26 Increasingly Bold Predictions for the 2026-27 NBA Season
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After one of the more shocking, memorable, and landscape-shifting offseasons in recent history, the NBA is back on Tuesday, finally, in all its glory. With the return of basketball comes so many meaningful changes to a league that’s never felt more difficult to forecast. But that won’t stop us from trying.
Welcome to the fourth annual installment of my Increasingly Bold Predictions column! Nothing here should be that confusing. We begin subdued. We then get a little rambunctious. We end in a state of hysteria. Remember: In today’s NBA, the line that separates impossible from realistic can be invisible to the naked eye. Pretty much anything is plausible if you’re willing to delude yourself, which is exactly what I spent way too much time doing over the last few weeks. Let’s dive in.
We’ll start by connecting two related predictions that are much closer to a formality than a reach. San Antonio’s next championship and Wembanyama’s first MVP are “when” not “if” propositions. Will they happen this season? Next year? How many times before 2030? In a league that lacks certainty, this is as close to a foregone conclusion as we’re going to get.
Assuming Wemby is able to stay healthy for at least 65 regular-season games and then remain upright for another deep playoff run, he should obliterate everyone who crosses his path as an even more skilled, confident, and hungry megastar than the one who carried San Antonio to the brink of a championship last June.
This man is 22 years old, coming off a breakout season that saw him lead a team that went 62-20 with a top-3 offense, defense, and net rating. He finished third in MVP voting, boasted the widest on/off differential in the league , and won his first Defensive Player of the Year trophy with a unanimous vote. Watching Wembanyama flourish on a nightly basis was, without hyperbole, one of the more transcendent visual experiences I’ve ever had as a sports fan. Who knew it could be so thrilling to watch a guard dribble into the paint, sense how hopeless their approach was, and then U-turn back out to the perimeter?
With Wemby at the helm, still improving in every possible way, the Spurs wisely decided to run it back. Everyone from last year’s playoff rotation was retained. No trades were made and their lone meaningful free agent signing was Tobias Harris, who’ll enhance a bench and locker room that could use more experience and shotmaking.
Altogether, having fumbled away the Finals in excruciating fashion, this is shaping up to be an epic revenge tour. Dylan Harper and Stephon Castle are on the cusp of becoming this league’s most dynamic, physical, and explosive backcourt tandem. De’Aaron Fox was an All-Star last season and, despite popular belief, remains a very good point guard. It’s a team that was ahead of schedule last year, and is now, at worst, right on time. (Bonus prediction: If/when Harper gets bumped into the starting five, Devin Vassell will go to the bench instead of Fox.)
Without Jayson Tatum for all but 16 games last season, the Celtics still finished second in offensive rating. It was kind of amazing. They didn’t have a top-10 true shooting percentage, but launched a ton of 3s, bumrushed the offensive glass, and rarely turned the ball over. A disciplined, data-driven formula for success. Now, with 100 percent healthy Tatum back in the fold to, if not replace Jaylen Brown’s production, effectively enhance an offense that already sparkled without him, Boston’s ceiling goes up several notches. Paul George is a 3-point slinging second-side creator whose antsy off-ball defense, even at 36 years old, will spark more fast-break opportunities than the Celtics are used to. (They ranked 30th in transition frequency last season .)
Mitchell Robinson will do what he does as one of the greatest offensive rebounders in NBA history, generating a boatload of second-chance opportunities that fuel a rejuvenated 3-point attack. Watching him catch lobs and gobble up every miss around the rim during the preseason, Robinson felt like a cheat code in Boston’s starting lineup.
Reputed shooters—like Derrick White and Payton Pritchard—won’t have to shoulder the same amount of playmaking responsibilities that they endured last year sans Tatum. The result: Cleaner looks from behind the arc, more time to puncture rotating defenses, and the return of a more natural pecking order.
The Celtics can stagger Tatum and George, letting either one steer bench-heavy units that have plenty of shooting and at least one other capable ball handler (White, Pritchard, or Mike Conley) on the floor to organize sets and dictate pace. There’s just a ton of depth and so many options, both stylistically and with different lineup combinations. If Jordan Walsh starts, the Celtics will be able to bring Sam Hauser, Neemias Queta, and Pritchard off the bench, a trio that started most Celtics games last year and bludgeoned opposing defenses .
One of the bigger differences between Brown and Tatum is the breadth of choices Tatum provides as someone who can directly involve himself with or without the ball. He can, for example, set ball screens and, depending on how the defense plays it, either attack on a short roll, pop for a 3, or go one-on-one against a switch in the middle of the floor. He’s a huge forward with long arms and A+ defensive versatility. Every five-man unit makes sense with Tatum in it.
As they did last year,the Celtics will take care of the ball, launch a ton of 3s, and dominate the offensive glass. The big difference now is they have more/better players to execute those strengths. And if they play a little faster—as preseason numbers reflect—no team will make scoring the ball look easier. It’s a tried and true formula that’s yielded so much success over the past few years. Offensively, Boston’s roster is arguably the most idyllic collection of players Joe Mazzulla has ever coached.
The Pacers, owned by Herb Simon, haven’t paid the luxury tax in over 20 years . It’s a streak of frugality only matched by a couple other franchises, and speaks to how magical and unlikely their NBA Finals run was in 2025. But as of today, Indy is nearly $6 million above the tax line. It’d be a little stunning if they didn’t shave a little more than that amount from their payroll over the next nine months. I say this not as a reflection of the team’s ability (they could make another Finals run). It’s more about accepting how history suggests they’ll behave. Maybe that number stays put or climbs even higher. I wouldn’t bet on that happening, though, which is why we can’t rule out the possibility of Indiana simply dumping (the extension-eligible) Jarace Walker into another team’s trade exception.
I like Walker a lot , and think any team that could acquire him at a reasonable price should consider it. The six that make sense have some form of draft capital to offer and a trade exception that’s large enough to absorb his $8.4 million deal without getting blocked by a hard cap at the first or second apron: Houston, Boston, Detroit, Charlotte, Memphis, and Utah. Walker probably won’t swing a series, but he’s a versatile depth piece with tremendous two-way upside, length, and athleticism. If the Rockets, Celtics, Pistons, Jazz, or Hornets landed him, he’d be a fixture in their playoff rotation.
Relative to league average, the most maligned defense in the play-by-play era is the 2006 Seattle Supersonics. A historically imbalanced squad that could really score—Ray Allen and Rashard Lewis!—but allowed 7.82 more points per 100 possessions than the league average. These Kings may be even more feeble. Zach LaVine, Domantas Sabonis, Malik Monk, and De’Andre Hunter are four of their most important players. All are subpar—a relatively kind adjective—defenders at their respective positions. Darius Acuff Jr. is an undersized rookie guard who looked either lost or disengaged on that end in pretty much every clip I saw of him at Arkansas. Ben Simmons was, by many miles, their most reliable defender before he ruptured his Achilles over the weekend.
It’s dark. Last season, Sacramento had the third-worst defense and ranked dead last in defensive rating when competing against teams that ranked in the bottom-10 in offensive rating. Those opponents registered an effective field goal percentage of 56.3. Translation: They helped some of the NBA’s least-efficient clubs look like a team full of Luka Doncic clones .
It’s a small sample, but one that generally carries over from their entire time together: In 351 minutes with LaVine and Sabonis on the court, the Kings were ripped to shreds, allowing 130 points per 100 possessions. I’m almost looking forward to seeing the levels of obliviousness that are reached when Acuff gets thrown into an environment that, last seen, barely resembled professional basketball. LaVine’s concern for getting stops when he’s off the ball is remarkable. There were plays last year when he looked like a housecat trying to catch a laserpointer:
His indifference is the stuff of legend. Look at everything LaVine does to help Minnesota’s offense below. He’s a full second late to react whenever the Timberwolves do pretty much anything:
This calls for some kind of prescriptive therapy. Or, at the very least, some life advice from George Costanza. If every decision LaVine made was the exact opposite of his first instinct, Sacramento might find a taker before the trade deadline. Extend that philosophy out to every high-level employee in the Kings organization, and by this time next year we might have a lurking title contender.
I wrote a deeper piece about Flagg’s potential leap earlier this month, but the gist here is a reminder that we’re dealing with a generational prodigy who should exist in our consciousness the same way LeBron James, Kevin Durant, and Luka Doncic once did. It’s hard to garner attention when Victor Wembanyama already exists as an unparalleled evolutionary superstar, but Flagg deserves a spotlight. He’s a truly special teenager.
Preseason Power Rankings, Part 6 (Feat. Chris Ryan)