As the 2025-26 NBA season unfolded, several teams and players defied expectations, captivating fans with their remarkable performances.
The 2025-26 NBA season delivered exactly the kind of chaos and brilliance that makes preseason predictions both thrilling and humbling. Several teams and players blew past expectations, reshaping the league’s power structure in ways few analysts saw coming.
Knicks’ Resurgence: From Lottery to Finals Contenders
Here’s a look back at some of the boldest preseason calls heading into 2025-26 — and how they held up once the final buzzer sounded.
Few storylines in the 2025-26 season matched the sheer improbability of the New York Knicks’ run from fringe playoff contender to NBA Finals participant.
New York settled into the 3-seed after a bumpy regular season under first-year head coach Mike Brown, navigating stretches of inconsistency and roster-fit questions that kept them from locking up a higher seed. What followed in the postseason, however, was historic — the Knicks rattled off 11 consecutive wins and, by several advanced metrics, posted one of the most statistically dominant playoff runs in league history.
The path wasn’t clean. Brown drew 5 technical fouls and 2 ejections during the regular season, and the team’s early-season chemistry issues were well-documented. That the Knicks ironed out those problems before the playoffs speaks to the locker room’s resilience and Brown’s ability to make in-season adjustments when it mattered most.
The Rise of Jalen Johnson: A Star in the Making
New York’s turnaround resonated well beyond Madison Square Garden. The Knicks had spent years cycling through rebuilds, lottery picks, and false starts, making their Finals appearance a genuine cultural moment for a franchise and fan base that had been waiting decades for a legitimate title run.
Jalen Johnson’s emergence as an All-NBA Third Team selection in 2025-26 was one of the season’s most compelling individual stories — a player who had shown flashes of his ceiling finally putting it all together over a full 82-game stretch.
Johnson entered the season with three years of NBA experience under his belt in Atlanta, but 2025-26 was the year he stopped being a “watch list” name and started being a genuine building block conversation. The Hawks gave him the keys, and he delivered.
Johnson averaged 18.9 points, 10.0 rebounds, and 5.0 assists per game — a stat line that put him firmly in the all-around forward conversation — while adding 94 steals and 33 blocks on the defensive end. His two-way impact was the defining feature of his breakout campaign.
The raw volume numbers underscored just how much Johnson was asked to carry. He logged 164,758 total seconds on the floor while accumulating 1,738 points, 787 rebounds, and 596 assists across the season — workload numbers that reflect both his durability and Atlanta’s reliance on him as the offensive hub.
Nuggets’ Dynamic Duo Shines Bright
Johnson was a top-20 pick out of high school with significant expectations attached to his name from day one. The fact that his breakout came through consistent effort and skill refinement rather than a single viral moment makes it one of the more satisfying development arcs in recent Hawks history.
Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray kept the Denver Nuggets humming in 2025-26, delivering another season that reinforced why their partnership remains one of the most productive in the Western Conference.
Both players earned All-Star nods, continuing a run of recognition that reflects not just individual brilliance but the kind of sustained excellence that defines elite NBA duos over multiple seasons.
Jokic’s numbers were, predictably, absurd. He finished the season with 1,954 points, 915 rebounds, and 754 assists — a combination that would put him in MVP territory in virtually any other era — while posting a plus-541 net rating, the kind of figure that illustrates just how much better Denver is when he’s on the floor.
Raptors Defy Expectations, Soar to New Heights
Murray matched Jokic’s production with 2,047 points on 703 made field goals and 569 assists, reinforcing his status as one of the league’s most dangerous secondary creators. Together, the two gave Denver a legitimate case as a top-four seed and a genuine threat to make noise deep into May and June.
The Toronto Raptors entered 2025-26 with modest expectations and responded by locking up a top-6 seed in the Eastern Conference — a result that caught most of the league off guard.
Toronto’s formula was built on defensive discipline and offensive balance rather than star-driven isolation. The Raptors scored 2,702 points in the third quarter alone across the season, a figure that points to a team that consistently came out of halftime ready to impose its will — a hallmark of well-coached, high-IQ rosters.
The team’s collective approach showed up across the board: 2,601 assists and 786 steals over the full season reflect a system that prioritizes ball movement and active defense over individual heroics. The veteran leadership in the locker room gave the younger pieces a framework to operate within, and the results spoke for themselves.
Hornets’ Rookies Take the League by Storm
Toronto’s playoff berth was a reminder that the Eastern Conference remains deep and unpredictable, and that teams built on culture and system can still compete with rosters carrying bigger individual names and larger payrolls.
Charlotte’s rookie class made an immediate impact in 2025-26, with the Hornets’ top two first-year players both earning spots on the All-Rookie Team — a double selection that validated the franchise’s draft strategy heading into the season.
The Hornets’ offensive identity leaned heavily on spacing and pace, and the rookies fit that mold from the jump. Charlotte knocked down 1,373 three-pointers as a team — a volume that signals a commitment to modern offensive principles — and the young players contributed meaningfully to that output from early in the season.
