24 Increasingly Bold Predictions for the 2025-26 NBA Season
From a reasonable title prediction and MVP pick to an unthinkable trade and a Bucks blow-up, here are two dozen takes that will certainly age well24 Increasingly Bold Predictions for the 2025-26 NBA Season
From a reasonable title prediction and MVP pick to an unthinkable trade and a Bucks blow-up, here are two dozen takes that will certainly age well
It’s the most wonderful time of the year: The NBA is back! To mark the special occasion, here’s my fourth-annual column wherein I make increasingly bold predictions about the upcoming season. Some of these are more deranged than others, and, thanks to a restrictive CBA that tends to throw cold water on the most creative trade possibilities, there are a few that might read like a square getting shoved into a round hole. But such is life.
Without further ado, here are 24 increasingly bold predictions for the 2025-26 season.
1. Nikola Jokic will win his fourth MVP.
2. The Denver Nuggets will win the NBA championship.
Let’s package these two together right off the top. Neither is audacious, both can be conjured without any caveats, and, even though Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and his Oklahoma City Thunder are coming off a historically dominant run, they should not be viewed as controversial in any way.
Jokic is the best player in the world and should have five MVP awards on his mantel. The numbers speak for themselves, but just in the context of taking an individual player, plopping them into literally any situation, and then observing all the positive ways they affect winning, the Joker’s lead on everyone else remains significant. He’s Denver’s cerebral cortex, spine, biceps, and expertly tailored Canali suit.
Jokic is the game’s best passer, whose panoramic vision enables him to whip bull’s-eyes in a fly’s wink. And he's the game’s most proficient scorer: There are 288 players in NBA history who’ve taken at least 10,000 shots, and Jokic’s 63.8 true shooting percentage ranks first among them. He’s also an elite rebounder whose defense continues to be underappreciated despite years of evidence that suggests otherwise.
Why should he be an easy favorite to win this year’s MVP? In addition to everything above, there’s a decent chance his Nuggets will win more regular-season games (58 would do the trick) than they ever have before. Jokic’s on-off numbers may not be as impressive thanks to Denver’s renovated bench, but when he’s on the court his team will absolutely hum.
Now, after falling in seven games to the Thunder with a six-man rotation—just a few weeks after Michael Malone was abruptly replaced as Nuggets head coach by David Adelman, while Michael Porter Jr. ran around with one arm and Aaron Gordon badly strained his hamstring in the final moments of Game 6—the Nuggets have swapped MPJ, DeAndre Jordan, and Russell Westbrook for Cameron Johnson, Bruce Brown Jr., Tim Hardaway Jr., and Jonas Valanciunas.
Translation: This is the deepest, most talented, and most versatile supporting cast Jokic and Jamal Murray have ever played with. They’ll have more room than ever to operate their two-man game, elevated by a cavalry of competence. Gone is Westbrook’s rickety temperament and Porter’s inexplicable bouts of indifference. This group is going to be a juggernaut.
3. Joel Embiid will not reach the conference finals again.
Some might say I’m too far out on a limb saying this won’t happen, but they told me to be bold. Only time will tell.
4. The Golden State Warriors will trade Jonathan Kuminga.
Kuminga’s new contract with Golden State feels like the opening statement in a divorce court arbitration. Why? Because typically the fourth-highest-paid player on a team that’s trying to win the championship isn’t someone who was benched several times during their last playoff run.
There will be a break-up this season, and when it happens, Kuminga will have very little, if any, leverage over which team acquires him, which can’t happen until January 15.
It’s probably not a coincidence that Golden State settled its stalemate by essentially paying Kuminga a one-year, $22.5 million deal, which is basically a trade exception that increases their options and the level of talent they can get back. Here are two intriguing possibilities:
A. Kuminga to the Suns for Dillon Brooks. To the Warriors fans who would rather bob for apples in scalding hot water than cheer for this man on a nightly basis, please hear me out! It’s a straight-up swap that better fits each team’s life cycle. The Warriors get older but do so with a veteran wing who’s willing to defend and rebound, and has learned how to replace a contested jumper with an extra pass. Are several Warriors on the record in their belief that Brooks is a dirty player? Yes indeed. Should that put the kibosh on a trade that will nudge Steph Curry closer to his fifth ring? Absolutely not! The Suns do this because Kuminga just turned 23 years old and, in the eyes of certain beholders, still has All-Star potential. Phoenix is currently terrible and has every incentive to take a swing on even a 10 percent chance of that ceiling being reached sometime in the next five years.
B. Kuminga to the Heat for Norm Powell. How about another one-for-one swap? Man … if this actually happened I’d have to seriously consider picking Golden State to win it all. By adding a scalable skill set that can fit anywhere, the Warriors would really benefit from including one of the 10 best shooters on the planet on an offense that, with Jimmy Butler and Draymond Green, can feel a bit stuffy sometimes. Powell doesn’t need the ball or to have plays run for him to be effective. Miami does this deal because it makes more sense to pay Kuminga his next contract than give 32-year-old Powell a long-term extension.
There will be several other possibilities for Warriors GM Mike Dunleavy Jr. to think about before the trade deadline comes, but these two best represent the type of return that should thrill him.
5. Oklahoma City’s defense will be even better this year.
On the way to raising their very first banner, the Thunder’s top-ranked defense was a house of horrors that struck a perfect balance between fury and self-control. They forced the most turnovers, contested the most 3s, allowed the fewest fast break points, and, despite not having Chet Holmgren and Isaiah Hartenstein healthy together until the 50th game of the season, were by far the league’s most suffocating team in protecting the paint.
This year everyone is back, healthy, more familiar with one another, and collectively motivated by their opportunity to defend the title. Good luck, rest of the NBA!
Lu Dort, Jalen Williams, and Alex Caruso remain annual locks to make an All-Defensive team. Cason Wallace is a demonic hummingbird who’s a hair shy of joining that class but may leap into it this season. Together they are four impenetrable, intuitive, appropriately audacious defenders who complement one another so well. Meanwhile, the “weakest link” in OKC’s playoff rotation last year might’ve been Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who, um, led the league in steals two seasons ago.
Mark Daigneault’s scheme is demanding, endlessly aggressive, and a perfect match for the players who are instructed to carry it out. There’s size, versatility, and constant communication. If they don’t rank first in defensive rating while allowing even fewer points than they did a year ago, something may have gone very wrong.
6. Houston will have the NBA’s most dominant starting five.
A couple of weeks ago I went on The Bill Simmons Podcast and wondered whether Fred VanVleet’s torn ACL would eventually be interpreted as some kind of blessing in disguise. That framing is a smidge disrespectful and a tad harsh in how it diminishes FVV’s value to a team so thin on experienced ball handlers. But I’m convinced this won’t sink their championship dreams for a few reasons.
First, the timing of the injury works in Houston’s favor. If it happened in February? Curtains. Instead, the Rockets went through a full training camp knowing they would have to reinvent themselves over the course of an 82-game journey. Regular seasons can be all about self-discovery, finding what works and deleting what doesn’t. Houston will use it to experiment with lineup combinations that wouldn’t otherwise see that much time together, causing trouble regardless of what the other team’s plan was.
Enter what may be the largest starting five in basketball history: Amen Thompson (6-foot-7), Jabari Smith Jr. (6-11), Kevin Durant (listed at 6-11 but really 7 feet), Alperen Sengun (6-11), and Steven Adams (6-11 and strong enough to hold up a building).
This group will plague every lineup they face with existential issues that can’t be solved with a better game plan. There are so many matchup questions worth considering, but let’s begin with: Who on the opposing team will guard Thompson? Normally covered by large wings, forwards, and even some bigs who are quick enough to help off the ball and then still recover to box him out, Thompson should now see minutes with opposing point guards on him. This is not ideal, but if defenses decide to go another route, the ripple effect would create an even greater catastrophe.
Obviously, no guard can deal with Adams or Sengun without needing significant help; tackling Durant (um, maybe the greatest scorer … ever?) or Smith (who’s tall enough to shoot over the top and strong enough to seal his man with a duck-in) isn’t a viable solution either.
On paper, cramming Thompson, Sengun, and Adams on the court together should make one feel claustrophobic, especially if Smith’s outside shot doesn’t materialize. But the overwhelming size-related mismatches should still outweigh those concerns, particularly when you visualize how helpless other teams will look trying to keep the Rockets off the boards. They also aren’t overly reliant on half-court execution, thanks to an offense that will feed off the stops that this incredible defense should force on a regular basis. (There is no hopeful counter to “the other team’s smallest player is 6-7 and can guard everyone on the floor.” Thompson, Durant, and Sengun are all capable ball handlers, too, whether in transition or running actions at a slower pace.
Beyond all that, if any coaching staff knows how to adapt, it’s this one. We aren’t even a year removed from Ime Udoka unearthing double-big lineups with Sengun and Adams that, theoretically, didn’t have enough outside shooting or defensive mobility to function on either end. But in reality they were dominant, with just enough passing and more than enough power to create unanswerable problems for every opposing frontcourt they faced (including in the playoffs). They’ll knuckleball in some zone coverages that no other team can replicate. They’ll full-court press. They’ll switch and help dramatically behind the ball. They’ll constantly force one-shot possessions from offenses that walk into every play knowing there’s no use trying to secure a rebound.
VanVleet’s injury definitely is not a good thing, but it will make Udoka adapt in a way that ultimately allows several Rockets to benefit from an edge or two that previously did not exist. Necessity is the mother of invention. In Houston’s new starting five, it may also be the instigating force behind a metamorphic unveiling.
7. The Clippers will flirt with their franchise record for wins.
If Nikola Jokic did not exist I would be dangerously close to (once again) throwing all my chips behind the Clippers, a seemingly cursed and allegedly disreputable franchise that has decided to build one of the most accomplished, deep, and elderly-to-the-point-of-farce rosters in recent NBA history.
Look, this team could curdle, and the championship expectations they hold are, once again, entirely reliant on 34-year-old Kawhi Leonard’s existential question mark of a body. Chris Paul is 40, Brook Lopez is 37, James Harden and Nicolas Batum are 36, Bogdan Bogdanovic is 33, Bradley Beal is 32, and Kris Dunn is 31. The real youth and athleticism in their rotation resides in Ivica Zubac and John Collins, a pair of 28-year-old big men. Every drop of hope could calcify very quickly if key roles aren’t pinned down in the face of several veterans going down for lengthy stretches.
But for all the skepticism, bankable jokes, and apparent Faustian bargains that have been made since this organization was born, the upside is pretty clear. Look at that talent and experience! Check out the collective desperation felt among several veterans who will do whatever it takes to chug Champagne in an NBA locker room for the first time! I can’t say they’ll win 58 games (which would top 2014’s franchise record) with a straight face, but I do believe they’ll come pretty damn close.
The Clippers could finish the regular season ranked in the top 10 on both ends of the court. They have multiple ball handlers, respectable outside shooting at every position, a ton of size, and an ocean of practical knowledge. This team will protect the rim, rebound, run the floor, and be creative in the half court. Ty Lue can tinker with various lineup combinations that will complement offensive maestros with defensive stalwarts, and there’s a clear endgame where everybody’s role makes perfect sense.
Full stop, it’s the most ambitious team they’ve assembled since Leonard got there.
8. John Collins will win Sixth Man of the Year.
Backdrafting off the optimism above, few bench players are in a better position to succeed this season than Collins. Back in a winning situation with title aspirations, he won’t be asked to do anything he can’t do. He will be asked to catch lobs, hit wide-open corner 3s, and not be overextended on defense.
Collins might not fill the same role or put up the same numbers typically seen from a Sixth Man winner, but in what should be his first season coming off the bench, there’s a definite path for him to contribute as one of the league’s more efficient rotation players: In two seasons with the Utah Jazz he had one of the 25 highest true shooting percentages among players who logged at least 3,000 minutes.
This is a very good player who’s spent the past couple of seasons languishing on a team that wasn’t trying to win games. In Los Angeles, he’s not only back in a competitive landscape, he’s also, positionally, the piece that Leonard’s Clippers have never had: a true power forward who can add size to a rotation that’s always leaned more nimble (an understandable call with Paul George on board). If you forgot how good Collins is, this season will serve as a loud reminder in more ways than one.
9. Johnny Furphy will win the dunk contest.
The dunk contest has spent the past 10 years in a hospital bed with tubes, ventilators, and beeping machines doing their best to keep it alive. Maybe it can’t be rescued, but in the meantime Furphy has as strong a chance to win as anyone who’s most likely to participate. Every time the 20-year-old Melbourne native crosses my radar it’s because he’s just embarrassed someone. Whether it’s a summer league statement or friendly fire at training camp or briefly setting the preseason on fire, Furph-dog has enough fearlessness and anonymity to take the slam dunk crown.
(If I were hired as a consultant for Zion Williamson and/or Ja Morant—two unimpeachable showstoppers who’ve watched their approval ratings backslide in the face of constant health issues and disturbing off-court allegations—the first piece of advice I’d offer is “Go win the slam dunk contest. Put on a show! People will temporarily overlook how bad your team is and how disappointing your career has become.”)
10. Franz Wagner will shoot league average from 3-point range.
This is very important! Wagner’s outside shot may be the most important variable in the entire NBA right now, influential enough to decide the ceiling of a team that’s good enough to contend for the title.
In his first two seasons, Wagner made a respectable 35.8 percent of his 3-point shots, finishing exactly at league average in each year. Then the bottom fell out. Over the past two seasons, Wagner has made only 28.9 percent of his 3s, pitting him at 103rd out of 103 players who launched at least 600 of them during that span. (It was a tiny sample size, but this is the exact same percentage Wagner clocked at EuroBasket over the summer. Not ideal!)
So why the optimism? Through it all, Wagner has been one of sport’s better free throw shooters, converting a career-best 87.1 percent last season. My gut tells me he’s too good and cares too much for the outside woes to continue, particularly now that he has truncated ballhandling responsibilities. An increase in open spot-up tries will do him well (over half of Wagner’s catch-and-shoot 3s were contested last season, per Sportradar). Also, even though his release during the preseason was still molasses, the hitch is noticeably less prominent!
Not to bury the lede, but Orlando is my pick to come out of the Eastern Conference, and Wagner’s rediscovery of a shot that’s deserted him over the past couple of years will go a long way toward deciding whether or not that happens.
11. Jalen Johnson, Chet Holmgren, and Jamal Murray (!!!) will make their first All-Star team.
All of these guys are elite sidekicks on awesome teams who, to varying degrees, can spend stretches of any random game looking like the best player on the court. Johnson and Holmgren probably would’ve been All-Stars last year if they’d stayed healthy. And this just feels like the year Murray makes it, given how many wins Denver should have by the time votes are tallied.
12. The Suns will have the worst defense in the NBA.
Only three teams allowed more points per 100 possessions than the Suns last year. Much of that was thanks to their abysmal effort getting back in transition and lackadaisical approach to rotating in the half court. In both areas, Phoenix finished dead last in points per play. Hustle was voluntary on most nights and a complete fantasy on others. Everything else was atrocious, too. They didn’t force turnovers, and, despite embracing a pack-the-paint mentality to account for their absence of a traditional rim protector, still gave up a staggering 68.4 percent shooting in the restricted area.
Now, one season removed from a mismanaged disaster of epic proportions that soured what had been a convivial relationship with one of the greatest players in NBA history, the Suns have hired Jordan Ott, a first-time head coach who spent the preseason tinkering with a pressure-heavy defensive strategy that, given this team’s personnel, will likely end in total disaster. Trying hard is only half the battle; when Jalen Green, Devin Booker, Grayson Allen, and Collin Gillespie factor heavily into your rotation, the battle is perpetually uphill.
Ryan Dunn is a keeper and there are lineup combinations with Dillon Brooks and Royce O’Neale that may wreak some havoc, but, well, at the same time, Brooks and O’Neale may/should be traded. And regardless of the scheme that’s deployed by Ott, Phoenix’s defensive success hinges on a big man rotation that’s antsy, inexperienced, and injury prone. All those words describe Mark Williams, a specious franchise center whom the franchise-center-needing Charlotte Hornets spent all least season shopping around.
Williams is pivotal here. His size, length, and leaping ability ooze potential. In truth, last season he allowed an at-rim field goal percentage that was 5.7 percentage points worse with him on the court than off. There’s more that goes into that number, but Williams has yet to show he can provide the type of reliable paint security that Phoenix will desperately need. Rookie big Khaman Maluach isn’t the answer (yet), nor is last year’s purported savior Nick Richards. Phoenix’s offense will have a say here too. Iffy shot selection (which Green and Brooks will provide) combined with foreseeable turnovers will make it harder for a team lacking an established point guard to get organized heading the other way.
There will be very bad defenses in the NBA this season (to name a few, shout-out to Sacramento, Utah, Washington, and Brooklyn), but something tells me Phoenix will run itself into the ground as the season goes along.
13. The Spurs will win 50 games while defending the rim at a historic rate.
How long has it been since San Antonio had a top-10 defense? We haven’t seen it since Kawhi Leonard left. Three years ago, as they did everything in their power to lose as often as possible, they finished dead last. This season, with Victor Wembanyama set to cast a months-long solar eclipse over the rest of the league, things should be very different. How different? In at least one area, we could see the Spurs do something that hasn't been done since their franchise player was born.
The lowest at-rim field goal percentage allowed by any defense in the play-by-play era came in 1996-97, when the Charlotte Hornets somehow held opponents to 48 percent. The fewest attempts allowed in an 82-game season was 1,504, by the 1997-98 New York Knicks. Both teams competed in what might as well be a separate universe of NBA basketball, with different rules, fewer 3s, and a tortoise’s pace. None of this matters: The San Antonio Spurs will surpass both of those marks with a defense that walls off the hoop better than any in recent memory.
The primary reason, of course, is Wembanyama, a 7-foot-4 genetic marvel who is already one of the most frightening and adroit shot blockers in NBA history. Opposing teams shot just 49.4 percent at the rim when he defended it last year, which ranked first among all players who contested at least 100 field goal attempts, per Sportradar. Fifth on that list? Wembanyama’s new backup, Luke Kornet, who finished at 52.7 percent.
Last season, with Wemby on the court, opponents shot just 62.4 percent at the rim against San Antonio’s defense. For Kornet, who joined the Spurs after playing for the Celtics last season, that number was 61.1 percent. Unsurprisingly, both teams posed a far greater impediment when each was in the game. Now, if all goes well, the Spurs will play very few minutes without at least one of them roaming under the basket.
Beyond having two elite deterrents who can wipe out anything nearby when they’re patrolling the lane, the Spurs have complementary personnel that can help keep their anchors in position. Some combine youth with relentlessness and intuition, like Stephon Castle, Jeremy Sochan, and rookie Carter Bryant; others shouldn’t be confused for a weak link, like Harrison Barnes, Devin Vassell, Julian Champagnie, Keldon Johnson, and De’Aaron Fox. (Who knows about Dylan Harper, but I’ve decided to be optimistic about it.)
Altogether, what the Spurs have is an opportunity to turn the paint into a toxic wasteland. They can plug Wemby and Kornet on the opposing team’s worst shooters, stick them on the block, and force the other team into an uncomfortable situation before the play even begins. With help off the perimeter, San Antonio can funnel the ball toward a behemoth in the middle and force kick-outs to the 3-point line. The Spurs will use their athleticism to scramble out and contest shots on the perimeter or even just run shooters off the line, confident in Wembanyama’s ability to take away two threats at the same time.
It’s exhausting work, but if San Antonio can embrace this as an identity and be OK allowing a bunch of 3s (much like the Thunder did in their title-winning campaign), they could avert dunks and layups more effectively than any team most fans have ever seen.
14. Anthony Edwards will win the scoring title.
Dethroning SGA from the scoring title won’t be easy, but special players are capable of special things. Count Edwards among them. He bursts with enough self-assurance to make anyone (supporter and skeptic) believe the unbelievable. Edwards averaged 27.6 points per game last year, five fewer than Gilgeous-Alexander and fourth place overall. Also ahead of him were Giannis Antetokounmpo, Nikola Jokic, and Luka Doncic, three MVP candidates who will have the ball in their hands a crap ton again this season. So, yeah, the competition is fierce.
But there’s a path for Edwards to make another leap—consider all the reasons he could get more shot opportunities this season: the loss of Nickeil Alexander-Walker, a new deal for Julius Randle that should alleviate the pressure he felt to produce last season, and the continued decline of Mike Conley. Last year Edwards made nearly 40 percent of his 3s while leading the league in attempts. Just over half of them were unassisted. If that holds, with a reasonable uptick in accuracy and volume around the rim and more buckets from the midrange—an area where Ant left too many good looks on the table last season—it’s possible for Ant’s scoring average to cross the 30-point threshold.
This isn’t a call for Edwards to make every single pull-up jumper he takes, but he needs to knock down more after he creates space and gets a clean look. According to Sportradar, he shot only 31.3 percent on midrange shots off the dribble where he was not pressured last season. Let’s compare that to some of his contemporaries. Devin Booker shot 54.7 percent, SGA shot 52.1 percent, and Tyrese Haliburton shot 53.2 percent. Freaking Bub Carrington made 50.5 percent of these shots and took significantly more of them than Ant did.
Ant is constantly searching for ways to expand his game, then implement those moves in his nightly repertoire. As he enters his sixth season, yet another leap should be on the horizon. And it’ll be an even more efficient and exhilarating iteration of the superstar we’ve already seen.
15. Jalen Duren will win Most Improved Player.
My annual complaint about this award and who it should celebrate generally boils down to one rule: The candidate must have at least three years of NBA experience under his belt. Everyone else is already expected to get better. With that out of the way, Duren checks that and every other box: He’s now entering his fourth season, has tons of potential, and has so much room to grow on an ascending team that needs to see it sooner than later.
Statistically, the type of leap that’s possible for Duran makes winning this award more than realistic. Thanks to J.B. Bickerstaff’s wise decision to bring Isaiah Stewart off the bench and break up a clunky frontcourt, Duren averaged only 26.1 minutes, 11.8 points, 10.3 rebounds, and 7.0 shots per game last season. All of these numbers can and will go up if Duren makes achievable strides on defense, limits his fouls, and takes better care of the ball.
The physical tools are all here. Duren has strength, bounce, touch, speed, reflexes, and vision. He’ll establish a working two-man game with newcomer Duncan Robinson and can potentially benefit from Ausar Thompson’s dabbling at point guard.
Duren will likely improve at defending pick and rolls given the reps he already has—and considering that his 22nd birthday is about a month away. He finished 11th in win shares last season (just behind Jayson Tatum and ahead of Evan Mobley), and second in true shooting percentage and offensive rebounds. A true breakout campaign is on the horizon.
(Shaedon Sharpe and Chet Holmgren, who, in an effort to cover every possible base, was my choice for our award predictions group piece are both strong honorable mentions here.)
16. Domantas Sabonis will ponder early retirement.
A couple of weeks ago I was watching The Descent—a film seeped with enough unflinching trauma to make dread vibrate through your molars—and couldn’t help but think about … the Sacramento Kings.
Only the worst comedians explain their jokes, so I wouldn’t expect anyone in the Kings’ front office to clarify why Zach LaVine, DeMar DeRozan, Dennis Schröder, Malik Monk, and Russell Westbrook are on the same basketball team in 2025, or how they went from outstanding light-the-beam vibes and taking the Golden State Warriors to seven games in a 2023 playoff series to firing Mike Brown, parting ways with Monte McNair, and trading De’Aaron Fox in the blink of an eye. It’s a mind-boggling dedication to self-sabotage.
Someone could be blindfolded, throw darts at a board covered with random NBA players, and still assemble a more compatible roster than Sacramento’s new front office did. Unfortunately, the biggest victim of it all is poor Domantas Sabonis, a hard-hat and lunch-pale type of franchise player who deserves better. The Kings have apparently decided that every personnel move should be in his worst interest, as they’ve surrounded Sabonis with poor defenders who love holding, dribbling, and shooting the ball—partially because most of them can’t space the floor without it. They aren’t black holes, but wish they could be.
To make matters worse, Keegan Murray tore a ligament in his thumb during a preseason game. He’ll miss four to six weeks and force either LaVine or DeRozan to function as a power forward in starting lineups that won’t be able to guard anyone. According to databallr, in the 136 minutes that Sabonis, LaVine, and DeRozan played without Murray last season, Sacramento allowed 127.5 points per 100 possessions after 3-point luck is accounted for. Sometimes a small sample size is still able to portend catastrophe. This is one of them. Objectively disgusting stuff.
To make matters more complicated: Even if he made what Jimmy Butler pulled in Miami look adorable, the 29-year-old center is owed $136 million through 2028, which, when you take into account the rigid provisions attached to Sabonis’s skill set, severely compromises any realistic deals from happening. Drastic times call for drastic measures.
17. Karl-Anthony Towns will lead the Knicks in assists.
A few years ago I interviewed Towns for a wide-ranging profile that covered where he was in his life and career. One quote from KAT has always stuck with me, not necessarily because it’s 100 percent true, more because it was said in such an irrefutable tone:
Don’t get it twisted. [Nikola Jokic] is definitely amazing when it comes to passing, and his teammates know where he’s at. The system they have, it’s almost perfectly tailored for him. And obviously it has to be if you’re gonna win MVP. But I’ve been doing that my whole career.
Don’t get it twisted. [Nikola Jokic] is definitely amazing when it comes to passing, and his teammates know where he’s at. The system they have, it’s almost perfectly tailored for him. And obviously it has to be if you’re gonna win MVP. But I’ve been doing that my whole career.
Don’t get it twisted. [Nikola Jokic] is definitely amazing when it comes to passing, and his teammates know where he’s at. The system they have, it’s almost perfectly tailored for him. And obviously it has to be if you’re gonna win MVP. But I’ve been doing that my whole career.
The words were echoed at the time by Timberwolves head coach Chris Finch: “When you have skilled bigs you can kind of flip the court on people. We want [Towns] to have as many early touches in the offense as possible, not just to feed himself, but his passing skills are elite. I was fortunate enough to work with Jokic. Their skill sets are so, so, so similar.”
Now, even if comparing literally anyone to Jokic is a fool’s errand, KAT is indeed a supremely skilled big man who reads the floor better than he gets credit for. Last year, as he filled a sensible shot-happy role that helped him crack his third All-NBA team, Towns averaged his fewest potential assists per 100 possessions since 2018. This wasn’t thanks to Jalen Brunson’s league-leading on-ball percentage so much as it was how Tom Thibodeau used KAT in New York’s broader offensive system. Towns actually averaged more assists per 75 possessions with Brunson on the court than when he was off it, per databallr.
This year, the Knicks have pivoted to Mike Brown, a coach who spent the past few years in Golden State and Sacramento emphasizing ball movement, quick decisions, and bigs who know how to facilitate from the perimeter. With the Kings, he gave Sabonis the freedom to run dribble handoffs and pitch-backs, instructing him to push in the open floor, find cutters from the elbow, make plays out of the pick-and-roll, and work out of double-teams on the block.
Towns can do those things at a pretty high level. It’s just a matter of artificially evolving a team that already had a fairly successful formula one year ago—KAT averaged just 1.9 elbow touches per game last season, which ranked 32nd among all centers who appeared in at least 50 games—and whether Brunson is comfortable ceding control to a center who’s never averaged more than five assists per game. For New York to evolve in a necessary way, though, that may be exactly what needs to happen.
18. Evan Mobley will finish top five in the MVP race.
19. Cleveland will break up its core four.
On the surface these two predictions contradict each other, but I can see a world where they coexist. Let’s start with the second one and the ostensibly negative half of it. If you’re Koby Altman, Cleveland’s president of basketball operations, what must you see during the season’s first few months to feel like patience is a virtue?
Coming off a 64-win regular season that crashed and burned against the Indiana Pacers in the second round, the Cavs start the season as prohibitive favorites to win the Eastern Conference despite there being a pretty good chance this team doesn’t get off to another 15-0 start. Darius Garland is still recovering from toe surgery and will be joined on the sideline by Max Strus, who once again starts a season recovering from a major foot injury. In the ballhandling department, Ty Jerome is now employed by the Memphis Grizzlies, ostensibly replaced by Lonzo Ball, who isn’t going to log heavy minutes until the playoffs—if ever again.
Meanwhile, Cleveland has the NBA’s highest combined payroll and luxury tax bill by an extremely wide margin (the gap between the Cavs and the second-place Warriors is the same as between the Warriors and the 28th-ranked Washington Wizards). The second apron obliterates most of their flexibility and makes executing almost any trade exceptionally difficult. But it’s also worth acknowledging how much pressure Altman will feel in a championship-or-bust season. Even if they’re in first place at the trade deadline, will it make sense to be reactive or proactive? Can he confidently look at Garland and Jarrett Allen and see two talented pieces who make sense complementing Donovan Mitchell and Mobley through four playoff rounds? Or will he conclude that they’re too redundant?
(My favorite fake trade can’t be pulled off without a third team’s help, but it conceptually sends Garland to the Timberwolves for Jaden McDaniels and Mike Conley. Win-win.)
Rolling through the regular season is very different from matching up against a particular opponent in the playoffs, whether it be the gigantic Orlando Magic or über-physical New York Knicks, two teams that should be able to create mismatches against Cleveland’s small backcourt.
Speaking of the regular season, though, the Cavaliers should win a ton of games regardless of what Altman does, which brings me to my other prediction: All shares of Mobley’s stock are about to make every early investor feel like they bought Apple in the late ’90s. The 24-year-old reigning Defensive Player of the Year will see his offensive role expand in ways that mirror what the Bucks did with Giannis Antetokounmpo nearly a decade ago. It makes no sense to taper anymore; Mobley has as high of an upside as anyone in the league. He will put pressure on the rim in a variety of ways, push defensive rebounds the length of the court, roll into lobs, bully smaller defenders on the block, and drive past larger ones on the perimeter.
What makes Mobley so promising is his feel for the game, the way he dribbles in transition and makes decisions out of the pocket. This year that trait will evolve in broader ways as a pick-and-roll ball handler, where the Cavaliers will lean into marrying Mobley’s size, quickness, and handle with the natural space their roster is able to create via outside shooting and off-ball movement. Look at where Dean Wade and Larry Nance Jr. go once Mobley starts to attack:
Compared to every game he played last year, Mobley more than doubled his pick-and-roll frequency as a ball handler in the preseason, per Sportradar. He looks more confident than ever, waiting for drag screens instead of immediately looking for a guard to take the ball from him once he passes half court, moonlighting as a point guard, and instructing teammates to get out of his way as he puts his man on skates:
There were pull-up 3s dribbling off a pick, and Kenny Atkinson used Mobley off the ball in the same type of actions Karl-Anthony Towns used to run with the Timberwolves, curling off pin-ins for a set corner 3.
Missed shots are less important than signs that Mobley is leaning into his unconventionally breathtaking skill set. He will be Cleveland’s best player this season, and Cleveland will be awesome. Hence, Mobley is about to get the MVP buzz his team needs to see.
20. LeBron James will not be an All-Star.
Even after we learned about the sciatica issue that will sideline LeBron for the first few weeks of the regular season, it may still be impossible to truly leave LeBron out here. We’re still talking about the most popular name in the NBA, someone who’s built up decades of adoration among fans, players, and media members, all of whom decide the starting lineups. But if James somehow does not crack that group there’s a chance that coaches who’d normally stamp him through will instead go in a different direction.
There are two big reasons why. The first is Luka Doncic. James, for the first time in his NBA career, is inarguably not the best player on his own team. Doncic will lead the Lakers in points and assists. He’ll dominate the ball in crunch time and be the headliner on every opponent’s scouting report. He is the Lakers’ lone MVP candidate and a lighthouse guiding every decision their front office makes. Meanwhile, the Western Conference is stacked with about a dozen teams that want to win. If the Lakers are a play-in team when All-Star votes are tallied, will two of their players deserve a nod? The West is absolutely loaded with deserving talent that will not use the regular season to conserve energy and monitor minutes—players who’ll take the floor every night with far more to prove than someone who’s already achieved the most prolific career in NBA history.
This brings me to reason no. 2: health. James will celebrate his 41st birthday in December. His 22nd NBA season ended with knee surgery and his 23rd will begin with him missing training camp and opening night. Even the most physically fit, disciplined, and mentally strong athletes break down at some point. As singularly indestructible as James has been stretching his peak into the longest prime ever seen, the end is probably closer than last year’s incredible All-NBA output suggests it will be. This is not blasphemous. It’s reality.
21. The Indiana Pacers will win the lottery.
A message to the ever merciful Basketball Gods: As a make-good on the mistake you guys made falling asleep at the wheel and letting Cooper Flagg fall to the Dallas Mavericks, please let this happen.
The 2024-25 Pacers were an experience unlike any other. From the Cinderella playoff run that was filled with surreal crunch-time heroics, to an aesthetically singular style of play that was impossible not to admire, to the devastating end of a season that caused basketball-loving hearts everywhere to be ripped from their chests in real time, no organization deserves more good luck than Indy.
The Pacers weren’t supposed to have their pick in this year’s draft, but they serendipitously reacquired it in a consequential trade with the New Orleans Pelicans (lol) that gave them the option of, well, not tanking per se, but incidentally being bad enough to miss the playoffs.
Tyrese Haliburton is out for the year, recovering from a ruptured Achilles tendon. Myles Turner signed with the Milwaukee Bucks. TJ McConnell hurt his hamstring and will at least miss the first month of the season. The entire identity of last year’s team will be dramatically different from the one we just saw come within 24 minutes of winning a championship. That doesn’t mean they will be one of the worst teams in the league, but they will struggle just enough to let those flattened lottery odds work their magic.
22. The Celtics will trade Derrick White.
[Winces.]
Let me start by saying it would be a crime if the Celtics actually dealt White and I don’t think they will or necessarily should. White will still be only 32 years old when Jayson Tatum returns to form next season. He’s a beloved fan favorite and a top-40 NBA player who defends at an exceptionally high level on and off the ball, makes snappy decisions that are almost always correct, has become one of the best shooters alive, and is satisfied complementing higher-usage teammates without ever shrinking away from a big moment.
Replacing someone like that is usually not possible. So why would the Celtics trade him? Even if they aren’t motivated to move on from White, they may find themselves talking to a team that makes an offer they can’t refuse. In a potential gap year, this could be a rare opportunity to get younger, add a substantial number of draft assets, and make the task of retooling around Tatum and Jaylen Brown (as they fill over 60 percent of Boston’s cap through 2029) a bit less arduous.
What if—coming off a season that saw the Indiana Pacers almost win it all—a plucky peer convinces itself that White is the dream-come-true role player they need to get over the hump? We’re in the age of parity, which can also be called the age of impatience and irrational actors, so keep that in mind when you read the hypothetical trades outlined below, in a column that is not called “increasingly tepid predictions for the 2025-26 NBA season.” They may sound ridiculous for both sides, but are semi-plausible, technically possible scenarios that are worth exploring in a league where any player’s trade value is only what another team thinks it should be.
So, how many future firsts would White be worth in a world that’s recently seen Mikal Bridges go for five and Desmond Bane exchanged for four? Would, say, the Grizzlies be willing to tack five first-rounders on to Kentavious Caldwell-Pope’s contract? Or what if Udoka convinces Rafael Stone that Houston would be better off adding White to their current nucleus than blowing it up for a superstar? The Rockets could offer five firsts, a couple of pick swaps, Fred VanVleet, and Jae’Sean Tate. (If the Celtics were to actually get that many picks for White, they could then pivot into most conversations for a real whale … like, I don’t know, Giannis Antetokounmpo.)
What if the New Orleans Pelicans feel like they’re light on playmaking and decide to do something a normal team wouldn’t dare, like volunteer Trey Murphy III and a first-round pick? What if the Detroit Pistons are convinced they can make a Finals run sometime in the next two years but need more 3-point shooting and playoff experience. Are they willing to package Ausar Thompson with Caris LeVert’s contract?
Boston’s trade possibilities expand if they duck under the first apron, which they’re currently over by about $4 million. As an example, they could exchange White for RJ Barrett, then bleed Toronto for its four tradable first-round picks and three pick swaps. This isn’t to suggest the Raptors would definitely agree to this trade, but thanks to how much money they’ve already invested in such an odd roster, their interest in White is about as high as their desperation to win.
The Celtics will not trade White for the sake of shedding salary or an attempt to get worse in the short term and improve their own draft pick. But they should still set a ridiculously high price when other teams poke around to see what it would take to get something done. If the voice on the other end of the line scoffs, that’s totally fine: Boston can hang up and still have an incredible player on its roster. But if an otherwise outrageous proposal is entertained seriously, the Celtics should consider giving that possibility the weight it deserves.
23. The Bucks will miss the play-in.
At the beginning of the offseason I went on The Zach Lowe Show and predicted that Milwaukee, despite its surprise signing of Myles Turner, would barely make the play-in tournament. A couple of months later, I would like to double down! Giannis Antetokounmpo probably doesn’t agree, but he also clearly doesn’t think the Bucks are a world beater; his alliance with the only NBA home he’s ever known is undeniably strained.
There’s a difference between accentuating your franchise player and placating your franchise player. Milwaukee is operating with enough desperation to make me wonder whether the organization is now suffering from terminal uniqueness. When I read this sentence in Shams Charania’s article about Giannis being intrigued at the possibility of playing for the New York Knicks, I did a spit take: “[Bucks GM Jon Horst] laid out his vision for the 2025-26 season, saying he believed this version of the roster could compete for a championship in the Eastern Conference.”
I understand the concept of surrounding Antetokounmpo with a ton of 3-point shooting and then letting him do whatever he wants with the ball in his hands. He averaged 30.4 points, 11.9 rebounds, and 6.5 assists per game last season. It was a God-mode statistical campaign that gets more impressive the deeper you dig into it. (He made 203 more shots in the restricted area than any other player. That’s the same gap between second and 79th!)
But even with that knowledge, my reaction to Horst reportedly believing Milwaukee could compete for a title was still … what? Did he then tell the table about a recent UFO sighting or make a 200-page PowerPoint presentation that explained why Martin Scorsese has never directed a great film?
In 2025, NBA teams can’t survive without multifaceted depth and some tactical variability. Who are Milwaukee’s third-, fourth-, and fifth-best players? Khris Middleton, Jrue Holiday, and Damian Lillard aren’t walking through that door. Turner is solid, but unfortunately his new team does not employ Haliburton. (Since 2022, Turner’s 3-point percentage with Haliburton on the court was 39.4 and just 32.3 without.)
How will the Bucks score or defend at a competent level when Antetokounmpo is on the bench? Heaven forbid a brutally intense 30-year-old whose greatness is predicated on contact misses a few weeks with a sprained ankle or strained hamstring. Please consider the strain Giannis will feel every night. He can’t take any games off, let alone individual possessions. Everything revolves around him. Fifteen years ago that type of team-building strategy could be a recipe for success. These days, it’ll lead you into a ditch.
Milwaukee, which was eliminated in the first round for the third straight year last season, essentially replaced Lillard (an All-Star last season) and Brook Lopez (a two-way anchor who played over 2,500 minutes) with Turner and Cole Anthony. Setting aside the cap-killing ludicrousness that went into making these transactions possible, this roster has more questions than answers: Kevin Porter Jr. and Kyle Kuzma are uncomfortably critical, Green and Rollins need to be awesome in expanded roles, Gary Harris is on his last legs, and I like Amir Coffey but last year he was excised completely from Ty Lue’s playoff rotation.
Teams must be resourceful, too. Most need to dig through couch cushions and pray they find a $100 bill. The Bucks have already done that with AJ Green and hope Ryan Rollins and Anthony can follow. But they also signed two of Giannis’s brothers to a contract even though neither one is able to sniff interest from any other franchise. It’s unserious behavior.
The Bucks can trade just one first-round pick and have four pick swaps to offer this season if they want to get better. But mortgaging the future any more than they already have just to go from sub-mediocre to a punchy flameout would be another case of gross negligence. They aren’t one player away from winning a championship or, in most matchups, a playoff series. I think the Cavs, Knicks, Magic, Pistons, Hawks, Heat, and Raptors will be better, and wouldn’t be stunned if three of the Celtics, Sixers, Pacers, or Bulls finished with a better record.
I’ve long thought Giannis’s breaking point with the Bucks was inevitable, and what’s now beyond crystal clear is the fact that an ambitious figure plays for an ambling organization. Whether a trade happens this season or sometime next summer, the time has come for Antetokounmpo and the Bucks to go their separate ways.
24. Derik Queen will win Rookie of the Year.
Just kidding. It’ll be Cooper Flagg. I just wanted to make sure everyone was still paying attention.
