NBA 2025-26 Standings, Awards, Predictions and Everything Else
My predictions and thoughts on the 2025-26 season
This has been a long ass off-season. It has definitely felt the longest since I started to follow basketball. But we’re finally here. The NBA season starts tonight. Opening days are always the best, especially right before it, when it’s the time for all of the predictions, rankings, and everything else to get ready before the season.
It’s fun seeing how wrong you can be each year when making these predictions. Some of my biggest Ls:
I had the 6ers second in the East
The Pistons were just a play-in team and possibly missed it altogether
The Mavericks were at the top of my tiers in the West
The Rockets missed the play-in altogether
I thought the Suns were able to go on a deep run
We’re doing it a bit differently this year. Due to some time constraints, everything is going to be in this post — standing predictions, team tiers, and awards.
Apologies that this is mostly just surface level thoughts and barely any analysis. These will mostly just be picks without any explanation.
Standing, tiers, playoff predictions
Before getting into the standings, there is a rough, small difference between this and the team tiers. 82 games is a long time. A lot can happen during that time that may not necessarily matter as much in the playoffs. Injuries can happen early. There’s load management. There’s tinkering with rotations and seeing what works. There’s integrating new players. Things can be hell in the first part of the season, but vibes change, and things turn around later on.
To put it short, it’s a long damn season, and anything can happen.
Whereas with the tiers, it’s mostly looking at the team’s chances at competing for a championship. That’s the goal of those tiers. A bunch of teams will be grouped together because, for the most part, a lot of the teams can really go either way, and it will depend on the particular matchup. But that’s why I like doing it in tiers because it’s easier to then separate teams that are clearly above another.
Let’s start with the East:
Cleveland Cavaliers(1-2 range)
New York Knicks(1-2)
Detroit Pistons(3-6)
Philadelphia 76ers(3-7)
Orlando Magic(3-8)
Milwaukee Bucks(3-8)
Indiana Pacers(4-10)
Atlanta Hawks(4-10)
Miami Heat(5-10)
Toronto Raptors(8-12)
Boston Celtics(8-12)
Chicago Bulls(8-13)
Charlotte Hornets(10-13)
Brooklyn Nets(14-15)
Washington Wizards(14-15)
Starting from all the way at the bottom, we obviously have both the Wizards and Nets as the likely two worst teams in the East. I don’t really see any path where either team can make a jump further, even ahead of the Hornets or Bulls. They are in their own little tier of being young, full of projects, and just straight up bad. They will be gunning for the worst record here.
Next, we have the weird range of teams that includes the Hornets, Celtics, Raptors, Bulls, Heat, Pacers, and Hawks. Pick and choose which order these teams will finish in because it’s tough to predict, though there are certain teams that would have a higher floor/ceiling than the rest.
Outside of the Celtics and Pacers, all of those teams I feel will be better, or at least, they have reasonable reasons to be trending upwards in their own way. But that still basically means in the same range they were last year.
The Celtics obviously will be a lot worse without Jayson Tatum, which is why they have slid all the way down to this group. It’s going to be tough to win games without Tatum. What makes it worse is that they never really experienced this either. Tatum has missed a total of 32 games across four seasons, and I’d bet many of them are load managing or games that didn’t really matter. They will have a lot of experimenting to do throughout the season. This is going to put a lot on Jaylen Brown’s shoulders, and I have no idea how to feel about a team led by Brown through 82 games.
The Pacers face a similar issue with Tyrese Haliburton being out for the season. It’s going to be tough winning games without your best player for the entire year. I do still like the Pacers being a really solid team. They are led by a great coach and have a good system, and have improved on both ends the last couple of seasons. We’ve seen this with the Heat teams and Erik Spoelstra lifting those teams, and I feel like Rick Carlisle could do the same. And a big part of it is trust in Pascal Siakam. I do like him being a solid floor raiser.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the Pacers were the best team out of this bunch and possibly win closer to around mid forty games.
With those two teams out of the way, everyone else just falls in the same group. If you ask me who’s better, my answer is yes. With the exception of the Raptors, those three teams were separated by three games. And as mentioned, they all have reasons to be better. I expect this range of teams to again be in that mid 30s to low 40s again.
Then we have the playoff teams. I feel comfortable with that top six. I still have the Cavaliers and Knicks as the top two teams by a good margin. They will again be near the top in winning fifty plus games. They are my locks for the top two teams.
I’m high on the Pistons. They already won forty four games and that’s with Jaden Ivey missing games. Though they have lost key players and also had incredible injury luck everywhere else. But with a handful of additions like Duncan Robinson and Caris LeVert on top of the reasonable improvements from Cade Cunningham and the rest of the young squad, they should be better. I can see a world where they are a near fifty win team.
That’s pretty much the same argument for the Magic and I should probably have them higher than the Pistons. I just have more of a question mark on them on offense. Yes, they did get Desmond Bane, which will immediately help through the season offensively, but that one shooter doesn’t fix a decade worth of bad offense. They had negative spacing and Bane isn’t Stephen Curry.
Everything still relies and depends on Franz Wagner and Paolo Banchero, which at the same time is a big sign of optimism. Wagner missed twenty-two games, and Banchero with thirty-six. Their two best players were eighth and thirteenth in games played. You also add Jalen Suggs missing a lot of time. They had disgusting injury luck. That alone is a big factor that they can easily win fifty games with just improvement in health.
The Bucks and 6ers are in a weird group, especially in the regular season. They clearly have health issues. That was a big reason why they both fell short in the previous seasons. That is likely to be the case yet again. That’s the number one reason why I’m lower on them in the regular season.
But at the same time, both their top players are top five when they are healthy. BUT, particularly with the case of Joel Embiid, health is the biggest red flag, having played fifty-eight games across two seasons.
The Bucks are more locked to be good because Giannis isn’t that injury prone and I will always bank on him carrying the team. This is, however, a very different team. There’s no longer Khris Middleton, Brook Lopez, Damian Lillard or Jrue Holiday. This is completely fresh for Giannis and that can be a reason why they may drop to a play-in.
Both teams can easily fall into the play-in because of health issues.
Now, onto the West:
Oklahoma City Thunder(1-4)
Denver Nuggets(1-4)
Houston Rockets(1-6)
Minnesota Timberwolves(1-6)
Los Angeles Lakers(3-6)
Los Angeles Clippers(3-6)
Golden State Warriors(7-9)
Memphis Grizzlies(7-9)
San Antonio Spurs(7-9)
Phoenix Suns(10-13)
Dallas Mavericks(10-13)
Sacramento Kings(10-13)
New Orleans Pelicans(10-13)
Portland Trail Blazers(10-13)
Utah Jazz(15)
The Jazz will be the worst team. They join the Nets and Wizards in that sense.
After that, God. That’s also a wild range. Five teams where it can honestly go in any single order. Blazers, Pelicans, Kings, Mavericks, and Suns will be the ultimate play-in battleground. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Pelicans or Blazers make the tenth spot. But I also wouldn’t be surprised if they’re both the worst out of this group. Each team have their own question marks.
Then we have the play-in group with the Warriors, Grizzlies, and Spurs. The Warriors likely will be one of the most load managed team in the league. Their entire team is old and that’s going to make a difference through the season. They have the top end talent, but I don’t see how they can reliably beat out the rest of the teams at least in the regular season.
With the Grizzlies and Spurs, I just don’t see them having the talent to be better than the play-in range. The Grizzlies lost out on Bane, which is going to hurt. Spurs will definitely be better with all of the additions and I’m probably lower than I should be. I can see this biting me and making me look stupid at the end.
At the very top, you have the Thunder, Nuggets, Rockets, and Wolves. I think they are easily the four best teams and should cruise through the regular season. I don’t see much debate there, and I can honestly see each of those teams end up being the number one seed. It will go down to a handful of games.
Finally, we have both the Los Angeles teams. They have a high range. I can see them being in the top three-ish or almost creeping into the play-in if things fall apart.
Now, for the tiers:
Tier one. Clear favourites: Thunder, Nuggets, Cavaliers
Tier two. Top tier contenders: Knicks, Wolves, Warriors, Clippers
Tier three. Dark horse contenders: Lakers, Rockets,
Tier four. The middle, playoff edition: Bucks, Pistons, Magic, Hawks, 6ers
Tier. The middle non playoff edition: Blazers, Pelicans, Kings, Celtics, Suns, Bulls, Raptors, Mavericks, Heat, Pacers, Grizzlies
Tier. Favourites for lottery: Wizards, Jazz, Hornets, Nets
And the playoffs:
ECF: Cavaliers in six vs Knicks
WCF: Thunder in seven vs Nuggets
Finals: Thunder in seven vs Cavaliers
Awards predictions
MVP: Luka Doncic
DPOY: Ivica Zubac
COTY: Rick Carlisle
ROTY: Cooper Flagg
MIP: Andrew Nembhard
And that is it for this year’s predictions. There’s not a lot of analysis or thoughts but I really just wanted to get the actual pick and predictions out to have that as a reminder.