The most deserving All-NBA teams for 2025-26

I had an epiphany this week.

Eh, epiphany is too glamorous a word. Take the Instagram filter off, and it’s more like I belatedly came to a stunningly obvious conclusion. I’m not an awards voter. So why the f*** am I limiting myself to the NBA’s stupid 65-game rule for these columns?

I’ve traditionally called this article the “most deserving” All-NBA teams. How could I name it that and leave off guys who miss qualifying by fewer minutes than a Scrubs episode?¹ I can’t. Unless the league surprises us all and grants Luka Doncic’s and Cade Cunningham’s planned “exceptional circumstances” appeals (I wouldn’t hold my breath; despite his other, more legitimate absences, Doncic could have qualified if he hadn’t been suspended a game for accruing too many technical fouls², and Cunningham’s collapsed lung, while rare, is still just an injury incurred during normal play)³, this year’s All-NBA Teams will be an absolute sham.

There needs to be a historical record of who really deserved it. Think of the basketball historians sifting through the physical and digital wreckage of society in 50 years, trying to figure out what the hell happened to NBA awards in the mid-2020s. Someone needs to be brave enough to name the 15 best players in the Association this season. I volunteer as tribute.

So I’m throwing off the 65-game shackles. That does not mean that games played don’t count at all; Giannis Antetokounmpo won’t be making my ballot after missing more than half the season. But guys like Cunningham and Doncic? You’d better believe they make it.

Forgive me for the lack of consistency with previous awards, but hopefully you’ll agree that this is better late than never. History needs a record of the real 2025-26 NBA season.

[Oh, and quick note: Don’t forget to check out Good Take, the podcast I co-host for RealGM Radio! Yesterday, we covered the playoffs’ biggest X-Factors (Denver and Detroit fans, this one’s for you), how to weigh off-court behavior in awards voting, and a potential Cavs-Hawks playoff matchup. Listen and subscribe at Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, YouTube, and/or anywhere else. Thanks!]

First Team All-NBA

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Oklahoma City Thunder

Nikola Jokic, Denver Nuggets

Victor Wembanyama, San Antonio Spurs

Luka Doncic, Los Angeles Lakers

Cade Cunningham, Detroit Pistons

It’s wild that the bottom three of this group potentially might not qualify in real life (and Jokic still needs one more game, although he has no health issues at the moment — knock on wood).

I already laid out the MVP cases for SGA, Jokic, and Wemby. Read that here. Luka Doncic, too, is a no-brainer. He’s leading the league in scoring by more than two points per game⁴ on nearly 62% true shooting, throwing ridiculous dimes, attacking the boards, and is even tied with two All-Defensive team candidates with 1.6 steals per game.

It’s a shame that late-season injuries have decimated the Lakers’ playoff chances; I would have liked to see if a full-strength Los Angeles squad could have shocked the world against San Antonio in a second-round matchup. Alas, Doncic will have to settle for being on the Poetry All-NBA teams, the sole source of basketball truth.

The fifth spot was difficult. Kawhi Leonard, Donovan Mitchell, and Cade Cunningham all had strong cases. Mitchell has played more than the other two, but he’s not quite as good defensively on a night-to-night basis. Leonard has been a two-way monster, but he’s not nearly the playmaker that Cunningham is — and I’m demeriting him for his role in the Aspiration scandal.

All Cunningham has done is prop up a shooting-deficient offense to top-10 levels and lead Detroit to the apex of the East. The Pistons with Cunningham on the floor are an elite +11.0 team, compared to +8.6 for Leonard and +6.6 for Mitchell. And for as much as we like to talk about Doncic’s passing, Cunningham is averaging 30% more potential assists (17.5 per game, behind only Jokic). That’s a lot! Like Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Cunningham’s strong defensive performances are both enabled and overshadowed by even better defenders around him. Still, he’s a key part of the league’s second-best unit on that end. He gets the nod.

Second Team All-NBA

Kawhi Leonard, Los Angeles Clippers

Donovan Mitchell, Cleveland Cavaliers

Anthony Edwards, Minnesota Timberwolves

Jaylen Brown, Boston Celtics

Jamal Murray, Denver Nuggets

Leonard and Mitchell both made my MVP ballot, constrained though it was, so they’re locks here. Leonard’s having arguably the best offensive season of his illustrious career, and he’s bounced back to near-peak defensive form. It’s scary. Mitchell gets the prettiest buckets in the league and has steadied an up-and-down, injury-ravaged Cavs team all season.

IRL, Anthony Edwards is a casualty of the 65-game rule, but he’s been too dominant to ignore. The defense has waned a little more than it’s waxed this season, but he’s in the midst of his second straight year as one of the league’s absolute best three-point shooters, and he’s finally figured out how to leverage his prolific skills and athletic gifts into Martha Stewart craft at the rim (71%!):

There isn’t a player in the league with a bigger disconnect between their advanced numbers (which are still quite good, to be clear) and the eye test than Jaylen Brown, whose case is diminished by consistently poor on/off numbers, inattentive off-ball defense, and meh shooting efficiency.

But the Celtics still boast a +6.0 net rating with Brown on the floor, a mark on par with many other Second- and Third-Teamers, and there aren’t many offensive players who can physically enforce their will upon a game as dramatically. He’s having the best passing and best rebounding season of his career, and he and likely Coach of the Year Joe Mazzulla deserve a lot of credit for refusing to do anything other than win. Even the rosiest preseason projections expected the Celtics to be somewhere around the sixth seed; Brown’s ascendance has raised the team’s floor and its ceiling.

I wish I’d given Jamal Murray a little more love for Most Improved. It’s rare to see an already good player set career marks in everything (points, assists, rebounds, three-point percentage and attempts, free throws drawn, etc.) as a 28-year-old! The notoriously slow starter came into the season looking trim as a Christmas tree, and he never lost a step, even through Denver’s myriad absences. Most notably, the Nuggets finally — finally! — figured out how to score without Jokic. With Murray and without Jokic, the Nuggets still put up 116.5 points per 100 possessions, a slightly above-average mark. That’s a big reason they survived that Jokic-less stretch in the middle of the season.

Third Team All-NBA

Kevin Durant, Houston Rockets

Tyrese Maxey, Philadelphia 76ers

Jalen Johnson, Atlanta Hawks

Jalen Brunson, New York Knicks

Chet Holmgren, Oklahoma City Thunder

Like Leonard, I’m penalizing Kevin Durant one Team for his absolutely atrocious interpersonal skills (leadership matters!), but the on-court production remains pristine. How is a 37-year-old whose shot diet consists entirely of corn-syrupy jumpers still averaging 25.9 points per game on 52/41/88 percent shooting splits? It scrabbles the mind. And while Durant isn’t the defender he once was, he still grades out positively and consistently nabs sneaky blocks.

I thought about including a GIF of Durant’s shotmaking, but it all looks the same. Pull-up jumper from the free-throw line or turnaround middie from the right shoulder. You can envision them. So can defenders; they just can’t stop them.

Is Tyrese Maxey the most likable superstar in the league? He’s all giggles and daggers, marrying newfound defensive playmaking (Maxey is one of just 15 players on Basketball Reference with a steal and a block rate greater than 2.0% this season!) with his blurring scoring. Sonic the Hedgehog plays Tyrese Maxey videogames.

Maxey has added some unusual finishes to his repertoire, including a scooping lefty cloud-grazer:

He’s also averaging a career-high assist rate. Although bouts of tunnel vision still pop up, it’s hard to blame a guy for the occasional mistake when he’s leading the league in minutes per game.

Jalen Brunson hasn’t been quite as efficient as last season, when he received a smattering of down-ballot MVP votes, but he’s still one of the best offensive engines in the game. He never turns it over and has shown a new willingness to simply be a part of the offense, rather than the center of it. That’s not about his usage, which is the same as last season. It’s about moving off the ball, setting the extra screen, throwing the easy pass rather than dribbling the ball into dust. My favorite Brunson stat: Last year, he averaged a snooze-inducing 6.04 dribbles per touch, most in the league. This year, it’s down to 4.86.

I’ve always loved Jalen Johnson’s all-around game. Most nights, there’s almost nothing he can’t do, as his 23/10/8 line on an above-average 1.17 points per shot indicates. The only thing keeping him from even loftier heights is stringing everything together a little more consistently, particularly on the defensive end, where he’s fallen some. But he’s still had a season great enough to convince an Executive of the Year candidate to reorient the entire team around him.

I had those 14 players well above the rest. My final spot came down to one of three people. I went with Chet Holmgren, the ultimate 3-and-Der. Holmgren finished second in my DPOY rankings. He’s a capable floor spacer averaging nearly 18 points per game. And he’s become a surprisingly stout rebounder (84th percentile for big men in defensive rebounding rate despite playing half his time as a power forward!). Add it all up, and he’s top-10 in many of the acronyms, like EPM and xRAPM.

James Harden is having yet another underrated, brutally efficient season, and Jalen Duren has blossomed on both ends, but neither quite brings the two-way ferocity that Holmgren does. If it makes Pistons fans feel better, I’m almost positive Duren will make an All-NBA team in real life.

Honorable Mentions: Jalen Duren, James Harden, Bam Adebayo, LaMelo Ball (whose on-court impact belies relatively pedestrian efficiency and box score stats), Deni Avdija, Devin Booker (awesome recently but got hot just a little too late), Scottie Barnes, Derrick White, Karl-Anthony Towns, OG Anunoby, Evan Mobley, Pascal Siakam, Paolo Banchero, and your favorite non-listed player, whom I’m sure I innocently forgot

1. I’ve mostly loved what I’ve seen of the new season; fight a wall if you disagree.

2. Is it too much to hope that this is a lesson-learned moment for Doncic?

3. Although, as I discussed on RealGM Radio, I could see the NBA granting these appeals if it’s planning to abolish the 65-game rule anyway. There’s been no indication that they want to, but keep an eye on that.

4. And is the leading scorer on a per-possession basis, too, although the gap is much closer.