It's time for our 12th annual NBA tiers, my alternative to power rankings. Grouping teams helps clarify the league's big-picture anatomy: who is where on the team-building spectrum, and which teams have mortgaged too much of their futures -- or sacrificed too much of their recent pasts -- to end up there.
Order within tiers does not matter.
Tier of their own I, provided, you know ... Brooklyn Nets
Tier of their own II: Milwaukee Bucks
It's hard to know how much fear and awe to grant the Bucks after their crescendo to the NBA title.