The 2025-26 NBA season's happiest surprises

Fun broadcasts, LaMelo Ball, philosophy, Daniss Jenkins, and more

Folks, take a deep breath. We’ve made it.

82 games are in 30 different books. The play-in tournament begins tonight and concludes on Friday; real playoff basketball starts on Saturday.

I’ll have playoff previews coming for you at the end of the week, but before the postseason inevitably leaves a sour taste in the mouths of millions of fans, I wanted to take a look back at some of the happy surprises from the season.

Don’t worry, we’ll cover disappointments. And oh, there will be disappointments. I’m at the gym right now, working on my finger wagging. But I’ll wait until the playoff dust settles before I show off those muscles. For now, let’s stay positive.

This is very much a subjective exercise based on internal expectations, so comment below with your most pleasant surprises!

1) A healthy LaMelo Ball

It’s terrifying to consider, but the Miami Heat (or the 76ers or Magic) could summarily end Charlotte’s intoxicating season with one hot night. Everyone is rooting for Charlotte, even some people in South Beach, who just want to see this up-and-down Heat season end with a stake in its heart.

Hopefully, Charlotte advances from postseason to playoffs. But even if they don’t, this season has been a tangible proof of concept. Something here works. And for all of Kon Knueppel’s shooting, Brandon Miller’s two-way development, and Moussa Diabate’s euphoric antler celebrations, it’s Ball’s reliability that steered the way.

I’ve long defended Ball, but that was partly based on projection. What would Ball look like on a competitive team? He’d need to take away one bad shot per game (one is enough; part of Ball’s effectiveness is his mischievous lack of regard for basketball convention). He’d need to try harder on defense. And he’d need to stay out of walking boots.

Mission accomplished on all fronts. Ball has cleared an expert-level limbo bar by playing the best defense of his life; his usage and turnover rates have dropped; and he has played 72 games. 72 games is more than he’d tallied in his previous two seasons combined! You can’t impact games if you don’t play, so some people were beginning to forget just how good a healthy Ball can be.

There are similarities here to Tyrese Haliburton. The statistics will never quite do justice to their impact on their teammates. Players play harder and better when the ball dances around, when there is a little bit of faerie magic sprinkled on the court. Ball chucks fistfuls of it, willy-nilly:

And I can’t stop laughing at his complete disregard for shooting mechanics. Ball’s feet on any given three-pointer look like someone playing QWOP (iykyk):

We’re all better off when Ball is playing ball.

2) Great new broadcast partners

I can’t really overstate how great the new media broadcast partners have been.

Amazon Prime and NBC/Peacock have featured fantastic on-air talent (Udonis Haslem, Blake Griffin, Maria Taylor, Jamal Crawford, Ashley ShahAhmadi, and many more), some cool presentation flourishes, and, most importantly, new ideas for showcasing the game.

People don’t fully appreciate how much the old TNT/ESPN shows have damaged the NBA’s brand. Sure, I know everyone loved Kenny and Chuck and Shaq and EJ. However, I genuinely believe they are responsible for a significant chunk of the negative tenor in casual discourse around the game today.

Their constant disparagement of the current game and its players over the years have slowly, insidiously poisoned an entire fanbase against the product. “Inside the NBA” was about “Inside the NBA”, not the NBA. (And the less said about the desultory efforts of ESPN, the better.)

To have studio shows that are insightful, fun, and genuinely appreciative of the modern game has been such an unbelievable breath of fresh air; I hadn’t fully appreciated how stale the oxygen had been before.

(Side note: This doesn’t seem to be a popular opinion, but I’ve really grown to enjoy the weird split booth on Peacock that puts Austin Rivers on one team’s bench and Robbie Hummel on the other. Sure, the broadcast can be a little disjointed, but they have garnered some interesting soundbites and tidbits from being so close to the action!)

Peacock and Prime’s successes even caught the eye of their main competitor. ESPN attempted to rise to the challenge this season, as the additions of (now departed) Michael Malone and Tim Legler elevated the actual basketball talk. They tried new things. For example, their awkward VR strategy segments were hardly flawless, but there’s clear potential there.

But Peacock and Prime are the clear leaders in broadcast quality. As long as NBC promises never again to exhume Michael Jordan’s corpse for a shambolic interview, I’ll keep cheerleading the experience.

3) A philosophical Rookie of the Year race

I’ve already talked enough about the rookies in question, but it’s so fun that Kon Knueppel versus Cooper Flagg has been an actual basketball storyline for nearly the whole season. You have to go back to the 2021-22 season, when Evan Mobley, Scottie Barnes, and Cade Cunningham battled, for the last rookie race that was even remotely tight.

This one is arguably even more interesting because of the philosophical differences in the two candidacies! Knueppel’s ability to score a lot without missing a lot for a good basketball team has introduced new variables into the Rookie of the Year equation. The award’s framework is suddenly far more three-dimensional. Counting stats, efficiency, team success, career potential. All of these must be considered, some in ways they’ve never been before. It’s exciting to see voters and media members grappling with new ideas around something with decades of heavy history. It’s something I’ve struggled with, in the best possible way.

Here’s hoping that we get another fantastic finish with next year’s crop of highly regarded rooks.

4) Daniss Jenkins

Jenkins has been the perfect totem for the Pistons as a whole. He’s — scrappy feels too patronizing, too head-patty — snarly? He’s snarly, in your face with both the defense and the trash talk. He’s hit big shots all season long, flashed some playmaking chops, and stepped up his game when Cade Cunningham sat with a collapsed lung and other ailments. It’s been a heavenly season for the former St. John’s player, who appeared in only seven matches last year.

Detroit has wildly exceeded expectations. Everyone on the payroll deserves credit. But they’re also a team that Vegas thinks is fraudulent. I disagree, but I understand why. So many of the core rotation players are bricklayers!

We’ll see how shaky shooters like Ausar Thompson, Ron Holland, Javonte Green, and Kevin Huerter (not a mistaken inclusion in this list) do in the playoffs, when non-perimeter-threats have become increasingly marginalized. I think, or at least I hope, that Detroit’s strengths are strong enough to outweigh that weakness, at least for the first few rounds.

If the lights prove too bright for some of the bigger names on the roster, expect to see a heavy dose of Jenkins. He’s not as big as Holland, Thompson, or Green, and he’s not as quick-trigger as Huerter or Duncan Robinson, but he might be the team’s most well-rounded supporting guard.

5) An active trade deadline

All year, we heard rumblings that this trade deadline would live up to its name as teams grappled with the difficulty of trading under the Aprons Dreadful. There were a few days near the end when the rumor mills were as quiet as the grave.

But there’s simply too much friction in the league for inaction — unhappy players, nervous GMs, angry owners. Sparks will always fly. 27 teams ended up making at least one deal, and while nothing will ever top the shock value of the Luka Doncic trade from last year, there were a number of eyebrow-raising moves involving big names.

Jaren Jackson Jr. to the Jazz. Jonathan Kuminga for Kristaps Porzingis in a distressed-asset swap. The Cavs and Clippers trading point guard old for point guard new in James Harden for Darius Garland. The Bulls collecting every single small guard in the game like Pokémon, and yet somehow trading the best one (Coby White) away for peanuts and Rattatas.

Anthony Davis and Trae Young (not at the deadline, but still!) to the Wizards. Ivica Zubac for a delectably protected pick that could give the Clippers a top-five draft selection this year. Jared McCain to the Thunder, Ayo Dosunmu to the Wolves, Keon Ellis and Dennis Schroder to the Cavs.

That’s a non-comprehensive list of impactful moves made this year, and it’s a serious roster.

A trade liveline is good for business, both personal (you people love yourselves a good trade grade!) and more broadly. It keeps the NBA near the top of the news cycle even during events like Super Bowl week. And it adds a dash of spice to the middle of the season.

Count me in for next year, please.

6) The Boston Celtics

We’ve already talked about Boston plenty and will do so plenty more in the coming weeks. But still.

We’ve got Baylor Scheierman credibly defending Tyrese Maxey and Luka Doncic. We’ve got Hugo Gonzalez, the tree-trunk-legged Spanish rookie drafted 28th overall, becoming a net rating gawd despite almost literally never touching or passing the ball (2nd percentile for usage rate, 0th percentile for assist rate). We’ve got Jordan Walsh attacking the offensive glass like it insulted his mother. We’ve got Neemias Queta turning into a legitimate NBA starter and defensive force. We’ve got Luka Garza hitting one of the most audacious daggers I’ve seen in some time:

The surprise isn’t only that this team was so good. It’s that the Celtics were so fun!

I also want to shout out the Phoenix Suns, in particular, for turning themselves from an offseason laughingstock into a hard-nosed, blue-collar team almost overnight. They’re a lot of fun to watch, and I’ll be rooting for them to emerge from the play-in.

7) A leveled-off three-point attempt rate

Here’s something interesting. For the first time in a few seasons, the number of three-pointers attempted was actually lower both per-possession and per-game than last year.

A lot of people, including players, coaches, and media partners, think the NBA is too three-point heavy. My issue isn’t really the number of threes. It’s the risk of stylistic homogeneity. My dream is an Association where one team can shoot 100 threes and another can shoot zero, and both are equally viable ways to win.

While that’s not happening anytime soon, it is comforting to know that the three-point rate has momentarily plateaued. Players keep getting better and better at shooting from deep, but theoretically, that means defenders have to stay even tighter, which opens up more driving lanes and increases the value of two-pointers. Your mileage may vary here, but I’d like to think those things can find an equilibrium that isn’t too far removed from where we are now.