NBA Eastern Conference Tiers: How all 15 teams stack up

Despite featuring relatively few big-name free agents, this NBA offseason saw significant roster changes throughout the league. The Play-In Tournament, designed to increase league-wide competitiveness, has worked. Teams outside the true contenders loaded up in both conferences, hoping to compete for a chance at the playoffs. With training camp now only a month away, it’s time to take stock of the NBA as a whole.

This will be the first of a two-part series, where I’ll be dividing all 15 teams in either conference into tiers. The tiers will take into account projected regular season and playoff performance, with a greater weight on playoff performance among the top teams. Teams in the same tier are ranked within their tier, but tiers represent relatively similar strength. Tiers also account for injury, in so much as they can, projecting each team to have average health relative to their roster’s standards.

With all that done, let’s begin with a look at the True Contenders of the NBA's Eastern Conference.

TIER 1. TRUE CONTENDERS - NETS, BUCKS

The two best teams in the Eastern Conference are easy to mark down here.  The only minor controversy might be listing the Milwaukee Bucks second behind the Brooklyn Nets.

After all, the Bucks are defending champions and Finals MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo could theoretically still be getting even better. But the Nets at something approaching full strength would have knocked the Bucks out in the East Finals. They absolutely beat the doors off the Bucks in the first two games, and that was even with losing Harden 45 seconds into Game 1. Still, the Bucks are playing with post-championship confidence now, and some nice additions on the margins including George Hill and Grayson Allen give them more overall depth. 

But neither addition compares to Brooklyn’s signing of Patty Mills. If it wasn’t for the spotty health of the Nets' stars, they would exist in a tier all by themselves. But if Kevin Durant, James Harden, and Kyrie Irving are healthy, the conference is Brooklyn’s to lose.

TIER 2. DARK HORSE CONTENDERS - SIXERS, HEAT, HAWKS

Tier 2 is home to teams with an outside shot at a title, but who would not be favored to win a Conference Finals.

The Philadelphia 76ers led the East in wins last season and Joel Embiid has the potential to be the best player in any series he plays in. But Embiid’s health is an ever-present concern, and the situation with Ben Simmons is a ticking time bomb. If this version of the Sixers is somehow the one playing in the playoffs, they’re still too easy to defend. And if it’s some post-Simmons-trade configuration, it’s hard to see how they’ll add enough talent this season to justify a top-tier ranking. Daryl Morey is clearly angling for a Damian Lillard trade, but there’s no reason for the Portland Trail Blazers to play ball.

The Miami Heat improved, but Jimmy Butler and Kyle Lowry are both on the wrong side of the aging curve, and relying on them to lead the team to wins in the regular season as well as maintain peak performance throughout the playoffs is a tough sell. The skeleton of a contender is there, but it would likely take plenty of good fortune for them to unseat the Nets or Bucks in a series.

The Atlanta Hawks were a different team after Nate McMillan took over last season, but now that they’ve tasted some playoff success, the mental challenge will be going into this coming season remembering that they haven’t won anything yet. Trae Young is a transcendent star and they have a bevy of young talent at multiple positions making them more injury-proof than some other teams, but it also creates the potential for disharmony among a stuffed roster. Atlanta is a consolidation trade away from entering Tier 1.

TIER 3. PLAYOFF HOPEFULS - KNICKS, CELTICS, BULLS

This tier may dream of home-court advantage, but the real goal is to be a top-six team and avoid the Play-In Tournament.

Tier 3 in the East features three squads that made drastic overhauls to their respective rosters. 

The Knicks, a surprise top-four team last season that flamed out in the first round, fortified against potential regression with the additions of Kemba Walker and Evan Fournier. If their defense can avoid serious slippage, their additions have them poised to be top-10 on both sides of the ball.

The Boston Celtics retooled their roster and brought back Al Horford, but losing Fournier and Walker will hurt their offensive floor. Brad Stevens, though an untested front office addition, was an excellent regular season coach, and Ime Udoka is an unproven newcomer. With Jayson Tatum, the Celtics have the best player in the tier, and will be a tough out. But if Tatum misses time, they could be in trouble.

The Chicago Bulls added backcourt talent around Zach LaVine and Nicola Vucevic, bringing in  DeMar DeRozan, Lonzo Ball, and Alex Caruso. The Bulls have a lot of offensive talent, but it’s unclear if they can be more than the sum of their parts on that end. And defensively, they’re going to be the worst of the tier by a big margin. They have clear disaster potential.

TIER 4. PLAY-IN HOPEFULS - RAPTORS, HORNETS, PACERS, WIZARDS

For Tier 4, the upside is just making the playoffs, and most likely by winning multiple Play-In games to get there.

The Toronto Raptors are the hardest to peg of this group. There’s an argument that they belong in the tier above, but there is also a great deal of uncertainty with regards to how Masai Ujiri wants to proceed. This core isn’t good enough to win a title, but they’re also too good to tank in a non-Tampa season. So it should not shock anyone if they pivot to a rebuild midseason and trade away some of their best players. But as constructed, they could absolutely be in contention for the sixth seed. It’s just hard to have confidence that path is appealing to them.

If Gordon Hayward is healthy (a big if) the Charlotte Hornets have enough to chase the seventh seed. If not, they’ll be relying on a leap from LaMelo Ball and Kelly Oubre Jr. to make up for it. They also lose some institutional memory with Cody Zeller leaving for Portland.

The Indiana Pacers made the largest upgrade at the coaching position by swapping Nate Bjorkgren for Rick Carlisle, but they lack top-end talent. They should have a rebound year relative to their disastrous 2021 finish, but the rest of the East upgraded their rosters more than Indiana did. And the Washington Wizards have more depth, but with Russell Westbrook headed to LA they are singularly reliant on Bradley Beal to tread water.

TIER 5. DEVELOPMENTAL SEASON - PISTONS, CAVALIERS, MAGIC

Development can often be a euphemism for "just plain bad," and in Tier 5 this year that's definitely true. While Zach Lowe has reported that the Cleveland Cavaliers have a mandate to win-now (whatever that means), all three of the Tier 5 teams will be disabused of their Play-In fantasies within two months of the regular season starting. 

And that’s okay. All three of the Detroit Pistons, Cleveland Cavaliers, and Orlando Magic have players on the roster that could potentially become All-Star or All-NBA caliber players. For once, the future is bright at the bottom of the East.