After four long months, the 80th NBA season begins tonight. Basketball will be on almost everyday until June.
Last year, we saw the dominance of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the Oklahoma City Thunder on full display. We saw a lot of Achilles injuries, the emergence of young players, and some teams suffer disappointments.
The NBA is arguably the hardest league to predict because of the 82-game grind, plus an additional two months of postseason play. With that said, we are going to try and predict it anyways. Here are three predictions for the 2025-2026 NBA season.
3) The Cavs, Knicks, and Magic all win at least 50 games
The East is in dire straits. The Celtics are not going to have Jayson Tatum for most of the season, and the Pacers won’t have Tyrese Haliburton for the whole season. The Sixers are an absolute wildcard because we have no idea who will be healthy.
The Bucks are a mess and will have the Giannis Antetokounmpo trade drama hanging over their heads the whole year. That leaves Cleveland, New York, and Orlando as the Bonafide top contenders in the conference.
The Cavs went wire-to-wire last season as the one seed, winning 64 games. They did flame out in the playoffs, but this is a good regular season team at the least. Especially since their entire core of Donovan Mitchell, Evan Mobley, Darius Garland, and Jarrett Allen is back.
New York made the conference finals last year, and return their duo of Jalen Brunson, and Karl-Anthony Towns. They also have a new head coach in Mike Brown, and more overall depth. This is one of the more complete teams in the league.
Orlando upgraded significantly when they acquired Desmond Bane. Add him to two of the best young players in the league in Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner, plus a stifling defense, and you have one of the more frisky and fun teams in the NBA.
These three teams are the clear class of the conference, and in a weak East, expect them to take full advantage.
2) Anthony Edwards breaks the American MVP drought
The last time an American player won MVP was James Harden in 2018. With Tatum likely missing most of the year, Edwards is the best bet for the drought to end, and that could happen this season.
Edwards was phenomenal all across the board. He averaged a career-high 28 points per game, six rebounds, and five assists. He shot a career-best 39.5 percent from three and led the league in total threes made (320). He was able to guide Minnesota through a slow start to the year, and led them back to the conference finals.
Edwards had an up-and-down series against OKC, but there is no doubt that he is one of the five best players in basketball. With an offseason spent working on his mid-range and post up game, the two biggest weaknesses in his arsenal, expect Ant-Man to come for blood this year, culminating in his first MVP.
1. The Denver Nuggets will win the NBA championship
Many on the OKC Thunder have admitted that their toughest series during their championship run was against the Denver Nuggets. Despite dealing with multiple injuries to their best players, Denver gave OKC all they could handle. They fell short in seven games, but after a highly successful offseason, the Nuggets are set to be the class of the West again.
They swapped out the volatile and inconsistent Michael Porter Jr. for the more reliable three-and-D wing Cam Johnson. They brought back Bruce Brown and added more shooting in Tim Hardaway Jr. They also traded for Jonas Valanciunas, who will be the best backup center Nikola Jokic has ever had.
Denver is deeper, and have one of the best starting fives in the league in Jamal Murray, Christian Braun, Johnson, Aaron Gordon, and Jokic. They can arguably go ten or 11 players deep now with Brown, Hardaway Jr., Valanciunas, Peyton Watson, Julian Strawther, and DaRon Holmes. They have options.
Gone are the days of scraping together a unit to survive the non-Jokic minutes. Gone are the days of running out of gas in the playoffs because they didn’t have enough bodies. The Nuggets pushed the champs to the brink and expect them to get over the hump in a loaded West.