How to Fix the NBA's Most Confusing Rosters

Has enough of the 2024-25 NBA regular season unfolded for us to demand clarity from the most confusing rosters?

Honestly, who knows? But you'd better believe we're about to insist on more coherence from certain squads anyway.

Please note that "confusing" is not tantamount to "most disappointing" or "worst." This is not a peace-or-panic meter.

For the most part, we are looking at depth charts and directions rather than wins and losses. And then, upon spotting the squads with some of the biggest existential question marks, we're going to provide an overarching—and totally unsolicited—solution.

Source of Confusion: In this case, it does boil down to wins and losses.

Uh, has anyone told these Brooklyn Nets they have a two-year window in which to be really bad and capitalize on the lottery odds that come with it, and that, as such, they need to be really bad?

Hovering around .500 even 10ish games into the season is inexcusable, especially inside an Eastern Conference in which hovering around .500 may, as it turns out, earn you a playoff berth.

It's not like the Nets have faced a cupcake schedule, either. OK, sure, the Milwaukee Bucks are sad as hell. And yes, the Memphis Grizzlies are banged up. But there's no way Brooklyn should be picking up victories against those squads. The urgency to be #reallybad must be stronger.

Potential Solution: Only let Dennis Schröder play in road games.

Or just trade him. At the very least, see if you can acquire the rights to Doc Rivers from Milwaukee. Whatever, really.

Schröder is a man on fire right now. He's putting up around 20 points and seven assists while banging in close to half of his threes and driving what's emerged as a top-seven half-court offense. That is so pretty it's actually gross.

Dismiss this as early-season noise if you like. The Nets don't have the margin for error to be accidentally #notreallybad. General manager Sean Marks must look inward and do whatever's necessary to ensure the Nets avoid becoming Utah Jazz East—minus the long-term control over all of their own draft picks.

Source of Confusion: The unending middle-build.

Charitable interpretations of this team's offseason clung to the concept that the front office wouldn't move on from Alex Caruso, DeMar DeRozan and Andre Drummond for what amounts to the rights to pay Josh Giddey if they weren't semi-serious about pivoting away from the bottom of the middle. Yet, here we are, once again, completely unsure of the Bulls' endgame.

To be sure, this isn't Giddey's fault. He is racking up numbers, but Chicago gets annihilated when he's on the floor. Granted, that's at least a partial problem. Is he about to notch a stat line that gets him puh-aid by the front office next summer without actually contributing to positive returns on the floor?

All the while, Zach LaVine (prior to his adductor injury) and Nikola Vučević are having standout years on an individual level. Nobody could have expected the Bulls to move one or both by now. At the same time, you can't help but wonder why either entered the season on the roster.

Tepid trade markets are likely to blame. That's fair enough. But what does it say about your team's future when your leaders in minutes per game are, in decreasing order, LaVine, Coby White, Vooch, Giddey, Ayo Dosunmu and Patrick Williams...and rookie Matas Buzelis barely sees the floor?

Potential Solution: Lean into keeping your draft pick.

Jettisoning LaVine and Vučević should be a given. LaVine has played well enough that the Bulls should be able to get something. Vooch's market will be more lackluster, even with a lower pay grade and shorter contract. As long as Chicago needn't attach something to him, he should be gone, if only to take the club out of head coach Billy Donovan's bag—which, uh, doesn't feature too many centers at the moment.

Everything and anything that ensures they won't send their top-10-protected first-rounder to San Antonio needs to be on the table. The Bulls don't look like they have their tentpole for the future in tow. If you think it's White or Buzelis or Giddey, well, congratulations.

In the aggregate, though, Chicago is thin on consequential players to evaluate against its future. This season needs to be more about positioning the organization to change that.

Source of Confusion: Brandon Ingram and centers and Zion Williamson and shot profiles.

Injuries contribute to the New Orleans Pelicans standing out as one of the league's most baffling teams. Trey Murphy (right hamstring) has yet to play this season, and when all's said and done, Dejounte Murray (left hand), Herb Jones (right shoulder) and CJ McCollum (right adductor) will have all missed extensive time. Both Zion (quad/hamstring/thigh) and pleasant-surprise Jordan Hawkins (back) are at least slightly snake-bitten as well.

Caveats in mind, the Pelicans looked disjointed before the onrush of absences. Zion is putting together an incredibly uneven season so far, and Ingram's uptick in long-range volume has not spared New Orleans from inherent awkwardness.

The Pelicans remain in the bottom five of three-point-attempt rate and are not doing enough elsewhere to offset it. Even though they're in the top 10 of fast-break volume, they actually aren't playing fast enough. New Orleans is currently 26th in average offensive possession time, according to Inpredictable. That is much too slow when 1) you have Zion, and 2) when you don't have the personnel to adequately space the floor or break down set defenses.

Ingram's future continues to loom over everything. He is scheduled for unrestricted free agency at season's end. And beyond him, the Pelicans' lack of size is damning. Yves Missi has turned in some nice moments, but this team needs a center it can trot out in higher volume to boost the rebounding and interior defense without submarining offensive floor balance. Totally doable, right?

Potential Solution: Commit to a direction.

Are they better off viewing this as a gap year and recalibrating over the summer? Are they ready to pull the plug on this operation entirely, in which case it might be time to not only shop Ingram but also Zion? Should they be more urgently trying to double-down on the trade market, current injury reports be damned?

Anything the Pelicans do must begin with delivering a final verdict on the future of Ingram. Moving him is easier said than done when suitors are no doubt worried about how much he'll command going forward. But if New Orleans isn't prepared to pay him in tandem with Zion, McCollum, Murphy and Murray, it needs to rip off the Band-Aid. That by itself, regardless of the return Ingram fetches, would shed a boatload of short- and long-term clarity.

Source of Confusion: Lack of offensive initiation beyond Paolo Banchero.

The Orlando Magic are an 11th-hour entrant. We knew they were too dependent on Banchero to generate offense. Now, we know just how too dependent they are on him—and it isn't pretty.

Banchero is out indefinitely with an oblique injury. Orlando has the league's worst offensive rating and effective field-goal percentage by a galaxy since he went down.

Anthony Black, Jalen Suggs and Franz Wagner all look overtaxed during this mini stretch. Cole Anthony's offense is apparently so far gone head coach Jamahl Mosley still won't play him, even as the Magic's product on the more glamorous end sinks into the abyss.

Potential Solution: It's trade time.

Trades are hard to pull off so early, and no bigger-time floor generals seem available at the moment.

Something needs to be done anyway.

It can happen on a varying scale. The Magic have the tools to swing a blockbuster, particularly as of Dec. 15, but they don't need to go all-in if the right opportunity doesn't present itself.

Targeting everyone from primary initiators to secondary table-setters who open up the floor off-ball to minor stopgaps should be in play. Orlando can act now or monitor the market with the intention of striking once trade season unofficially starts (Dec. 15), so long as it doesn't plan to let this thing marinate (and thus devolve) until February.

Players like Anfernee Simons, Aaron Wiggins (trade-eligible Jan. 15), Tre Jones, Monte Morris (trade-eligible Dec. 15), LaMelo Ball, Malik Monk (trade-eligible Dec. 15), Terry Rozier, Coby White, Payton Pritchard and Dennis Schröder are all worth monitoring.

Source of Confusion: *gestures wildly towards the kids*

The Portland Trail Blazers' defensive performance thus far verges on invigorating. Their size and length is making a difference and paving the way for an identity.

Except, well, this identity doesn't feature enough of the ostensibly most important players in the room.

Shaedon Sharpe (left shoulder) has yet to play this season, so that's out of head coach Chauncey Billups' control. But Scoot Henderson still isn't starting, and neither he nor Donovan Clingan are in the top five in minutes per game.

Extoll the virtues of bringing Scoot off the pine if you're so inclined. (He looks better.) It'd be one thing if he was getting more minutes than, say, Anfernee Simons. He's not.

Portland's three leaders in minutes per game—Simons, Deandre Ayton, Jerami Grant—don't profile as members of the Blazers' next good team. What does leaning on them accomplish? And if your answer is "streamlining life for the perceived cornerstones around them," I direct you toward the way Deni Avdija is being used and how he's faring on offense.

Potential Solution: Fire up the trade machine early–or at least reorient your priorities.

Portland does not seem in danger of winning too many games. And it has enough capable guys on the roster that the front office may not be as invested in where its 2025 pick lands.

But while the Blazers have guys, do they have The Guy? That remains to be seen. (Again: Sharpe's absence looms here.) And even if the face of the future is already in their program, they're not doing nearly enough to unearth or develop him.

It's time to get serious about plumbing the depth of the dudes who potentially matter most to the 2027 and 2028 versions of this team. Whether that entails finally moving Grant and/or Simons and/or Ayton or heavily tinkering with the as-constructed pecking order is up to the Blazers.

Dan Favale covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter (@danfavale), and subscribe to the Hardwood Knocks podcast, co-hosted by Bleacher Report's Grant Hughes.

Unless otherwise cited, stats courtesy of NBA.com, Basketball Reference, Stathead or Cleaning the Glass and accurate entering games on Thursday, Nov. 7. Salary information via Spotrac. Draft-pick obligations via RealGM.