When the NBA reformed the draft lottery, it did so with the hopes that all 30 teams would be somewhat competitive. But two weeks into the 2026-27 season, that isn't proving true. 

Five teams have just a single win so far this season, and in many cases, those wins are only coming when they play one another. The Los Angeles Clippers have only beaten the Sacramento Kings. The Chicago Bulls have only beaten the Milwaukee Bucks. The Kings' only win came when the Dallas Mavericks rested Kyrie Irving.

No matter how the incentive structures are designed, the NBA will always have a handful of very bad teams. Some teams are poorly run. Some teams are besieged by injuries. Some teams are simply in transitional stages of their roster builds. The old NBA was designed to make bad teams good quickly. The new one is designed to make it harder for teams to bounce back from the bottom.

As part of last spring's lottery reform, the three worst teams in the league are now punished for losing. In the new 3-2-1 lottery format, the seven best teams to miss the Play-In Tournament get three lottery balls each out of the 37 available ones, while the three worst teams each get only two. In theory, that should create an all-out war to avoid the bottom three. In practice, well, we'll get into that shortly.

For now, as the bottom of the league is starting to take shape, let's take a look at our relegation zone candidates. While injuries could certainly create more of them as we go, seven teams stand out as reasonable threats for a bottom-three record so far this season. We're going to rank them from least to most likely to land in the relegation zone, with the top three teams being our official picks to take that lottery hit in May. 

Remember, this is not merely a ranking of the NBA's worst teams. It's who is likeliest to land in the bottom three of the standings, a necessary distinction for reasons you're about to find out.

7. Utah Jazz (1-7)

There isn't a more dumbfounding team to watch in the NBA right now than the Jazz. For four years, Utah was a smart, well-run team that lost because the front office did everything in its power to deprive its coach of talent. Well, coach Will Hardy is allowed to win now. It just isn't happening. 

The inventive, flowing offense of years past is sputtering. No. 2 overall pick Darryn Peterson isn't making jumpers and can't get to the rim. Players needed for size and defense -- like Josh Okogie and Jaxson Hayes -- are killing the offense. Everything is running through Keyonte George because he's the only player on the floor creating consistent advantages. He's not a true point guard, and the lack of passing on the floor right now is palpable. Their lone victory came by a single point at home against the New Orleans Pelicans. Not exactly inspiring.

Any dreams of a 50-win, top-six seed season died with the Walker Kessler trade. This team is screaming for anyone who can screen and rebound. Getting Jusuf Nurkić back will help, and eventually, Jaren Jackson Jr. will take the floor again, too. You'd hope Peterson eventually figures some things out. He's a No. 2 overall pick. He's too talented to struggle this much unless the medical issues that plagued him at Kansas are persisting. There are reasons to believe this will get better. The Jazz should eventually be at least competitive.

But we're barely into November and even their more modest, post-Kessler Play-In ambitions already seem to be on life support. The Western Conference is far deeper than it looked a month ago and the Jazz are digging themselves a hole they're going to struggle to climb out of. This is a bad defensive roster even at full strength, and if the offense is this disjointed, the postseason just isn't on the table. After a four-year tank, that's a real concern in Utah. Even sniffing the relegation zone, given the time spent even getting to this point, is a borderline disaster. 

6. Phoenix Suns (2-5)

The Suns come in ahead of one-win Utah -- and the two-win Orlando Magic they just beat -- because those teams have more substantial reinforcements incoming. The Suns will benefit greatly from the eventual return of Mark Williams, if only because, at this stage, Khaman Maluach just is not ready to play serious NBA minutes. But Williams isn't, say, Jaren Jackson or Paolo Banchero. Phoenix's problems are internal.

They were the first team of the season to leak displeasure to the press, with Chris Haynes reporting that the locker room is frustrated over the lack of a point guard. There's a fair bit of statistical evidence suggesting the Suns could address that problem by benching Jalen Green for Collin Gillespie. Eventually, Green's performance will force the issue. If your value is derived entirely from scoring and you're averaging 12 points on 41-22-69 shooting splits, you won't be long for anyone's starting lineup.

The bigger problem here is the loss of last year's defense-and-hustle identity. The Suns only just surrendered the NBA's 30th defensive ranking to another team on this list, and their deflections, loose ball recoveries and offensive rebounding are way down. As of this writing, they're the worst rebounding team in the NBA. Many of the players responsible for last year's identity are playing less than they did last year. Green simply isn't a defense and energy player. Neither is Miles Bridges, who they gave up yet another unprotected first-round pick to get. 

Devin Booker is slipping. The shotmaking bar on superstar-level value for a guard who never makes plays nor gets to the rim at an elite level is almost impossibly high. He basically has to be a high-volume 3-point shooter making close to 40% of his attempts to justify his supermax deal. He hasn't come close to that in years. He doesn't quite have his old burst, either, and after the Bridges trade, the Suns are down to very few remaining draft assets with which they can improve. There's probably enough talent here that the Suns will eventually be able to eke their way to 30 or so wins, but the early returns here are pretty discouraging.

5. Brooklyn Nets (2-6)

Here's where we take our first real step down in terms of roster talent. The bottom five teams are simply worse than the remaining 25. There's no All Star-level talent here, like George in Utah or Booker in Phoenix. Michael Porter Jr. made his case a year ago, but his volume is down with Julius Randle on the roster. With the Nets, Randle has been largely inefficient and is turning the ball over more than ever. Only three teams turn the ball over more frequently than they do.

They're attempting to sacrifice high opponent 3-point volume for minimizing attempts at the rim. It's working in terms of volume, but once anyone does get to the rim, they're scoring there with impunity because Brooklyn simply doesn't have a reliable, individual rim protector. They're among the most frequent fouling defenses in the NBA. Last year's No. 8 overall pick, Egor Dëmin, is already hurt and has all but abandoned shooting inside the arc. Young guards, no matter how much promise they show, are usually bad. The goal of this season is to develop several of them. Mikel Brown Jr. and the improving Nolan Traore are years away from what they'll eventually become.

Here's where we really have to start talking about incentives. Brooklyn owes its first-round pick to the Houston Rockets. Now, the Jazz and Suns owe their first-round picks out as well, but under different circumstances. The Suns won't control their own pick again until the actual sun burns out, so what happens to their picks isn't really their concern. The Jazz have picked in the top five two years in a row, so their pick, currently owed to the Memphis Grizzlies, can't land there again, and will therefore have a clean slate next year. But the Nets, who are several years away from winning meaningfully barring something unforeseen, probably want to avoid having their pick land in the top five, as teams are forbidden from ending up there three years in a row, or, in the worst-case scenario, coming in at No. 1, which would bar them from picking there in 2028.

The Nets are, in other words, incentivized to lose, which is exactly what this system was supposed to prevent. Now, they can't go about it as brazenly as tankers of the past have, as commissioner Adam Silver now has expanded powers to punish teams for tanking. But the NBA can't stop them from, say, trading useful veterans like Porter at the deadline. Brooklyn didn't do so a year ago when it should have, so this will be something to watch when February rolls around. If the Nets keep Porter, they're probably good enough to duck the relegation zone. If they move him, well, getting in there may not be the goal, but it would be a potentially helpful byproduct. 

Considering the Nets traded for Randle in June, though, it seems as though Brooklyn, to the delight of Houston (which walks away with six lottery balls between Brooklyn and Phoenix in this scenario), intends to try to win. There are possible reasons for that ranging from culture-building to job security, but until the Nets show their hand, we'll leave them out of the bottom three for now.

4. Sacramento Kings (1-7)

Here's a sobering thought: of the seven teams we're covering in this space, the Kings are the only one that fits into the relegation zone system as intended. They don't owe their pick out to another team. They aren't on any consecutive high picks clock. They're just a bad team trying to rebuild organically. They want high draft picks, which means they don't want to be in the bottom three. 

They might even be willing to trade a small asset to improve at the deadline for this purpose if necessary. If nothing else, they have the salary to do so. Between Zach LaVine and De'Andre Hunter, they have over $70 million in expiring money to dangle if doing so makes sense. Wins tend to be elusive in Sacramento, but the Kings actually want them.

They are unfortunately ill-equipped to get them. The 2026-27 Kings are quite frankly one of the strangest teams ever assembled. Former All-Star Domantas Sabonis is playing 36 minutes a game and attempting fewer shots than Precious Achiuwa. Darius Acuff Jr., meanwhile, has the second-highest usage rate any rookie has posted in NBA history, behind only Joel Embiid. He has higher usage this season than Cade Cunningham and Jalen Brunson. 

The Kings aren't playing like a team whose goal is to win. They are playing like a team whose sole goal is to fast-forward through Acuff's developmental curve. That's not a crazy decision given their circumstances, but as we've addressed with Brooklyn, young guards can be productive without being especially helpful when it comes to winning. Acuff is taking shots that players like Brunson and Cunningham spend whole careers earning the right to attempt, and he is understandably far worse at actually converting them. Veteran teammates don't tend to enjoy watching rookies chuck bad shots, and without a good defender in sight, it's not as though the Kings can win on the other end of the floor. They're going to be on the bubble here. We just have three better candidates.

3. Los Angeles Clippers (1-7)

The ball-handling deficit here is bleak. Only the Charlotte Hornets are turning the ball over more, and nobody is even close when it comes to points allowed off turnovers. Considering Darius Garland's perpetual issues staying on the court, things are only going to get harder from here. Getting Brandon Ingram back from his partially torn Achilles will help, but he's much more of an individual shotmaker than someone who can lift an entire offense. They're struggling to generate anything near the rim as well, ranking 24th in paint points thus far. They're defending better than most of this group, a byproduct of Jeff Van Gundy's presence on their bench, but even that is at risk because of those pesky incentive structures.

The Clippers obviously owe their own first-round pick to the Oklahoma City Thunder. That isn't especially relevant, but we should note that the Clippers owe their top-three protected pick to the Philadelphia 76ers in 2029 through swap rights, and they'd probably prefer to avoid starting that top-five clock now because consecutive top-five picks would ensure they have no chance of keeping their 2029 selection.

More importantly, though, the Clippers were just stripped of five first-round picks for circumventing the salary cap. That puts them at an enormous draft capital deficit moving forward. There's no way the Clippers can recoup all of that lost value, but it makes plenty of sense for them to trade veterans for whatever value they can get in the name of setting up their future. Players like Brook Lopez, Kris Dunn, Max Strus, Derrick Jones Jr. and Rui Hachimura are all in their primes and could net positive value back in the right trades. 

Since the Clippers have nothing to lose by getting relegated this year, it would likely behoove them to cash in these players for whatever value they get. If they do so, they're going to wind up in pretty rough shape down the stretch.

2. Milwaukee Bucks (1-7)

From a team we know circumvented the cap to a team we think very well might have. The Bucks are currently being investigated for the contract they gave Gary Trent Jr. over the summer. And the fact that he has now been DNP-CD'd in six of Milwaukee's eight games certainly doesn't help their case. If they lose picks, they're incentivized to try to make those up by trading away players they don't intend to keep long-term.

Even as it stands, the Bucks are just a bad team. They're a bottom-five offense and defense with no notable injuries. The roster mix is what you'd expect out of a team that just traded the best player in franchise history without receiving a premium asset in return: a jumbled mess. Half of the roster is comprised of shooting guards. They're thin enough at forward that they're still forced to start Kyle Kuzma, and their $108 million starting center, Myles Turner, is averaging single digits. The young players are years away. The old players are years away from the versions of themselves that warranted the minutes and money they're currently receiving.

None of this is especially surprising. It's the first year of a rebuild, and the Bucks won't control their own pick again until 2031. They're in no rush here, and the Pelicans, who control Milwaukee's pick this year, stand to lose draft value because of it.

1. Chicago Bulls (1-7)

The Bulls have been the NBA's worst team this season by a pretty comfortable margin. A brutal early schedule is somewhat to blame, of course, but they have nearly a five-point net rating gap between themselves and the No. 29-ranked Kings. They're a bottom-five defense in terms of both points in the paint allowed per game and 3-pointers made per game. 

Only the Clippers give up more points off of turnovers. They rank 27th in rebounding rate. Years of steady scoring growth from Josh Giddey have seemingly been undone in two weeks. Matas Buzelis is both playing and shooting less than he did a year ago. Caleb Wilson is exploring the studio space in all of the messy ways you want a top rookie to do so. They're shooting just over 27% from 3-point range.

So the Bulls have the basketball end of the equation covered... but they also have the incentive side to consider. Remember, Wilson was the No. 4 overall pick in June. That means that another top-five pick in 2027 locks them out of the top five in 2028. The 2027 class is considered historically weak, but 2028 is expected to be stronger. Realistically, the Bulls probably don't expect to be any good next year, either. The last thing they should want is to risk getting stuck with a middling 2028 pick because they land at No. 5 in 2027. 

Chicago is already terrible and has good reason to try to stay that way. Wilson has an incredibly bright future, but the present is understandably bleak.