While the Sixers will wait one more day to begin their 2025-26 season, the new NBA campaign officially kicks off on Tuesday night with a pair of high-profile games in the Western Conference.
Typically, we stick to the Sixers here. But if there was ever a time to zoom out and write about the NBA at large, it is right now.
The defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder will raise its banners against Kevin Durant and the Houston Rockets tonight, and Oklahoma City is a healthy favorite to repeat. But there are many teams coming for the throne.
A series of predictions – some are bold and some not, depending on your perspective – for the 2025-26 NBA season, with no mention of the Sixers...
The Oklahoma City Thunder challenge for 70 wins and repeat as NBA champions
Last season, Oklahoma City won 68 games before beating the Memphis Grizzlies, Denver Nuggets, Minnesota Timberwolves and Indiana Pacers through the postseason. They had one of the single greatest team defensive seasons in NBA history, and on the other end, had a dynamic attack led by NBA MVP and scoring champion Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, a player who has quickly become one of the most terrific and consistent scoring guards in recent NBA history.
They did all of that despite Chet Holmgren, likely their third-best player, only playing 32 games. Isaiah Hartenstein, the veteran big signed in part to be insurance for a Holmgren injury, dealt with issues of his own and played 57 games. Alex Caruso was one of their single most important players in the playoffs, but in the regular season, he underwent significant load management, barely topping 1,000 minutes. At one point Holmgren and Hartenstein were both out for a prolonged stretch, and the Thunder did not miss a beat starting 6-foot-6 star wing Jalen Williams as the smallest of small-ball fives.
By any measure, last year's Oklahoma City Thunder suffered from tough injury luck during the regular season. They still won 68 games.
Oklahoma City is running back the exact same roster; the only departure was of rookie Dillon Jones, whose most memorable moment with the Thunder was when head coach Mark Daigneault used him as a "permanent sub" standing at the scorer's table to prevent Nikola Jokić from throwing quick inbound passes. He is replaced by Thomas Sorber, a rookie first-round pick effectively taking a medical redshirt year.
Last year, that role belonged to Nikola Topić, a guard picked in the lottery whose skillset could be quite valuable when Gilgeous-Alexander is off the floor. Topić will miss the beginning of the season, but should be back soon enough. He and diamond in the rough Ajay Mitchell can help the Thunder produce more offensively when the MVP is resting.
There is no reason Oklahoma City should not have the best defense in the NBA by far, and Gilgeous-Alexander is at worst the second-best offensive player in the NBA, with Williams and Holmgren as worthy sidekicks and a plethora of valuable supporting cast members eager to star in their roles. This is the best team in the NBA, and nobody comes close.
The Cleveland Cavaliers win the Eastern Conference
Last year, nobody in the Eastern Conference came close to the Cleveland Cavaliers... in the regular season. Then came a few bad injury breaks and an Indiana Pacers avalanche, and suddenly, a 64-win season had blown up in their faces. Staring down a massive luxury tax bill and second apron penalties, Cleveland resisted the urge to make sweeping changes, banking on a core group of Donovan Mitchell, Evan Mobley, Darius Garland and Jarrett Allen to lead this team to the mountaintop. Because of their second apron situation, it feels inevitable that a shakeup is coming after this season, which means this group is entering its last chance to win before a major trade.
It is understandable to scoff at this prediction because of the Cavaliers' repeated playoff failures. But if a team is good enough to obliterate the competition to the extent Cleveland did last year, it is good enough to win a conference. They can, at all times, have an elite ball-handling guard and a very good or elite rim-protecting defensive anchor on the floor. Mitchell is the headliner in terms of name recognition – and he is outstanding – but it might be Mobley who truly can turn this team into a juggernaut.
Nobody should be surprised if Mobley's star leap last season is followed up by a true superstar leap in 2025-26; he is one of the single greatest defensive players alive and is rapidly growing as an offensive player. The only major changes from last year's team to this one: Ty Jerome departed after a breakout season as Cleveland's third guard, and the team replaced him by trading depth wing Isaac Okoro for Lonzo Ball. Ball is not a similar player to Jerome or Okoro, but his wing size and guard skills make him fit to replace either one in different lineups. Keeping Ball healthy will be pivotal. There is a chance he ends up being the perfect fit in between Cleveland's two high-profile guards and bigs in a dynamic closing lineup.
Victor Wembanyama earns a top-three MVP finish and becomes the first unanimous Defensive Player of the Year in NBA history
Everyone knows Wembanyama is prepared to begin devastating the NBA, but it is unclear if everyone is aware of just how dominant he has the chance to be. Any team with Wembanyama on it is essentially playing with six defenders; his length is so game-breaking that drivers blow by defenders and then immediately run away from the rim when they see the French phenom waiting for them.
Offensively, he has established himself as one of the highest-volume three-point shooting bigs of all time already, and has blended that volume on very difficult shots with decent efficiency. With De’Aaron Fox on board as the leader of a supporting cast that is much-improved, even if not championship-caliber, Wembanyama should be able to take better shots on a consistent basis and experience an uptick in efficiency as a result.
According to John Hollinger of The Athletic, no player in NBA history has ever been a unanimous winner of the Defensive Player of the Year Award. With all due respect to Mobley, Rudy Gobert, Draymond Green and the league’s other elite stalwarts, the only obstacle in Wembanyama’s way here is the 65-game minimum.
The Los Angeles Lakers have to partake in the Play-In Tournament
This seems like a bolder call when considering Luka Dončić and LeBron James are both on this team. But the soon-to-be 41-year-old James is already dealing with injury issues, which will keep him sidelined to begin the season. And after Dončić, James and Austin Reaves, a ton of question marks exist here.
For example: how is Deandre Ayton going to handle the responsibility and pressure that comes with starting at center on a team like this, without much depth behind him? Does Marcus Smart have anything left in the tank? Will Smart or Jarred Vanderbilt ever be healthy? Will the Lakers push any future chips in and jeopardize the organization’s health post-James for a team that will not be favored in a second-round playoff series?
It is not that the Lakers will be bad. In fact, they will be good. But in this Western Conference, nabbing a top-six seed and avoiding the Play-In Tournament is no small feat.
Oklahoma City is the best team in the conference and league. Behind them in the Western Conference are the Denver Nuggets and Minnesota Timberwolves. Depending on how they handle Fred VanVleet’s injury, the Houston Rockets could be in that upper echelon. Then there are teams like the Golden State Warriors, primed to make a major midseason addition to a group already including Stephen Curry, Jimmy Butler, Green, Al Horford and some younger but meaningful contributors, or the Los Angeles Clippers, undoubtedly better on paper than they were last year when 50 wins earned them the No. 5 seed. There is no telling how quickly Wembanyama and the Spurs will arrive as true contenders.
Can the Lakers finish the season with a better record than two of those seven teams? It is a tricky question.
The Miami Heat miss the Play-In Tournament
The collective fear to write Miami off makes sense. They have picked themselves up off the metaphorical mat far too many times to be counted out. But there is just not enough on this roster to inspire any sense of confidence, and even in a barren Eastern Conference, there is some real disaster potential.
Norman Powell was a nice addition at an affordable cost for Miami, and he is going to be extremely important with Tyler Herro now sidelined for a significant period of time to begin the season. Powell is far and away Miami’s best perimeter scorer to open the season, and that says a lot about the remainder of this roster.
Bam Adebayo is a stellar player and can continue to be a key component of contending teams. But the rest of the pieces have to be there, and that quality just does not exist in Miami right now.
Terry Rozier is taking up over $26 million in Miami’s cap sheet to be a non-factor (or worse). He could become a valuable piece of salary filler in a trade, but will Miami win enough games before a deal presents itself to be able to pull the trigger? Kel’el Ware, Nikola Jović and Jaime Jacquez Jr. have all shown flashes of quality before, but will any of them be franchise-altering talents?
If there will ever be a time in which the wheels officially fall off for this franchise, it would be 2025-26. But to be fair, whenever that becomes the prevailing sentiment about the Miami Heat, they find a way.
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