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Lowe's annual NBA tiers: Ranking the league's best and worst teams ... and the Nets and Lakers

It's time for our 13th annual Tiers of the NBA -- my alternative to power rankings. With exceptions both happy (the San Antonio Spurs from the mid-1990s through the Kawhi Leonard disaster, perhaps the Golden State Warriors now) and sad (KANGGGZZZZZ!!!), team-building flows on a soft boom-and-bust cycle: stars rise, peak and then fall -- taking teams along the same path.

Grouping teams helps clarify who is where on that spectrum -- and which teams might be on the verge of moving up or down.

Order within tiers does not matter.