Title: NBA Preview: THE 26 PLAYERS WHO WILL DEFINE THE NBA SEASON
Date: October 21, 2025
Original Source: Sportsnet
Synopsis: In my latest at Sportsnet, I teamed up with Michael Grange to look at the 26 players who will define the 2025-26 NBA season.
A dynasty in the making? A historic MVP season? The emergence of the league’s next generational star? One last grasp at glory for the league’s senior-citizen superstars?
Or are we so firmly entrenched in the NBA’s great parity era that trying to make predictions is a fool’s errand and the only way to properly enjoy the 2025-26 NBA season is to sit back and let yourself be surprised?
Even though the Oklahoma City Thunder became the seventh different team to win a championship in the past seven years — the longest stretch in league history without a repeat winner — there is every reason to believe the small-market Thunder can stop all the parity talk cold by defending the title they won in seven games over Indiana in June. The main one: They are returning the top 12 players from a rotation that was the second-youngest ever to earn a championship, which suggests a 68-win team last season is only going to be getting better.
And what of 30-year-old Nikola Jokic? Can the Nuggets star win his fourth MVP award, joining Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Michael Jordan, Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain and LeBron James as the only players to walk that path to all-time greatness? Or will this be the Season of Wemby, where San Antonio Spurs star Victor Wembanyama shows the world that the future of basketball will be held in his very large hands? Among the obstacles he’ll have to navigate is a deep and competitive Western Conference, headed by the Thunder and Nuggets and with the Golden State Warriors and their roster of late-30-somethings also looking for one more ring.
The variables are too many to count, but the potential they present should make for a scintillating regular season and beyond. And however it plays out, these 26 names will be at the heart of the action when the ball goes up.
Blake Murphy Sports Writing 