When the 2025-26 NBA season returns Tuesday, some issues is not going to have modified in years.
Although Golden State Warriors guard Steph Curry is now 37, and the Los Angeles Lakers’ LeBron James 40 (and can start the season sidelined by harm), the 2 superstars stay undisputed headliners a decade after the primary of their 4 consecutive conferences within the NBA Finals. The sheer wattage of their stardom has barely dimmed, and it is why their groups will meet in certainly one of Tuesday’s opening-night matchups.
However the different opening-night tipoff will happen in Oklahoma Metropolis, the place the Thunder will obtain the championship rings they earned by successful Sport 7 of June’s NBA Finals over Indiana. Although the league’s outdated guard, led by Curry and James, stays formidable, the highway to the championship trophy now runs by way of the uber-young Thunder, who spent the offseason signing their younger core of stars to long-term offers.
Haven’t paid consideration to the NBA because the Thunder’s victory parade cruised by way of Oklahoma Metropolis in mid-June? Right here’s all the pieces you will have missed to get you in control.
Who’re the title contenders?
Current historical past suggests the Thunder is not going to be lifting the trophy once more subsequent June: The league hasn’t topped a repeat champion in seven seasons, with Golden State (2017-18) the final to repeat.
But the Thunder have an especially compelling case for being ready to interrupt that streak. They return each consequential member of their rotation from final season’s playoff roster, together with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the reigning most beneficial participant. That group received 68 video games although accidents sidelined massive males Chet Holmgren and Isaiah Hartenstein for about half a season every. This 12 months, they begin wholesome.
By buying and selling for Phoenix’s Kevin Durant in June, Houston introduced its intention to problem Oklahoma Metropolis within the Western Convention. The Rockets stay a contender, however their case took successful within the offseason after level guard Fred VanVleet suffered a knee harm that might sideline him all the season.
Denver, the 2023 champion, has famous person Nikola Jokic in his prime and has surrounded the virtuosic big man with the deepest roster in years.
With a lot uncertainty as as to whether Philadelphia’s star pairing of Joel Embiid and Paul George can keep wholesome, and Boston famous person Jayson Tatum set to overlook not less than a big chunk of the season after tearing an Achilles tendon in Might, the New York Knicks and Cleveland Cavaliers enter because the East’s prime contenders.
The Knicks have a brand new coach in Mike Brown, who might be tasked with discovering a lineup that really works. The Cavaliers received 64 video games final season to earn the highest seed within the East, however accidents contributed to their exit in simply the second spherical of the playoffs. The group that knocked them out, the Indiana Pacers, is extensively anticipated to take a step again after star guard Tyrese Haliburton tore his Achilles tendon in the course of the finals.
Key storylines
Begin in Los Angeles, the place Luka Doncic is starting his first full season with the Lakers following final season’s surprising commerce from Dallas. The Lakers are at a transition level in that their future will now be deliberate across the 26-year-old Doncic’s timeline and prime years and never James, for the primary time since he joined the group in 2018.
The all-time scoring chief, and an NBA champion with three completely different franchises, James has achieved all the pieces doable in his profession. However his twenty third season will mark one thing new, too — the primary time he might be taking part in on an expiring contract. The place that leaves James and the Lakers on the commerce deadline, or offseason, stays the topic of intense hypothesis.
In Dallas the primary total choose of June’s draft, Cooper Flagg, will enter the season underneath excessive expectations. The 6-foot-9 Flagg averaged 19.2 factors, 7.5 rebounds and 4.2 assists in his lone season at Duke whereas successful nationwide honors for participant of the 12 months, and since coming into the NBA has added a goatee and extra ballhandling tasks, as a result of Dallas might be with out injured level guard Kyrie Irving till probably the late winter. Flagg received’t flip 19 till Dec. 21.
One other former No. 1 choose in Texas, Victor Wembanyama, has been cleared to play once more after experiencing blood clots final season. Wembanyama, 21, enters his fourth season in San Antonio underneath rising expectations. The NBA’s longest-tenured coach, Gregg Popovich, has moved right into a front-office position, with former Spurs assistant Mitch Johnson his successor. Johnson is aware of Wembanyama is a one-man top-five protection, however how will the offense look because it blends Wembanyama, rookie Dylan Harper and veteran guard De’Aaron Fox, as soon as Fox returns from an harm?
Accidents in Boston and Indiana and harm rehabilitation in Philadelphia have put the Knicks and Cavaliers seemingly on a glide course to the playoffs within the East, however Detroit, Atlanta and Orlando, which pulled off an enormous offseason commerce for Memphis sharpshooter Desmond Bane, are seen as up-and-coming threats probably prepared for a breakthrough.
However the greatest story within the East facilities on Milwaukee, the place the Bucks are desperately making an attempt to make sure that star Giannis Antetokounmpo desires to stay with the franchise. League insiders don’t contemplate an Antetokounmpo commerce imminent, however they do contemplate such a transfer as having the kind of domino impact that might reshape the league and its contenders.
New rule
Gamers that fireside a “heave” on the finish of 1 / 4 received’t see their taking pictures proportion penalized.
A brand new rule this season modifications how some statistics are stored. Performs that start within the backcourt and lead to a shot taken within the closing three seconds of the primary three quarters, from not less than 36 ft away, will rely as a group try, not a person shot.
Investigation drama
In an offseason report by the podcast “Pablo Torre Finds Out,” former workers of a green-bank startup referred to as Aspiration claimed the corporate’s profitable however beforehand undisclosed endorsement take care of Los Angeles Clippers star Kawhi Leonard was brokered as a method for the group to compensate Leonard whereas circumventing the league’s wage cap — one of many NBA’s most fiercely protected guidelines.
The NBA has employed a legislation agency to investigation the claims, which if confirmed may lead to a suspension of group proprietor Steve Ballmer, a group nice and even the voiding of Leonard’s contract. The extra layer to the drama is that the NBA’s All-Star recreation might be hosted as Ballmer’s year-old enviornment, Intuit Dome, in February.
NBA has its eyes overseas
NBA commissioner Adam Silver and his prime deputy held conferences this summer season in London and Paris aimed toward bringing the league’s European enlargement plans nearer to actuality.
The NBA has been engaged on a mannequin that would come with 14-16 groups, the vast majority of which might be everlasting golf equipment in cities like London, Paris and Berlin. Groups may additionally win their method into, and lose their method out of, the league’s remaining spots, which borrows from the relegation and promotion mannequin that’s central to European soccer leagues.
The league’s conferences this summer season have been with non-public fairness companies, political leaders together with U.Okay. Prime Minster Keir Starmer and golf equipment resembling Turkey’s Galatasaray, Germany’s Alba Berlin, and Spain’s Actual Madrid.
Easy methods to watch video games has modified
New 11-year media rights offers signed between the NBA and broadcast companions NBC, ABC/ESPN and Amazon kick on this season, altering how video games might be watched.
For NBC, it’s the primary time NBA video games will air on the community since 2002. NBC and its streaming platform, Peacock, will air 100 regular-season video games, NBA All-Star Weekend and playoff video games, as effectively. Peacock will host video games on Monday, and NBC and Peacock each will air video games on Tuesday. As well as, beginning at midseason, NBC/Peacock will air video games Sunday evening.
Solely ESPN will carry video games on Wednesdays. Beginning at midseason ESPN and ABC may also carry evening video games on Fridays and Saturdays and Sunday afternoon matchups.
The third broadcast companion is a brand new one: Amazon Prime. It’s going to carry video games on Friday, and beginning at midseason may also air video games Thursdays and Saturday afternoon.
The most important change on account of the brand new broadcast offers is that for the primary time since 1984, Turner Sports activities and its cable community, TNT, will now not host video games. However TNT’s uber-popular studio present, “Contained in the NBA,” will nonetheless dwell on at ESPN.
