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Where will Lonzo Ball, Markelle Fultz and the other top prospects of the 2017 NBA draft wind up? What will happen to this year's crop of marquee free agents? How long can aging stars maintain their on-court prowess?

All these questions matter when trying to predict records for 2017-18, but they become even more vital when looking far into the future. Then, cap space and the ability to minimize detrimental contracts grow substantially more important. So too does the aging curve of NBA players—we used this look from NBA Math as a baseline.

Five years from now, where will your favorite team stand? What will happen between now and then?

To answer those inquires, we looked into every piece of the puzzle for all 30 NBA teams, poring over cap situations, aging curves, front office history and plenty more to be as accurate as possible. But predictions a short way into the future are tough enough; accurately guessing at 2021-22 records is downright impossible.

With that in mind, don't view these as gospel. We're trying to be in the right ballpark well into the future, but the expected margin of error will admittedly grow as we move further from the present, if only because incorrectly predicting one big free-agency move or failing to account for a single blockbuster trade can have far-reaching implications.