Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-basketball! Congrats on surviving the offseason. The NBA is officially back today, and so, too, is The Ringer’s annual entrance survey. After a summer of staggering movement, opening night arrives with a new collection of superteams, shifting power dynamics, and more questions than answers. Can anyone stop Wemby and the Spurs? Will LeBron's latest chapter in Philadelphia end in glory or chaos? And who will emerge from one of the deepest fields of contenders in years?
To sort through it all, we polled The Ringer's NBA staff to answer the biggest questions entering the 2026-27 season. Let the games, thankfully, begin.
What is your biggest question heading into the 2026-27 season?
Michael Pina: What will the Philadelphia 76ers look like? Can they defend, stay healthy, find common ground on offense, settle into a rotation that has enough reps for the playoffs, and respond well to inevitable bumps in the road? There’s a ton of pressure on this team to win. Every loss will come equipped with a magnifying glass. Every absence (by either LeBron James or Joel Embiid) will blow up into something larger than it probably deserves to be. Nonstories will be obstacles. How they handle adversity and develop off-court chemistry will be telling. So much is on the line for the most talented team in the league. And with dreams of a championship comes a plethora of questions that can’t be answered overnight.
Rob Mahoney: How much will the rebalanced lottery odds alter the state of play? This season feels especially difficult to forecast—in part because of the depth around the league, but also because a third of the teams might be playing for something different than in seasons past. The draft is still the primary mechanism for bad NBA teams to get better, which means that there are still plenty of reasons for teams to tank. But will those reasons come later in the season than we’re used to? Will more borderline teams talk themselves into making an honest run of it? And will all that make for a better experience come some random weeknight in January, when every game on the slate feels noticeably more watchable? A League Pass junkie can dream.
Danny Chau: Along the same lines as Rob, how will the game theory of tanking be affected by these changes? Tanking isn’t dead; it’s just crept insidiously up the ladder. There may not be any incentive to be one of the three worst teams in the NBA anymore, but there is now a significant benefit for a middling team to be the 11th-worst team in the conference rather than being in the play-in zone, where the odds of landing the no. 1 pick drop significantly. (A reminder that the 11th-worst team in a conference has three times better odds of winning the draft lottery than the loser of the 7-8 play-in game.) The play-in has created some great theater over the years, in part because it is almost literally a fight out of purgatory. That’s still the case, but it seems likely that the fight will now ensue earlier, to prevent a stay in purgatory to begin with. I can’t wait to see the shenanigans that teams will pull trying to ensure their absence from the postseason.
Howard Beck: Can anyone challenge the Spurs and Thunder—or is the West a de facto two-team race? The Lakers have rebuilt around Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves. The Timberwolves made a swing-for-the-fences trade for LaMelo Ball. The Nuggets lost a key young piece (Peyton Watson) and replaced him with a very old piece (DeMar DeRozan). The Rockets got their point guard (Fred VanVleet) back but are largely unchanged. It’s hard to see any of them knocking out Wemby and Co. or taking a series from Shai and Co., much less beating both of those squads back-to-back in the playoffs. But the NBA has a way of surprising us.
J. Kyle Mann: On that note, are we getting ahead of ourselves by assuming that Giannis in the East and Jokic in the West won’t find a way to make their teams Finals contenders yet again? These are generationally special, floor-raising players. What if they faced each other? I just got a chill thinking about that.
Logan Murdock: Will the Sixers burn or shine under the league’s biggest spotlight? With the arrival of LeBron James and Jaylen Brown, who will now be playing alongside superstar scorer Tyrese Maxey, Philadelphia has become the center of the NBA universe. Every comment, controversy, and podcast appearance will be its own news cycle.
Throughout his career, James has turned subliminal messaging into a midseason pastime. That’s one thing when you’re the face of a franchise in your prime. It’s another when you’re 41 and playing on a league-minimum contract. Meanwhile, even the slightest criticism of Brown can become a controversy, often amplified by Brown himself, whether on a livestream or a championship parade float. And we haven’t even gotten to Joel Embiid, who’s already facing questions about his tardiness this preseason and has shown his own sensitivities throughout his time in Philly. The Sixers have all the talent to become a juggernaut. But as the Eagles have demonstrated across the parking lot, the brighter the spotlight, the harder it becomes to keep the peace in the locker room.
Matt Dollinger: Is the Victor Wembanyama takeover [gulp] here? There’s a certain AI-like inevitability with Wemby. Last spring felt like Will Smith with spaghetti fingers. What if the Wemby model updated this offseason and he is ready to destroy all of humanity? (Too dark? Sorry.) There’s a chance we played musical chairs for nothing this summer. If Wemby levels up, there will be no one capable of stopping the Spurs.
Tyler Parker: When does Moussa Diabaté cement himself as the best player in the league? Does he wait until after the All-Star break? Or does he assert himself early? If it’s the latter, I’m not sure the Hornets will lose a game.
Get Ready for the NBA Season
Which player has the most at stake this season?
Beck: Luka Doncic. For the first time since the trade that shocked the world nearly two years ago, the Lakers are now definitively, indisputably Luka’s team. LeBron has left the building. The front office used the savings to construct a new roster built to Luka’s specifications, including a rim-running center in Walker Kessler. They gave a massive new contract to costar (and Luka pal) Austin Reaves. Now, they have to produce. This will be the most pressure Doncic has faced in his NBA career, by far. In Dallas, he was a wunderkind who could do no wrong. In his first year and a half in L.A., he shared the spotlight with James. Now it’s all his. The Lakers are a championship-or-bust franchise. And it’s on Doncic to get them there.
Murdock: Doncic. I agree with Beck. The Lakers finally cut ties with LeBron, probably overpaid for Austin Reaves, and likely traded too many picks for Walker Kessler. That puts outsized pressure on Luka, who couldn’t finish out last season even though he was in the best shape of his life. There are only so many chances to get to the mountaintop, and there’s no shortage of contenders who got better this summer. Luka has shown that he can carry a team in ways few others of his generation have. But this might be his biggest test yet.
Chau: There are certainly bigger names, but is the answer Walker Kessler? The former Jazz center completely shifts the context of the Lakers defense to the point where there is no real contingency plan should Kessler’s unfortunate injury history persist. Early preseason returns are promising, and playing alongside a kingmaker like Luka Doncic means he could become a household name (and a Defensive Player of the Year candidate) in an instant. But he carries a massive burden to produce and to stay on the floor. He didn’t come cheap, and a total of four first-round picks from 2028 to 2033 (two unprotected, two pick swaps) hang in the balance.
Mahoney: Kevin Durant, simply for the fact that the clock is ticking louder and louder. Last season, Durant turned in one of the best campaigns ever for a 37-year-old. He also wasn’t able to finish out that campaign because of various injuries. This might be the last, best chance for KD to make a run in a clear superstar role. Houston will be better, deeper, and hopefully healthier. The standard to break into the Western Conference finals is brutally high with OKC and San Antonio looming, but Durant and the Rockets have a puncher’s-chance candidacy that could also serve as KD’s swan song as an alpha superstar.
Pina: Joel Embiid, for pretty much every reason I mentioned in the previous question. There are no more excuses. He’s now on a team that’s packed with All-NBA talent and two Finals MVPs. If he’s able to stay upright and separate himself as the team’s obvious first option and top defender, the Philadelphia 76ers could be one of the scarier teams in recent memory. Much of the skepticism around the team is rooted in his shortcomings. There’s understandable doubt about his physical availability, sure, but wrapped into Philly’s promise is the matter of Embiid’s willingness/ability to sacrifice shots in a role that demands defensive engagement and total command of the glass. When he doesn’t touch the ball for three straight minutes, will he find other ways to get involved? Or will he sulk? Another early exit from the playoffs, for pretty much any reason, will cement Embiid as what he’s been: one of the great underachievers in NBA history.
Mann: I’m going Embiid, too. This will be the most talented team he’s ever been on, aside from the 2024 gold medal group, so he’s in the best position to pace himself that he’s ever been in. If you’ve talked to Sixers fans in the past couple of years, you know that they’ve been treating him like icing for a while now. They’re done being hurt over it. If he’s with us, cool, but I’m not getting upset about it either way. There will inevitably be the temptation to put an asterisk next to the highest levels of success, but some good injury luck and some real playoff success would put a positive spin on how his legacy is viewed.
Dollinger: LeBron James. Remember the whiteboard? Remember LeBron’s plethora of options? And remember when he surprised us all and picked [checking one more time to make sure it’s still real] … Philadelphia?! A city he has no ties to? With a roster full of players he has never played with before? For a franchise he’s been sticking it to for roughly two decades? Remember when he did that? If this is his final season, what a strange way to end things. And if it isn’t, are we dusting out the whiteboard again before the trade deadline? There’s no shortage of pressure in Philly, but remember, LeBron is the one who chose to be there. His presence changes everything. The onus is on him to make it work and prove this wasn’t the strangest, most arbitrary decision of all time.
Parker: Moussa Diabaté. He has a chance to become the best player in the league this season, and therefore he has the most to lose.
Which team are you irrationally excited to watch?
Mann: My first inclination here was to say the Timberwolves. Wild as they might be night to night, that’s still pretty rational—the Ant-LaMelo combination will always be an eye magnet for very obviously fun basketball reasons. More hectic transition onslaughts, questionably timed dribble 3s, and no-look lobs than you can shake a stick at. If you don’t like the idea of that, you don’t like fun, and I’m not sure we can be friends.
The real answer for me, though, is probably the Brooklyn Nets, who I think could be an unsightly and awkward but colorful caterpillar in the short term and then turn into an aesthetically pleasing (but fragile) butterfly later in the season. Odd as they are as a pairing of personalities, the unfazed and grinning Michael Porter Jr. and the “mercurial” (Chris Finch danced around it in another coded way) Julius Randle are just as fascinating as people as they are as bucket-lusting forwards who go about their business from different areas of the floor. Pair that with the kinetic skill sets of rookie Mikel Brown Jr. and Egor Demin, and you have an offensive premise that could really put up some points. To be clear—they are still gonna be bad, but the kind of bad that you keep returning to.
Beck: The Pacers. Tyrese Haliburton is one of the most enjoyable stars in the league, as both a player and personality. Just having him back, period (after a year rehabbing his Achilles), is reason to celebrate. And I loved everything about the way the Pacers played in their surprising run to the 2025 Finals. Their selflessness, ball movement, and frenetic style were reminiscent of the “Seven Seconds or Less” Suns. Most of the core group is back. Can they recapture that same spirit after a lost year?
Pina: With the word “irrationally” doing most of the legwork here, I’ll go with the Charlotte Hornets. I can’t wait to see how explosive their offense can look sans LaMelo Ball with arguably the most potent collection of 3-point shooters in the league. Spacing is everything, and the Hornets will be able to throw out lineups with five credible outside threats posed to strike at the same time. Your mileage may vary on how beneficial it will be to have Brandon Miller and Kon Knueppel on the ball more than they were a year ago, but what they lack in high-end talent, the Hornets make up for with complementary depth. Despite losing Ball, I don’t think a step back is necessarily in the cards.
Dollinger: [Erases blurb about being strangely excited to watch Ben Simmons again. Sigh.] Let’s be honest. You and I both are irrationally excited to hate-watch the Sixers. This team just has it coming. I don’t even really need to explain. But any time you get a chance to combine the NBA’s moodiest former MVP (Joel Embiid), its highest-maintenance player (LeBron), and a red-pilled superstar who is desperate to prove he’s the Man but has to sacrifice more now than ever, you’ve gotta do it! Throw in a fourth player that is legitimately better than those three guys (Tyrese Maxey) but is probably too nice to fully assert himself, and yep, I’m in.
Chau: To quote summer acquisition Norm Powell, the Bulls “have the potential to be really good” and “also have the potential to be really bad.” Either way, I’m tuning in. There is a strong possibility that Caleb Wilson will instantly become the kind of highlight machine that allowed Vince Carter and Blake Griffin to capture the imaginations of the entire basketball-viewing public. And if summer league and the preseason are any indication, he already has the skills and confidence to shed the just a dunker label before it even catches on.
Mahoney: The Wizards. Evergreen question: What is this team??? I has all the quirks of a Trae Young–led squad, the emotional roller coaster of relying on Anthony Davis, the boundless hope of AJ Dybantsa, and a wobbly young core still finding itself in every respect. It’ll also have my complete attention, because I’m fascinated by how it will all shake out and who the Wizards will be when push comes to shove. From the moment they won the draft lottery, every decision the Wizards made should have been framed around Dybantsa. But nothing in Washington is ever that simple, and the competing motivations of this roster should make for a fascinating subplot.
Murdock: The Timberwolves. For the first season of my life, I literally have no idea what I will see from this team on any given night, and likely only 45 percent of it will be related to what’s happening on the floor.
Parker: Pacers. Haliburton’s here and again makes the Pacers must-see TV. Him, Siakam, Nembhard, Zubac, a little Oubre? It’s a party. We’re running, we’re scrapping. Hali’s presence means a top-down restructuring back to the way things were when life was good and loving was easy. Plus Jay Huff’s hanging out doing backward dunks during every dead ball. Also, I’m excited to check out Moussa Diabaté and the Charlotte Hornets.
Group Chat’s Preseason Power Rankings
Who will be the biggest name to be traded—and to where?
Chau: Kyrie Irving to Detroit. The Eastern Conference landscape has shifted dramatically, and given all that’s ensued since the end of the 2025-26 regular season, the Pistons’ no. 1 seeding at the top of the East almost seems quaint. Getting the most out of Cade Cunningham’s prime is Detroit’s top priority, and it’s hard to imagine a better way to do so than by alleviating some of his playmaking burden with one of the most creative and efficient scoring guards ever.
Mahoney: Same. At a certain point, it’ll just make too much sense for the Mavs to move Irving along to a more competitive team and land more long-term pieces in the process. Detroit makes so much sense. Having any kind of ball handler on the floor with Cade Cunningham has been a huge pressure release for the Pistons offense. Irving could offer that and then some—bringing out entirely new layers of Detroit’s attack and providing the means to work around the strategic roadblocks that held the Pistons up in the 2026 playoffs.
Murdock: Or how about Kyrie to Miami? He’s saying all of the right things now about mentoring the next crop of Mavs and wanting to see Cooper Flagg blossom into an all-world talent, but let’s be real, Irving wants to win, and at a high level. And Miami will be in grave need of a point guard by the trade deadline.
Pina: Franz Wagner will be traded to the Los Angeles Clippers for Darius Garland and the two first-round picks they received from Toronto in the Kawhi Leonard trade. It’s time for the Magic to radically dynamize their offense by surrounding Paolo Banchero with another complementary firecracker who can do even more damage moving off the ball than with it in his hands. L.A. gets Wagner, a young, improving talent with enough size and skill to call himself a franchise player. Under a manageable contract for the foreseeable future, Wagner can be the anchor who temporarily stops this organization from drifting even further out to sea. As a worst-case scenario, if things don’t pan out, the Clippers can flip him for even more draft capital a couple of years down the road. Meanwhile, the Magic will cut long-term salary, pick up two valuable trade assets, and balance out an offense that’s desperate for better spacing.
Mann: Lots of teams could envision utilizing Anthony Davis, but it’s hard to find teams that would both want the 33-year-old superstar—whose legendarily dubious availability makes McDonald’s ice cream machines look like A.C. Green—and have the offloadable matching salary to make it work. The Raptors check both boxes, and they’ve also proved that they love hard enough to push through not being picked and remain true. This summer they called the Clippers up, waved their wand, and shouted the Patronus charm, and a glowing outline of Kawhi danced across the room.
Steve Ballmer: Kawhi? After all this time?
Raps: Always.
Reports had the Raps courting an AD deal earlier this year, and if they do manage to circle back and get a deal done, it’ll be because they have the right salaries and picks to entice the Wizards. At the end of the day, a Quickley-Barrett type of package (plus picks) might be worth it for Toronto to sign up for a couple of seasons of Davis before he gets into a shakier age range and becomes an unrestricted free agent. I don’t wanna get ahead of myself here, but I’m going to: Many of us have rubbed our hands together thinking about Kawhi, Scottie Barnes, and Collin Murray-Boyles on the floor together on defense. Lots of spatial questions to answer there on offense, but can you fucking imagine adding Anthony Davis to that?!
Beck: Anthony Davis to Phoenix. The Wizards’ trade for Davis last season never made much sense. He’s expensive and injury-prone, and at age 33 he doesn’t really fit their timeline. He’s also on an expiring contract, and Washington hasn’t shown much enthusiasm for signing him to a max extension. Why the Suns? Because as we’ve seen the last few years, owner Mat Ishbia will leap at every high-priced former All-Star he can get his hands on, no matter the consequences.
Dollinger: While acknowledging tremendous jealousy of Kyle’s take, I’ll go with Zion Williamson to the Hornets. It’s time to cut bait. Zion needs a fresh start, and the Pelicans need to let go of false hope. How about Zion for Tidjane Salaün, Dennis Schröder, Grant Williams, and a protected 2028 first-round pick? Zion gets a semi-homecoming while being surrounded by the most shooters of his career. He’s no longer being asked to be a franchise savior, just a franchise booster. Meanwhile, New Orleans gets closer to a financial reset with two expiring contracts, a solid prospect, and a future pick. It’s not the sexiest deal, but it would be fun to see what Zion would look like in Charlotte’s free-flowing offense. (Side note: Tyler is going to hate this deal.)
Parker: Not Moussa Diabaté, I’ll tell you that much. You don’t deal away a guy who is about to become the best player in the league. Not unless you’re the Clippers.
What’s one random prediction for this season you’re absolutely sure of?
Beck: LeBron James will average double-digit assists, for just the second time in his career. He might even lead the league. The rationale here is simple: LeBron is one of the greatest playmakers of all time, and this Sixers lineup might be the most dynamic group he’s ever played with (which is saying something!). The assists should come easily as he alternately dishes to Jaylen Brown, Tyrese Maxey, Joel Embiid, and VJ Edgecombe. Plus, at this late stage of his career, LeBron will surely welcome a chance to ease his scoring load and preserve himself for the playoffs.
Pina: The only team that finished in the top six of its conference last season that will have a better record this season is the Toronto Raptors. This is not an indictment of the other 11 teams. It’s a realistic statement about the condition of a league that, based on everything that happened this summer, has seemingly successfully motivated every franchise to win. Nobody is built to lose right now. The bottom of each conference is loaded with teams that are serious enough to beat a playoff team on any given night. There are no stretches on the calendar that can be slept through.
Mahoney: That the Pacers will be top-tier contenders in the East. I know everyone is trying to be measured and responsible in assessing how Tyrese Haliburton will hold up in his first season back from an Achilles tear, but I’ve seen enough. He’ll thrive, Ivica Zubac will settle in quickly, and the Pacers will get right back to being one of the best teams in the East.
Dollinger: Giannis will surpass Bam’s 83-point mark. The proof of concept in Miami is already there. With no disrespect to Adebayo, Giannis is a far superior scorer and will probably have the ball in his hands for a disgustingly large portion of the season. If the Heat lean in (as they did before), I’ll go with Giannis scoring 87 points on December 20 against … you guessed it, the Sacramento Kings.
Mann: I think arm-barring and push-screening will be back by late December, if they really go away at all. The former is one of my least favorite things about individual play in the NBA, and to my knowledge it’s not present in any other league in the world, pro or amateur, and yet the NBA has become that resigned parent who knows their kid is going to sit on their iPad with the sound up while valuable social conditioning is going on around them. They’d love a different reality, but they are fatigued from fighting the trainer-brained loophole spamming that adds eight to 10 points per box score. It’s just garbage, man.
Chau: There will be a night in which Anthony Edwards and LaMelo Ball go absolutely nuclear in the same game, scoring the most points by a duo since the 1980s and surpassing the 91 points scored by Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook in 2012.
Murdock: Jordi Fernandez is going to get on-court minutes for the Nets this season.
Parker: Moussa Diabaté will score 101 points in a single game this season.
The Annual NBA Over/Unders
Who will win the 2027 NBA Finals—and why?
Chau: Thunder over Raptors. Oklahoma City is still the standard bearer of team-building in the league, and there are conceivably higher levels the team can reach with a fully healthy Jalen Williams and a humbled and hungry version of Chet Holmgren flanking the reigning MVP. The Raptors have finally unlocked the roster build of the franchise’s dreams—an all-consuming defensive superorganism whose many arms and hands join together to create a sort of man-made border between nations—but it’s hard to discount the body of work that OKC’s young core has already amassed, and it’s still developing. There may be a new golden child in the NBA, and the offseason has created newer, shinier objects to behold, but on paper, the Thunder remain the league’s biggest target.
Beck: Spurs over Sixers. Though I’m much more confident in the first part of that prediction than the latter part. Wemby and Co. are ready. Heck, they were ready last June, when they made the Finals despite their youth and inexperience. They were ready enough that they had a double-digit lead in all five games against the Knicks. They just weren’t ready enough to hold that lead in four of those games. They won’t be as jittery the next time. The East is harder to predict. But I’m betting against a Knicks repeat because, well, no one repeats anymore. And out of the other contenders, the Sixers have the most imposing starting five. Will they make it to next spring intact? Fair question. But if they do, it’s hard to see anyone in the East stopping them.
Pina: Spurs over Raptors. With all due respect to the Oklahoma City Thunder, Denver Nuggets, Houston Rockets, Minnesota Timberwolves, and any other pseudo-contender out West, the Spurs are about to embark on an epic revenge tour that no team is built to survive. In the East, the Knicks, Celtics, Sixers, Pacers, Cavaliers, and Pistons are all worthy picks to win three playoff series and compete in the Finals, but I’m going with Toronto. Outside shooting is a reasonable concern, but I know this group will defend its ass off, and I think Kawhi Leonard and Scottie Barnes will emerge as the conference’s most dynamic duo.
Mann: Spurs over Knicks. I don’t have a scorching take for this one because I think both the Thunder and the Spurs will achieve that boring level of good that comes with consistency, and both teams, wildly enough, have higher levels that they can climb to as a function of having fantastic young cores. At the end of the day, I could see either of these two teams hoisting the Larry O’Brien Trophy, but I did rank the Spurs at no. 1 in the Group Chat Preseason Power Rankings exercise, so I’ll stay consistent and pick them here. Last season’s run was brilliant and miles from anything resembling fluky, and while they did have their fair share of “well, actually” bullet points, San Antonio took measures to shore up areas of concern: Most notably, Tobias Harris should scale down from his Detroit role into a supportive situational creator to help them avoid major droughts on offense.
All in all, I think you’re also looking at a driven group of young stars who are anchored, literally and figuratively, by a once-a-century type of oppressive defensive force. And if the Spurs get another crack at the Knicks in the Finals, they’ll have spent a year stewing over how last June unfolded. Young team blitzes the Knicks out of the gate, young team’s second unit gets severely outplayed, Knicks steadily chip away at the deficit, young superstar gets fatigued, young team’s lack of clear late-game hierarchy kills their chances in critical moments, and the more realized Knicks punish their lack of polish. I think the Spurs will come back ready to show they've got what it takes.
Mahoney: Thunder over Sixers. They weren’t quite healthy enough to get past the Spurs last time around, but getting J-Dub back in full form, having room for Cason Wallace and Ajay Mitchell to expand their games, and backfilling their still impressive depth with recent lottery-ish picks is just a ridiculous premise for an already formidable team. What if last season—with its 64 wins and a trip back to the West finals—was the consolidation year?
Murdock: Pacers over Thunder. Tyrese is back, and so are the vibes. Fingers crossed that health and fate permit this to happen.
Dollinger: Spurs over Celtics. I won’t bother explaining the San Antonio side of this prediction, but let me just say that I think Dylan Harper will be considered a top-20-ish player by the end of the season. Meanwhile, the East is as loaded as it has ever been, but the Celtics might be the most motivated squad. The Knicks’ win burns deep, and something tells me Jayson Tatum will be motivated to prove he’s better than that other guy in Philly. Joe Mazzulla has been Pepe Silvia–ing all offseason trying to figure out how to stop Jalen Brunson. I’ll take the C’s to make it, only to be dismissed with a gentlemen’s sweep.
Parker: Thunder over Knicks. I think this is the last season a Diabaté-less team wins the title for the rest of the decade. As for this year, I’ll go Thunder over Knicks. OKC took the Spurs to seven without two of their top three ball handlers, and they’re replacing three guys who couldn’t get consistent playoff minutes with players who are more explosive and better offensively.
