The NBA Clarity Index

Getty Images/Ringer illustration Some teams are entering the 2024-25 NBA season with an unmistakable direction. Others … not so much. We sorted every franchise into tiers based on a simple question: How clear is its plan? One of the savviest moves of the 2024 NBA offseason involved a team trading its best player and receiving absolutely nothing that will help it win games in the immediate future. The deal was universally hailed. Or, to put it in standard transaction report card form: Out: best playerIn: no one of consequenceGrade: A+ Only in the NBA does this calculus compute. You probably didn't even flinch at the premise. Because the Brooklyn Nets' trade of Mikal Bridges—to the New York Knicks, for a massive package of draft picks and a few nominal players—was eminently logical and profoundly practical. A no-brainer. Necessary, even. The Nets were going nowhere. They needed a reset. They needed to replenish their draft capital. And, given the reputed strength of the 2025 draft class, it's a good time to be bad. But we're not here to high-five the Nets for tanking. We're here to praise their clarity of purpose—an often-elusive feature among NBA franchises. After...