NBA Swing: Four Teams Ready for a New Era

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With the 2026-27 season entering mid-November, most teams have played a dozen or so games. Most teams have been able to evaluate their rosters with some surprising and others being disappointing. For some teams, they have had the same iteration of them with little success. For the following four teams, they have been stuck in their current iterations for years, and change is needed.

Cleveland Cavaliers

Now in the fifth year of the Donovan Mitchell era, the Cleveland Cavaliers have had regular season success but have not had the postseason success the organization believed they’d have. Through the first 12 games of the season, the Cavs are sitting at .500 with a 6-6 record. While they had an impressive 24-point win against the Philadelphia 76ers in early November, three of their six wins have been against bottom-tier teams in Brooklyn, Washington, and Milwaukee. They’ve lost games against Philadelphia, New York, Atlanta, and were swept by the injury-plagued Oklahoma City Thunder in back-to-back games.

Cleveland is set to be one of the most expensive teams over the next couple of seasons. Donovan Mitchell is making $50 million this season and will be making $75 million in the last year of his current deal in 2031. The Cavs just signed 37-year-old James Harden to a two-year extension that will see him make $30 million through the 2028-29 season. Big man Evan Mobley is making over $50 million a year through the 2029-30 season. Teams in the East have passed the Cavs in recent years, and despite the Cavs making the Eastern Conference Finals last season, the Cavs are unlikely to reach that point again. For Cleveland, a new era should be around the corner, even if the organization cannot admit it.

New Orleans Pelicans

In New Orleans, the Zion Williamson era has been a failure, but Pelicans management is equally to blame. Currently in the second-to-last year of his five-year, $197 million contract, Zion Williamson has not played a single playoff game in his career. At the time of this writing, Williamson has played 285 career regular season games while missing 279 regular season games. He’s played 11 games so far this season and is coming off playing 62 games last season, but the team around him is not built to compete with the best in the West. With extension talks likely coming next summer, Zion will likely get a new contract instead of becoming a free agent in 2028.

Trey Murphy III and Herb Jones have been sought after by competing teams for years but have not been moved due to New Orleans unrealistic compensation requirements for both players. Second-year player Derik Queen is having a slow start to the season, while fellow second-year player Jeremiah Fears is having a stronger start to his season. Dejounte Murray has missed some time this season, while Jordan Poole has requested a trade from the Pelicans. New head coach Jamal Mosley has not been able to get the best from this team so far. The team is bottom half of the league in offensive rating and has a bottom-five defense. With all of this happening, Pelicans EVP of Basketball Operations, Joe Dumars, is happy with the team and is not willing to make any moves. For a team that has only made the playoffs twice this decade, change is desperately needed on the court and in the front office.

New Orleans Pelicans guard Dejounte Murray wants a trade from the franchise, and his agent Klutch Sports CEO Rich Paul and team officials have started working on a resolution for the one-time All-Star, sources tell ESPN. https://t.co/OoozAwcqvN

— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) November 13, 2026

Utah Jazz

The Utah Jazz have been in a rebuild since ending the Donovan Mitchell / Rudy Gobert era in the summer of 2022. In the following four seasons, the Jazz have not only failed to make the playoffs but have failed to finish the season at .500 or above. In their first 12 games this season, the Jazz sit at 1-11, are on a 10-game losing streak, and are tied for the worst record in the league with the Milwaukee Bucks. Jarren Jackson Jr. is out for another 4-6 weeks at a minimum with a torn MCL, and Lauri Markkanen is going to be out at least a month with a right hand fracture.

While Keyone George has had a good start to the season averaging 20.4 PPG, 6.5 APG, and 4.5 RPG, the other youth are still acclimating to the league. Second overall pick Darryn Peterson has looked good on the offensive end while struggling defensively at times. Second-year guard Ace Bailey has seen a slight dip in his production while his minutes have gone up.

With Utah’s current rate of play, things will not get better for them. Currently having one of the three worst records in the league, the Jazz would be in the relegation zone of the 2027 NBA draft, meaning they have the worst percentage of landing the top pick compared to the 4th to 10th worst teams. With the Jazz drafting in the top five the last two seasons, they cannot draft in the top five in 2027 per the NBA’s new draft changes. In a worst-case scenario, the Jazz would see their pick fall between 12 and 16; they have one of the worst records this season. The new era the team sought so many years ago has done nothing except keep the team at the bottom of the West.

Phoenix Suns

In Phoenix, the Suns have been plagued by the decisions they’ve made in the last handful of years. Everything starts with Devin Booker, who is signed through the 2029-30 season, and will be making $60+ million the next three seasons. Jalen Green, who is making $36 million this season and next season and was one of the main pieces returning to the Suns in their Kevin Durant trade with the Houston Rockets, has underperformed so far this season after missing most of last season. In 11 games so far, Green is averaging just 11.8 PPG, 3.4 APG, and 3.3 RPG. Dillon Brooks, who had an All-Star-caliber season last season, has come back down to Earth, averaging 14.9 PPG and 3.9 RPG. Controversial forward Miles Bridges has also seen his production take a small decline since joining the Suns over the summer. To top it all off, the Suns owe Bradley Beal, who last played for Phoenix in the 2024-25 season, $19 million per year through the 2029-30 season as part of their waiver and stretch of the former guard.

In terms of a future, Phoenix has one of the worst futures possible. Between the 2027 and 2033 drafts, Phoenix has control of only one first-round pick. 2027 is owed to Houston, 2028 is a swap owed to Brooklyn, New York, or Washington, Houston has swap rights in 2029, Washington has swap rights in 2030, 2031 is owed to Memphis, and 2033 is owed to Charlotte. While Phoenix would have a surprisingly good 2025-26 season that saw them make the first round of the playoffs via the play-in tournament, Phoenix does not look like that same team. Sitting at 4-6, their play-in hopes are in question at this time. Even though Suns owner Mat Ishbia has said Devin Booker is going to be a Sun for life, hitting the reset button with a Booker trade could be the Suns’ best lifeline at this point.