeling the heat this season. Where to even begin?

Brown has already hinted at the Boston-sized chip on his shoulder as he goes about circling games on the upcoming schedule. Joel Embiid is a former MVP who came to camp looking better than ever, but he also missed 150 games the previous three seasons and has never made it out of the second round of the playoffs. Tyrese Maxey took a massive leap last season and made his first All-NBA team, but can he remain in such rarified company when his usage rate might take a hit because of all the other big names now surrounding him? And if Maxey gets pushed down the pecking order, what happens to VJ Edgecombe, who made an immediate splash as a rookie and cemented himself in the starting lineup?

And then there's LeBron, who passed on going back to Cleveland and Miami, or teaming up with Steph in Golden State, or even finally living out that fantasy of his to play in Madison Square Garden, in favor of signing with the Sixers on a veteran minimum contract. James summed up the situation pretty well when he said he didn't leave his family just for the Sixers to keep being the Sixers. I'm paraphrasing, but you get the gist.

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Beyond that, head coach Nick Nurse, who is in the final year of his contract, might be on the hottest coaching seat in the league. And while new president of basketball operations Mike Gansey worked several magic tricks to put this all together, several Philly general managers before him made splashy moves that looked good at first before quickly revealing themselves as decidedly less attractive. (Trading for James Harden and giving up Jimmy Butler in favor of retaining Ben Simmons quickly come to mind.)  

This is an organization that hasn't made the conference finals since 2001 and hasn't won a championship since 1983. And suddenly the roster is stacked and healthy and among the betting favorites to do those very things. Or they could faceplant once again and put an ugly end to LeBron's storied career. The degree of difficulty here is incredibly high for everyone involved. As Embiid recently put it, "I need to win." He's not the only one.