The 2025-2026 All-Poetry Team

Stephon Castle, Elijah Harkless, Moussa Diabaté, and seven other players I loved watching this year

The end-of-year accolades are fast approaching. But before we dig into the numbers for things like All-Defensive Teams and MVP, I wanted to talk about the 10 fellas that I enjoyed watching the most this season.

I’m leaving off the obvious, All-NBA choices. We’d all love to mainline guys like Nikola Jokic, Victor Wembanyama, and Donovan Mitchell into our bloodstreams every night, but superstars aren’t the only eyeball magnets. I also typically don’t include rookies, since it’s natural to be curious about them (apologies to Boston’s Hugo Gonzalez and Washington’s Jamir Watkins, both of whom would have made it otherwise). And I try not to have guys I’ve put on previous lists, which excludes players like Naji Marshall.

This isn’t a list of great players; several aren’t even all that good. But for one reason or another, something about them always drew my attention. My type becomes pretty clear doing this exercise. I like highlight dunks, hard defense, scrappitude, attitude. If that sounds like the tagline for a millennial teenybopper toy brand, well, so be it.

Apparently, I skipped 2024, but here are my lists from 2025, 2023, and 2022, in case you’re curious.

Feel free to chime in with your favorite viewing experiences in the comments!

All-Poetry First Team

Moussa Diabaté, Charlotte Hornets

Made entirely out of scrap metal and springs, Moose makes opponents double-check that they’ve gotten their tetanus shot. He is one of the easiest guys to root for in the NBA.

Eric Collins and Dell Curry, the Hornets’ broadcast crew, love him. His teammates love him. The fans really love him. His goofy moose-antlers celebration is hilariously earnest and endearing.

Only person I can think of who doesn’t love Diabaté is Jalen Duren.

So many fans sitting at home like to think they would try harder than the average NBA player, despite the fact that they can’t keep a Duolingo streak going longer than a week. I find that train of thought insulting to NBA players generally, but Diabaté proves that maybe some dudes really do have an extra gear.

“All I do is crash into other people,” Diabaté once said, but that’s far too modest. Remember when we thought the Hornets’ center rotation would be a disaster? Diabaté has been an above-average starting center, per EPM (barely, but I’m pushing a narrative here). He’s also a major part of a Charlotte Hornets’ starting lineup that’s spanking everyone they face.

And it’s rare, but every once in a while, Diabaté will whip out a move so pretty you hope it’s insured:

Let’s go ahead and give Diabaté the captain’s “C” for this year.

Ron Holland, Detroit Pistons

Holland is a ravenous beast, a hellhound sent from the hot place to make ballhandlers’ lives miserable. Few players can combine his size (6’8”) with such skittery lateral movement. Holland doesn’t actually force the turnover here, but look at how he teleports to the side and knocks Devin Vassell’s dribble out of bounds:

The funny thing? He got the steal on the ensuing inbounds play, because of course he did.

(Side note: If you know someone in your life who complains that NBA teams “don’t play defense anymore,” I want you to force them, Clockwork Orange style, to watch Pistons/Spurs from February 23rd, 2026. That game had some of the greatest defensive plays you’ll ever see in one 48-minute package.)

Holland is still very limited offensively, but he has his fair share of highlight dunks in transition, too. And he’s a premier agitator, getting under opponents’ skin with physicality and ceaseless chatter. Whenever he’s on the hardwood, you know that something is going down.

Elijah Harkless, Utah Jazz

Harkless doesn’t get much burn (shooting 32% from the field might be a contributing factor), but by the basketball gods does he make the most of it. There isn’t a single player I’ve watched with a higher “Holy f***!”-to-minute ratio, and that includes all the superstars.

Harkless is 6’3” but strong as a creatine-addicted ox. He locks guys up and melts the key. Coach Will Hardy has put him on everyone from Reed Sheppard to Jaylen Brown to Nikola Jokic (whom he irritated with constant deflections). He doesn’t just enjoy the tough assignments; he revels in them. Thorn in the lion’s paw, thy name is Harkless.

Watch how he stops Derrick White’s fast break with a poke from behind, pulls the chair on a driving Jaylen Brown, and contests the Payton Pritchard miss — all on one possession. That chair pull, in particular, should be hung in the defensive Louvre:

Harkless, sadly, won’t play enough minutes to earn a spot on my imaginary All-Defensive Team ballot, but that has nothing to do with his ability. I dearly wish that Utah’s player development system can wring enough out of him offensively so that he can become their version of Kris Dunn.

Jordan Miller, Los Angeles Clippers

The third-year Clipper wing had been one of Summer League’s top performers two seasons in a row, so I’d been waiting for him to get his chance. He didn’t find it so much as rip it from coach Ty Lue’s grasping paws.

Injuries slowed his start to the year, but Miller permanently entered the rotation with a 21-point performance against the Nets in January. He’s averaged 11.6 points per game since on 53% shooting from the field while chipping in a steal per night.

Those numbers don’t do justice to the sheer coolness that Miller exudes. I had to watch this video like three times to understand what he did to Kyshawn George here:

LA Clippers@LAClippers

we saw y’all talking about this move by Jordan Miller 👀🤯 crazy, huh?!? @QuickBooks | #ClipperNation

3:01 AM · Jan 19, 2026 · 258K Views

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44 Replies · 484 Reposts · 5.63K Likes

Miller has serious vertical pop and a knack for a ‘90s-era brand of scoring. He doesn’t have the quickest first step, but he’s strong and technically gifted. He’ll reverse-pivot into leaning fadeaways that role players aren’t typically capable of making (or allowed to take in the first place), or slow-step his way through a crowded lane to squeak out a layup, or fling up these awkward-looking yet somehow effective catapult floaters.

Miller isn’t the biggest reason the Clippers have stayed hot since trading away Harden for Darius Garland, but he’s not the smallest reason, either.

Stephon Castle, San Antonio Spurs