Just like last year, we're gonna have AI take over the keeper tiers. So, yay for positivity! Note: We had five teams have no changeover from the previous year's keepers. That's gotta be a record right? I guess a third of the league was very satisfied with their team! [ 2026 Keeper Cores ]
TIER 1 — THE UNTOUCHABLE
SPDE Spade
SPDE enters 2027 with the strongest keeper core in SlamNation, and perhaps the most impressive part is that Randall didn’t have to change anything. All six keepers return from last year, led by Victor Wembanyama, who has quickly become the franchise centerpiece and one of the league’s most valuable long-term assets. Behind him are three more elite keepers in Devin Booker, Tyrese Maxey and Chet Holmgren, giving SPDE an unusual combination of established production and players who still have plenty of prime years ahead. Booker is especially notable: this will be his tenth season with SPDE, making him the link between multiple generations of the franchise even as Wemby takes over as its defining player. Maxey enters his fifth season and Herro his seventh, so much of this core has been developed and retained over time. Holmgren and Walker Kessler complete a frontcourt that should remain valuable for years. While several contenders reshaped their six this offseason, SPDE simply brings everyone back. There are teams that can challenge their star power, but nobody enters 2027 with a cleaner mix of top-end talent, youth, depth and continuity.
TIER 2 — THE HEAVYWEIGHTS
SCRM Screamin’ Eagles
SCRM has undergone one of the league’s fastest transformations without ever giving up its centerpiece. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander enters his sixth season with the Eagles and is now joined by Anthony Edwards, giving Jordan perhaps the best one-two combination in SlamNation. Edwards was already part of last year’s keeper group, but the supporting cast changes again: Bam Adebayo and Scoot Henderson are out, replaced by Anthony Davis and Derik Queen. Davis obviously pushes this core toward winning now, even if his age and durability make him a very different keeper asset than Ant or Shai, while Queen gives SCRM another young player to develop alongside Jalen Duren. Austin Reaves has also become far more than supporting filler and gives the group another prime-age player with substantial value. What makes SCRM especially dangerous is that it no longer depends entirely on Shai. Edwards can become the franchise’s next long-term anchor, while Shai remains firmly in his prime. SPDE is deeper from one through six, but if we are simply asking which team can put the most intimidating two names at the top of its keeper list, SCRM has a very good argument.
ILCN IL Conceived
Nobody does continuity quite like defending champ ILCN. Frank returns the exact same six for 2027, and several of these relationships now stretch back most of a decade: Donovan Mitchell enters his ninth season with ILCN, while Luka Doncic and Jaren Jackson Jr. enter their eighth and Darius Garland his seventh. That history matters because this isn’t an aging core being kept together out of sentimentality. Luka remains one of the league’s premier franchise assets, Paolo Banchero is still ascending, and Mitchell gives the roster another established star. Garland and Jackson provide high-level production behind them, while Matas Buzelis remains the youngest developmental piece and enters his third season with the franchise. There may be teams with more exciting collections of prospects, but very few have this combination of star power and security. ILCN knows exactly what it has and has spent years resisting the temptation to make change simply for the sake of change. That has created one of SlamNation’s most recognizable cores. The ceiling ultimately rests with Luka and Paolo, but there are no obvious weak spots behind them. It remains one of the safest and most valuable sixes in the league.
MELO Melo My Mind
MELO is another team that decided there was no reason to mess with a good thing. All six keepers return from 2026, producing one of the deepest and most balanced groups in the league. Jaylen Brown enters his seventh season with MELO and remains the bridge between the roster’s different generations. Kevin Durant and Pascal Siakam supply the veteran production, while Brandon Miller and Stephon Castle give the franchise two younger players capable of becoming increasingly important as that veteran group ages. RJ Barrett sits almost perfectly in the middle. The result is a roster without the singular dynasty centerpiece possessed by SPDE, SCRM or ILCN, but there is very little weakness from one through six. Durant is obviously the player whose keeper value has the shortest runway, yet MELO is better positioned for that eventual transition than many veteran teams because Miller and Castle are already established members of the six. This is also the rare roster where keeping everyone makes sense even though the ages range considerably. MELO can compete now without mortgaging its future, and if Miller or Castle makes another leap, this core could look even better a year from now.
CHMK Chunky Monkeys
CHMK also brings back all six keepers, but the interesting part is how quickly the identity of this roster has changed despite that continuity. Giannis Antetokounmpo only joined the keeper group last season and immediately became its veteran centerpiece, while Evan Mobley, Alperen Sengun and Amen Thompson represent a much younger foundation underneath him. That makes this a particularly appealing keeper construction: Giannis can still anchor a contender now without forcing Evan to sacrifice the future. Mobley enters his fourth season with CHMK, Sengun and Amen their third, and all three have become increasingly valuable pieces rather than merely promising young players. Jamal Murray provides another established producer, while Dyson Daniels is the sixth keeper with room to keep climbing. There was a period when CHMK’s identity was tied to an entirely different generation of stars, but this version feels built to survive another transition whenever Giannis eventually ages out of the top tier. SPDE and SCRM have more overwhelming superstar value at the very top, but CHMK may have one of the league’s strongest middle sections. There simply isn’t much here you would want to give back.
TIER 3 — THE SWING TEAMS
SWMP Swamp Dragons
This is the end of an era for SWMP. Paul George is gone after fourteen years with the Swamp Dragons, an extraordinary run that made him one of the defining players in franchise history. Deandre Ayton also exits after seven years, meaning two of Eddie’s longest-tenured keepers disappear at once. Yet this doesn’t feel like a collapse because Nikola Jokic remains, now entering his eleventh season with SWMP, and the younger generation underneath him has become good enough to carry much more of the roster. Jalen Johnson and Jalen Williams both enter their third seasons with the franchise and now look like foundational pieces rather than complementary prospects. Zach LaVine, entering his sixth season, provides another familiar veteran presence, while Jalen Suggs and Toumani Camara replace George and Ayton. The result is a younger core without requiring a full rebuild. There is obviously no replacing fourteen years of Paul George from a franchise-history standpoint, but from a keeper-value standpoint SWMP was ready to make the transition. Jokic still gives them an elite centerpiece, and the two Jalens provide a credible path toward whatever comes after him. The old Swamp Dragons are disappearing, but the next version is already here.
FUNK Funk Coalition
No keeper core changed more dramatically than FUNK. A year ago Jayson Tatum was surrounded by Lauri Markkanen, Myles Turner, Jakob Poeltl, Jabari Smith Jr. and Reed Sheppard. Four of those six are now gone. In their place come Cooper Flagg, Dylan Harper, Kon Knueppel and VJ Edgecombe, turning FUNK into an extraordinary bet on one young generation. Tatum, entering his ninth season with the franchise, suddenly looks almost comically old next to the rest of his teammates, but that is precisely what makes the construction interesting. He provides the established superstar that most rebuilding teams spend years trying to find, while Flagg immediately becomes the most valuable young piece FUNK has put beside him in years. Harper, Knueppel and Edgecombe add three more high-upside assets, and Sheppard enters his third season as the only other survivor from last year. There is considerably more projection here than with the teams above FUNK; these players still have to become what their talent suggests. But keeper rankings are also about owning value before it becomes obvious. FUNK sacrificed a productive mid-vet middle class to create arguably the league’s best collection of young upside. The floor dropped, but the ceiling went through the roof.
KSKT Krispy Kreme Team
KSKT continues to be one of SlamNation’s strangest combinations of enormous upside and enormous uncertainty. Cade Cunningham and Tyrese Haliburton give the roster two elite guards around whom you could comfortably build a franchise, while Zion Williamson remains the kind of player whose ceiling makes him almost impossible to abandon. Michael Porter Jr. enters his eighth season with KSKT and has quietly become the longest-tenured player on the roster, with Zion entering his seventh and Haliburton and Kristaps Porzingis their sixth. The lone change is significant mostly because of that continuity: Anfernee Simons leaves after four seasons, with Norman Powell taking his place. Powell raises the veteran floor but does little to solve the larger question surrounding this core, which remains health. Porzingis and Zion can be enormously valuable when available, but their risk makes KSKT harder to place alongside the more stable groups above them. Still, there is a difference between uncertainty and lack of talent. KSKT has talent everywhere, particularly at the top, and Cade’s continued rise gives the franchise another true centerpiece alongside Haliburton. Few teams have a wider range of possible outcomes in 2027.
FJUB Fat Jubas
FJUB continues the renovation that began over the last couple of seasons, replacing Isaiah Hartenstein and Zaccharie Risacher with Kawhi Leonard and Kyshawn George. Neither departing player had deep roots with the franchise, so this feels less like an era change and more like Eric continuing to search for the right six around Karl-Anthony Towns and Trae Young. Both stars enter their third seasons with FJUB and remain the obvious foundation. OG Anunoby gives the group another established two-way contributor, while Trey Murphy III is particularly interesting because his keeper value still has room to grow. Kawhi is the unusual addition: he brings considerably more immediate upside than a typical fifth keeper, but his age and availability make him difficult to value alongside younger assets. Kyshawn George provides the opposite proposition, with much of his value tied to what he might become. That mix makes FJUB stronger and more balanced than some previous versions of the roster. It still lacks the long history of ILCN or SPDE and the overwhelming youth of FUNK, but the top four are legitimate building blocks. If Murphy continues ascending and George develops, this could move up quickly; if Kawhi declines, the younger pieces become even more important.
BUFF Buffy
BUFF remains perhaps the league’s purest collection of established, sensible basketball players. Andrew Wiggins is the lone departure from last year’s six, replaced by Lauri Markkanen, which is a meaningful upgrade without changing the character of the roster. Jalen Brunson has become the top-end engine this group needed, while Domantas Sabonis enters his ninth season with Buffy and Brandon Ingram his tenth. Those two have provided remarkable continuity through several different versions of the franchise. Mikal Bridges and Coby White return as useful prime-age pieces, and Markkanen adds another proven scorer who should fit comfortably into the middle of the core. The obvious limitation is that there isn’t much speculative upside here. Unlike FUNK or SBUK, Buffy isn’t waiting for several young players to double in value; most of these players are already close to what they are going to be. That matters in a keeper ranking. But it also gives Roger an extremely high floor, and there is value in knowing that almost every spot in the six should produce. BUFF may never be the most exciting keeper group, but it remains one of the easiest to trust.
TIER 4 — BETWEEN ERAS
SBUK So Buckets
The biggest story at SBUK is not who arrived. It is who finally left. Joel Embiid’s eleven-year run with So Buckets is over, ending one of the longest and most important player-franchise relationships in SlamNation. Embiid had been a fixture here for more than a decade, but his departure makes the direction unmistakable: this is now Franz Wagner, Alex Sarr, Ausar Thompson and Ace Bailey’s team. Wagner enters his fifth season with SBUK and becomes the clearest prime-age centerpiece, while Sarr and Ausar provide two more young building blocks and Bailey arrives as the newest upside swing. Desmond Bane remains a useful bridge between the generations. Then there is Kyrie Irving, somehow entering his fifteenth season with SBUK and now standing alone as the franchise’s connection to an earlier era. That contrast makes this one of the most interesting sixes in the league: one extraordinarily long-tenured veteran surrounded by a core that is rapidly getting younger. Losing Embiid lowers the immediate ceiling, but holding him forever would eventually have delayed the transition. SBUK finally chose a direction. The question now is whether one of its young players can grow into the kind of franchise-defining keeper Embiid was.
SOUR Sour Snails
SOUR is slowly undergoing a transition that would have seemed impossible a few years ago: becoming something other than Stephen Curry’s team. Curry is still here, of course, entering an astonishing seventeenth season with the Sour Snails, easily one of the defining player-team relationships in league history. But Scottie Barnes now represents the future of the franchise, while Deni Avdija has developed into another important prime-age keeper. Dejounte Murray and Miles Bridges return as useful middle pieces, and Ajay Mitchell replaces Jimmy Butler, whose three-season run comes to an end--but he could return to the franchise again as he has before during its glory days. The change makes SOUR younger without forcing a complete rebuild, although the core still has a significant question looming over it: what does this look like when Curry is finally gone? Barnes is good enough to provide an answer, but SOUR would benefit enormously from another younger player developing into a top-tier asset alongside him. For now, Curry remains valuable enough that there is no reason to force the issue. His longevity is remarkable precisely because he has survived multiple versions of this roster. The seventeenth season may belong to Curry historically, but increasingly the next era belongs to Barnes.
ABCX Another Bad Creation
ABCX finally appears to be narrowing down what it wants its next core to look like. LaMelo Ball remains the centerpiece and enters his sixth season with the franchise, while Josh Giddey returns after joining the keeper group last year. Ivica Zubac provides the veteran stability. Around them, however, the younger supporting cast has been completely refreshed: Bennedict Mathurin is gone after three seasons, Jaden Ivey after two, and Yves Missi after one. Ayo Dosunmu, Donovan Clingan and Keyonte George take their places. None of those departures qualifies as the end of a franchise era, but collectively they show ABCX moving on from a previous batch of developmental bets that never quite became foundational players. Clingan is particularly interesting because a young center with his profile can gain keeper value quickly, while Keyonte George gives the roster another guard with upside. The concern remains the same as last year: after LaMelo, who becomes the second truly elite keeper? Giddey may have the best chance. ABCX is deeper and more coherent than it has been at times in the past, but it still needs one of these younger players to make a significant jump.
SQSQ Squirtle Squad
SQSQ finally gets younger, although “younger” is doing some work when LeBron James and James Harden remain two of the six. Anthony Davis, DeMar DeRozan and Daniel Gafford are all gone, with Bam Adebayo, Payton Pritchard and Saddiq Bey replacing them. None of the departures had especially long tenure with the franchise, so this is more roster correction than historic breakup. Bam is easily the most important addition because he gives SQSQ a legitimate prime-age anchor beyond its veteran stars, while Pritchard offers another useful player with room to maintain or increase his value. Derrick White returns for his second season and fits that same middle timeline. LeBron, meanwhile, enters his seventh season with the Squirtle Squad, and Harden his second. The problem is that the two biggest names remain assets whose long-term keeper value can only move in one direction. SQSQ should still get plenty of production from this six in the short term, but there is no obvious young superstar waiting behind them. Bam makes the transition less frightening than it was last year. He doesn’t completely solve it. This is a better-balanced core, but one still caught between eras.
TIER 5 — UNDER CONSTRUCTION
TRUO Truo Thien
TRUO returns the same six keepers from 2026, which gives Thien plenty of continuity but also leaves the central question unanswered: where is the elite franchise piece? Julius Randle enters his seventh season with TRUO and remains the longest-tenured member of the group, while Jalen Green reaches his fifth. De’Aaron Fox and Cam Thomas are now entering their third seasons, with Kel’el Ware and Zach Edey each beginning their second. That creates a reasonable spread of ages and development stages, and there are certainly paths to improvement. Ware and Edey are young bigs worth holding, while Green still has the talent to become more valuable than he currently is. Fox provides reliable high-level production and Randle remains useful. But keeper leagues reward scarcity at the very top, and TRUO is still missing the player that other owners would consider nearly untouchable. Running everyone back therefore feels less convincing here than it does for SPDE or ILCN. The hope is that continuity allows one of the younger pieces to emerge rather than simply preserving a middle-tier core. There are six defensible keepers here. TRUO now needs one or two of them to become something more.
MEMM Memphis MonStars
MEMM is barely old enough to have traditions, and Austin is already rebuilding it. Kawhi Leonard, Nikola Vucevic and Keegan Murray are gone after only one season in last year’s keeper group, replaced by pre-draft trade acquisitions Andrew Nembhard, Cedric Coward and Peyton Watson. That leaves Onyeka Okongwu, entering his third season, as the longest-tenured player in the six, while Ja Morant and Josh Hart return for their second. The direction is obvious: the MonStars are moving away from veteran names and toward younger players whose keeper value could still grow. Ja remains the key to everything. At his best he is the only player here with the talent to function as a true franchise centerpiece, but the group behind him remains largely developmental. Okongwu has become a useful keeper, Nembhard offers stability, and Coward and Watson give MEMM two more chances to find an ascending asset. This is probably not a six designed to dominate immediately, and that is fine if the goal is to establish a younger foundation. Compared with the aging UFOS teams that preceded MEMM, there is at least a coherent direction. The next step is harder: somebody besides Ja has to become a player Austin would hate to trade.
THE 2027 TIERS
- TIER 1 — SPDE
- TIER 2 — SCRM, ILCN, MELO, CHMK
- TIER 3 — SWMP, FUNK, KSKT, FJUB, BUFF
- TIER 4 — SBUK, SOUR, ABCX, SQSQ
- TIER 5 — TRUO, MEMM
The most striking thing about 2027 is how many different ways there now are to build a valuable keeper core. SPDE and ILCN have created value through years of continuity. SCRM accumulated two genuine superstars. CHMK rebuilt around a younger middle while adding Giannis. SWMP is finally turning the page on Paul George without sacrificing Jokic. SBUK is doing the same after eleven years of Embiid. And FUNK has gone in the opposite direction from almost everyone, keeping Tatum and essentially starting over everywhere else.
That makes 2027 feel less like a reshuffling of last year’s rankings and more like the beginning of a new cycle. Some of SlamNation’s longest-running player-franchise partnerships are ending just as a new group of young keepers arrives.
The old cores aren’t gone yet. But for the first time, we can clearly see what is replacing them.
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