Everything You NEED To Know About The 25/26 NBA Season So Far…
The NBA is a little more than a third of the way through the 2025–26 season, and the league already feels like it has lived multiple realities. We’ve seen a team threaten the record books from opening night, a supposed rebuilding group turn into a legitimate threat, an unexpected conference leader rewrite expectations, and a heavyweight contender stumble into the play-in picture. Meanwhile, the rookie class is producing not just highlights, but real impact—while the MVP race has once again turned into a two-man collision course.
Start with the obvious headline: Oklahoma City came out of the gate looking like the best team in basketball, with the kind of dominance that forces uncomfortable comparisons to all-time great regular-season teams. But the NBA doesn’t allow perfection to last for long, and this past week exposed a very specific problem for the defending champions: San Antonio has had their number—repeatedly, decisively, and in ways that are difficult to wave away as random variance.
At the same time, the Eastern Conference has flipped in a way almost nobody predicted. Detroit sits at the top of the East, and they’re doing it with a profile that historically screams “real contender”: composure under pressure and a consistent ability to win games they “shouldn’t.” Meanwhile, Cleveland, last season’s regular-season wrecking ball, looks stuck in quicksand, with shooting regression and offensive slippage pulling them toward the middle of the conference.
Then there’s New York—who may not hang a banner for it in the traditional sense, but winning the NBA Cup has reshaped how seriously the Knicks are being discussed. Add in Milwaukee’s looming Giannis uncertainty, New Orleans’ youth-driven bounce after turmoil, Dallas’ front-office shakeup, and the rise of a loaded rookie lottery class, and the league’s storyline board is packed.
Below is where things stand—and what matters most—right now.
1) Oklahoma City’s Start Was Historic — and Still Is
Oklahoma City didn’t just start hot. They started historically.
Through the first 25 games, OKC opened 24–1, matching the best 25-game start in NBA history—tying the 2015–16 Warriors’ mark. That’s the type of benchmark that usually gets reserved for teams with multiple Hall of Famers at their peak. And the Thunder did it while navigating lineup instability, including early-season absences that normally would have dulled a team’s rhythm.
The profile was championship-proof in the cleanest possible way:
Elite defense: First in defensive efficiency, allowing the fewest points per game.
Top-tier offense: Near the top in points per game and strong in offensive efficiency.
Margin dominance: The kind of nightly control that doesn’t rely on lucky shooting or close-game coin flips.
Even when OKC wasn’t at full strength, they played like a team that could win in multiple ways: grind-it-out defensive games, transition sprints, half-court shot-making through Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (SGA), and disciplined late-game execution.
For the first month-plus, OKC looked like a machine.
And then the Spurs happened.
2) San Antonio vs. OKC: At Some Point, It’s Not a Fluke
The most jarring development at the top of the standings isn’t that OKC lost a couple of games. It’s who they lost them to—and how consistently it has happened.
In the marquee Christmas slate matchup, San Antonio beat OKC 117–102, handing the Thunder their first home loss of the season and marking OKC’s third loss to the Spurs in just 13 days. Put bluntly: the Thunder have lost five total games all season. Three were against San Antonio.
That’s not noise. That’s a pattern.
And the nature of the losses has shifted from “tight game, bounces didn’t go our way” to “they controlled the matchup.” OKC’s early losses were close. The recent Spurs losses were not.
Why the Spurs are a nightmare matchup (right now)
San Antonio’s rise hasn’t been about one player going supernova for a week. It’s a structural change:
Modern “possession math”: they crash the offensive glass, limit turnovers, and force opponents into mistakes.
Execution under pressure: they’ve been unusually calm against OKC’s chaotic, elite defense.
Multiple ball-handlers: defenders can’t load up on one creator; the Spurs can move the defense side to side.
Wembanyama as a ceiling-raiser (even on minutes restrictions): his gravity changes shot quality on both ends.
Christmas was the cleanest snapshot. San Antonio built a double-digit lead before halftime and never let OKC truly re-enter the game. The Spurs shot efficiently, protected the ball, and turned OKC’s typical defensive advantage into something manageable.
De’Aaron Fox looked like the best downhill player on the floor, and the Spurs’ young guard pairing—often framed as a “Slash Brothers” type duo—has become more than hype. They’re winning real minutes against the best defense in the league.
This doesn’t mean San Antonio is automatically a championship team. It does mean something equally important: the Spurs are forcing the league to take them seriously, and they’ve already proven they can beat the team everyone fears—multiple times.
3) Detroit at No. 1 in the East: The Surprise That Looks… Real
If OKC is the obvious best-in-class story, Detroit is the one that makes you blink twice.
The Pistons’ rise isn’t being powered by a weird schedule quirk or one player shooting 55% from three for a month. The defining trait is composure—particularly when games go wrong. Detroit doesn’t unravel when it trails. They reset, execute, and climb back.
That matters historically more than people realize.
Over decades of play-by-play data, only a small number of teams have finished seasons with winning records in games where they trailed by double digits. And among those teams, a striking percentage ended up making deep playoff runs—many winning titles.
Right now, Detroit sits in extremely rare company: one of the only teams with a winning record after trailing by 10+ points, alongside OKC. That’s a profile you typically associate with contenders, not a surprise early-season feel-good story.
Cade Cunningham is driving it
Cade’s numbers have moved from “promising star” into “this is what a franchise centerpiece looks like” territory:
High-volume scoring
Playmaking that actually dictates defensive choices
Defensive activity (including steals) that reflects engagement
Late-game calm that shows up in the comeback profile
If Detroit sustains top-of-the-East performance, Cade doesn’t just belong in All-NBA debates. He belongs on the edges of MVP conversations—especially in a year where narrative and team success will weigh heavily.
4) Cleveland’s Regression: When the Shots Stop Falling, Everything Slows Down
Cleveland’s situation is the inverse of Detroit’s. Last season, the Cavs were a regular-season monster: huge win totals, devastating offensive efficiency, multiple long winning streaks, and the kind of nightly shot-making that made teams feel buried by halftime.
Then they got punched out in the playoffs.
And this season, the hangover looks real.
Cleveland has slipped into the play-in neighborhood, and while injuries have been part of the story, they don’t fully explain what the tape and metrics show: the offense has fallen off sharply.
The key issue: shooting regression across the board
Compared to last season, Cleveland is down in major shooting indicators:
overall field goal percentage
three-point percentage
free-throw efficiency
effective field goal percentage (a big one—because it captures shot quality and value)
Sometimes basketball really is that simple: when your offense was built on elite conversion, and conversion drops, your whole structure becomes heavier. Your pace slows. Your spacing shrinks. Your margin for error disappears.
Notably, this doesn’t apply the same way to Donovan Mitchell. He’s been excellent—arguably better, with increased usage and strong efficiency. But when the rest of the ecosystem isn’t converting, even elite lead guard play becomes more taxing, and the offense turns into something more predictable.
Defensively, Cleveland hasn’t collapsed. They’ve slipped from “top-tier” to “middle of the pack,” which is survivable—if the offense is elite. If the offense is average, it becomes a problem.
The Cavs don’t look broken beyond repair. But they look like a team searching for last year’s rhythm and not finding it, and that’s why pressure whispers tend to appear faster than fans expect.
5) Knicks Win the NBA Cup — and the League Has to Treat It Like a Statement
Whether you love the NBA Cup or treat it like a midseason side quest, the teams competing for it took it seriously—and New York came out on top.
That matters, because it wasn’t just a “hot shooting week.” It was a structured run where New York looked like it had answers beyond one star carrying the load.
The biggest shift from last season’s Knicks: they’re no longer Brunson-or-bust.
Jalen Brunson still delivered, and he still plays like a playoff series solution. But the Cup run highlighted a broader base:
OG Anunoby-level scoring impact in a major spot
rebounding and interior physicality that creates extra possessions
multiple role players making real, high-leverage plays
a bench that looks functional—something that has torpedoed Knicks teams in past years
Under a new coaching setup, New York has stabilized after a rocky opening stretch and now looks like a team that belongs in the same tier conversation as the very top.
The Knicks don’t have to be perfect to win the East. They have to be stable, healthy, and deep enough to survive the inevitable playoff variance. This season, they look closer to that standard than they have in years.
6) Milwaukee and Giannis: The Deadline Story That Won’t Go Away
Milwaukee’s storyline isn’t just about wins and losses. It’s about time.
Giannis Antetokounmpo remains one of the league’s foundational forces, but the Bucks have drifted into uncertain territory. Injuries, roster limitations, and a murky long-term path have created a backdrop where even routine reports about “checking in on the future” become loud.
The key point isn’t whether Giannis is unhappy on a given day. It’s whether the organization can convincingly show a championship path in the next one-to-two year window under the current constraints.
If Milwaukee keeps sliding, the league will do what it always does: connect dots toward the trade deadline. The moment “resolution expected in coming weeks” language enters the ecosystem, every front office starts recalculating.
Even if no deal happens, the story matters because it changes behavior: teams position assets, agents shape narratives, and Milwaukee’s own internal decisions start to carry deadline gravity.
7) New Orleans: A Youth Pivot That Actually Looks Like a Plan
The Pelicans’ season has been chaotic—coaching change, rocky stretches, and injuries. But the most important development may be philosophical: New Orleans has leaned hard into youth, and it’s given them a clearer identity.
Young players are not just “getting minutes.” They’re being asked to run real offense, make real reads, and absorb responsibility. That creates short-term volatility, but it also accelerates development, especially when paired with veterans who can stabilize lineups.
Zion’s return has helped, and the lineup configurations have been more flexible than in previous seasons. The bigger takeaway: the Pelicans’ developmental path looks more coherent than the chaos might suggest.
New Orleans isn’t suddenly a title team. But they’re trending toward “dangerous, annoying matchup” territory—and if young talent keeps popping, the long-term picture looks less bleak than it did a month ago.
8) The Rookie Class: Not Just Flash—Real Production and Real Roles
This rookie class is already shaping games, not just highlight reels.
Cooper Flagg: a real breakout, fast
Flagg’s early season included some growing pains, but the adjustment period ended quickly. He’s already produced milestone performances at a pace that places him in rare historical company for early-career scoring explosions. More importantly, his impact isn’t limited to scoring—he’s showing the ability to bend defenses and contribute across categories, which is what separates “good rookie” from “franchise trajectory” rookie.
Kon Knueppel: elite shooting production early
Knueppel’s three-point production has arrived rapidly, and it’s doing the most valuable thing a rookie can do on a struggling team: provide a bankable skill that translates night to night. The spacing gravity alone changes offensive geometry.
VJ Edgecombe: impact minutes on a competitive team
Edgecombe’s case is about utility. He’s not just posting points; he’s filling real minutes with winning plays—especially when key players miss time. That type of trust from a coaching staff early in a career matters.
Derek Queen: point-center flashes that change ceilings
Queen’s passing benchmarks and triple-double-type lines aren’t just fun trivia. They hint at a modern big who can operate as an offensive hub. Those players are rare—and when they’re real, they reshape team building.
Dylan Harper: poised, efficient, and scalable
Harper looks like the kind of rookie who can fit alongside other creators without needing to hijack the offense. That’s valuable because it scales into playoff basketball. If you can play off the ball, make correct reads, and attack gaps without forcing, you can stay on the floor.
Overall, this isn’t a rookie group waiting for year three. They’re impacting the league now.
9) Dallas’ Front Office Reset: A Move That Felt Inevitable
Dallas finally made the move that many around the league expected after a sequence of decisions that created sustained backlash and roster instability. The firing wasn’t about one bad week. It was about accumulated trust erosion.
When organizations make franchise-shaping moves, the results matter—but so does the internal logic and public credibility. Once credibility fractures, every subsequent move gets judged through that lens.
Dallas acting now signals a recognition that the situation was untenable. It also resets the franchise’s narrative in a year where the Western Conference is too unforgiving to waste seasons on dysfunction.
10) MVP Watch: Jokic vs. SGA Is Back — and Jokic Has the “Moment”
The MVP picture is taking shape, and it looks familiar at the top: Nikola Jokic vs. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
SGA’s case remains elite:
massive scoring volume
outstanding efficiency
improved shooting profile
carrying offense even through lineup changes
best-team-in-basketball context for much of the season
But Jokic has done what Jokic does: put up production that breaks the normal statistical frame. He’s flirting with triple-double output again, impacting every possession, and creating the kind of nightly stability Denver builds its entire identity around.
And then there was the signature moment—an all-caps performance on a national stage that voters remember. MVP races aren’t decided by one game, but signature games tilt narrative gravity.
The big variable is team record. If Denver can keep pace near the top of the West and Jokic sustains this level, the case strengthens dramatically. If OKC finishes with the league’s best record and SGA maintains his scoring and efficiency, voters will have an equally compelling team-success anchor.
It’s shaping up like another season where the MVP conversation won’t be settled until late.
What Happens Next: The Trends That Will Decide the Second Half
The league’s first third has given us storylines. The next third decides which ones are real.
Here are the pressure points that matter most:
Can OKC solve the Spurs matchup? Great teams don’t need to beat every opponent—until the playoffs. Then they do.
Can Detroit sustain elite composure and health? The top of the East is crowded; holding it is harder than reaching it.
Does Cleveland’s shooting normalize? If it does, they rise quickly. If it doesn’t, the play-in becomes a real risk.
Are the Knicks truly deep enough for May? The Cup run matters, but playoff rotations shrink.
Does Milwaukee stabilize, or does the Giannis rumor cycle intensify? Deadline timelines sharpen everything.
Which rookies keep scaling upward? Early-season production is one thing; maintaining it is the separator.
Who wins the Jokic–SGA MVP argument in the standings? Voters rarely ignore elite production, but they also rarely ignore elite team success.
One thing is clear: we’re not heading toward a quiet, predictable second half. The standings might look orderly in places, but the matchups and storylines underneath them are volatile—and that’s exactly how NBA seasons turn into must-watch runs.
