Bold predictions for 2026-27 NBA season: Victor Wembanyama double dips, a Knicks letdown, huge trades, more

The 2026-27 NBA season is upon us. Games start on Tuesday with a weird 3 p.m. ET start for Boston-Detroit, followed by the Knicks hosting the Sixers for their ring night and Thunder-Spurs in the nightcap. 

That's quite an Opening Day lineup, and it's a fitting start to a season that is going to give us incredible matchups and storylines for the next six months before what figures to be a wild postseason. Right now, there are no fewer than 14 teams who absolutely believe they can win the title. 

A few are probably fooling themselves, but not many. There have never been this many genuinely good teams in the NBA. The talent collection is as high and balanced as I've ever seen it. The title race, the awards races, they're all going to be intensely dramatic, just as this offseason was with all the blockbuster trades. 

There will be more to come on that front, too, because enough teams rightfully believe they are one move away and there are big names to be had. This season has the makings of an absolute roller coaster. Here are 15 bold predictions for what we're going to see along the way. 

Wemby wins MVP and DPOY

The second one will be unanimous unless Victor Wembanyama doesn't play in 65 games, in which case both of these predictions will be moot. But assuming he does, DPOY is a wrap. Anyone who checks a box for any other name should have their voting privileges stripped. 

If Wembanyama is to pull off the double feature and win his first MVP, however, he'll need to defy a pretty strong historical trend. As our Sam Quinn recently noted, every MVP since LeBron James in 2012 has checked two boxes: they have fallen between the ages of 24 and 28, and they were a First- or Second-Team All-NBA selection in the prior season. 

Wembanyama checks the latter box (he was First-Team All-NBA last year), but he doesn't turn 23 until January. The "not his time yet" narrative could be strong in a tight race, but even in a loaded field, I don't think it will be terribly close. Wembanyama and the Spurs are on a mission this season, and the dominance is going to be undeniable as he becomes the fourth player in NBA history to win MVP and DPOY in the same year, joining Hakeem Olajuwon, Michael Jordan and Giannis Antetokounmpo. I mean seriously, the guy is out here blocking shots on one end and throwing off-the-backboard alley-oops to himself on the other. 

There was always going to come a time when there would just be nothing anyone can do with Wembanyama. That time has arrived. 

Knicks won't win 50 games

I have the Knicks finishing outside the East's top four seeds. I don't think they'll get to 50 wins. They only won 53 last year and the competitive landscape is far tougher in the East this season, not to mention the new lottery odds incentivizing the bottom-dwelling teams to put up a more competitive nightly fight. 

The Knicks are built for the playoffs and they'll somewhat slow play their way there, but along the way, there will be a lot of trade chatter as their record underwhelms. We know Karl-Anthony Towns didn't get his extension and Josh Hart and Deuce McBride are also looking for their next deal. 

McBride is the likeliest to ultimately be traded, but Towns and Hart will start popping up on blog radars on click-value alone. These things can become almost rumored into existence. I don't think there's any chance Towns is actually dealt, but the vibes aren't great with all these deals undone, and the East is too good for New York to be anything less than totally focused every night. 

They'll pull it together by the playoffs, and I still have them making the Finals. But it will be a relatively sluggish regular season and some uncomfortable questions are going to inevitably be asked. 

LeBron averages career-low PPG

This has to be a season of sacrifice in Philadelphia. Tyrese Maxey will operate more off ball. Jaylen Brown should reprioritize defense. Joel Embiid will welcome a lighter load as his entire focus has to be on getting to the playoffs healthy. That leaves LeBron James, whose lowest career scoring average is 20.9 PPG, which he put up both last season and in his rookie year. 

This year, he's going well under that. My guess is somewhere between 16-18 PPG, depending on how the usage shares shake out. There is so much scoring in Philadelphia, but not a lot of passing. Except for LeBron, who could very well end up near the league leaders in assists as he prioritizes offensive orchestration. 

Luka Dončić averages career-high PPG

This is really saying something for a guy who has won two scoring titles averaging north of 33 PPG, but this year, he's going to 34 or even 35 PPG. The Lakers need it. They don't have a defense beyond Walker Kessler, so they will have to outscore teams to win. 

Dončić looks to be in great shape, and the Lakers are officially his team with LeBron off to Philadelphia. This is the true start of the Luka era in Los Angeles, and he's going to put up box office numbers every single night. For my money, Dončić is Wembanyama's stiffest competition for MVP. 

If you look at the criteria laid out above, he's 27 years old and has been First-Team All-NBA in six of the last seven seasons. If ever it has been a guy's time, it's his. I still think Wembanyama will win, but the scoring title (and Clutch Player of the Year to boot) are going to belong to Luka. 

Cooper Flagg makes All-NBA

Flagg was the youngest player in the entire league last year and had stretches during which he looked like an All-Star already. He'll make that distinction official this season, and I'll take it a step further: Flagg, who as a rookie was one of just 10 players to average at least 21 points, six rebounds and four assists, will make an All-NBA team in his sophomore season. 

Flagg, who put up 51 and 45 in consecutive April games and tallied the most 30-point games of any rookie in history, is a three-level scorer and, for my money, already the best floor-running big in the league. He defends. Dishes. Crashes. This year, 25-10-5 is in play. It's only fitting that the last player to make All-NBA in his second season was Luka Dončić in 2019. 

Dallas immediately stumbling into Flagg after tossing Luka out like a piece of trash is one of the grandest strokes of NBA luck this side of the Warriors watching the Timberwolves draft two point guards directly ahead of Stephen Curry. 

Celtics will be East's No. 1 seed

Boston won 56 games last year and there is every reason to believe they'll be better this year. Everyone makes it like they swapped Jaylen Brown for Paul George, but in reality, Jayson Tatum, who hardly played last season, will be replacing Brown in the lineup. That's an upgrade. 

Meanwhile, George replaces Anfernee Simons and Mitchell Robinson replaces Nikola Vučević. That's two more upgrades. George isn't nearly as good as Brown in a vacuum, obviously, but he could be a better fit as a lower-usage/better shooter option next to Tatum and inside Boston's drive-and-kick system. 

Now add in an even bigger year from Payton Pritchard (more on him shortly) with more usage available. Another year of development from Hugo Gonzalez, Baylor Scheierman and Neemias Queta, the latter of whom is going to pair with Robinson to make the Celtics a monster on the offensive glass, making the possession advantage of all their 3-pointers all the more potent. Joe Mazzulla's system is a regular-season cheat code, and this can also be a top-five defense. The lack of athleticism and rim pressure notwithstanding, I'm all over this Boston team. 

Rockets fly past 48.5 win total

Last week, I published my over/under win total predictions for the East and West, and if I had to pick the one in which I am most confident, it would be the Rockets. A number of factors are working in their favor, starting with the fact that they won 52 games last season with a worse team. They had no point guard and were sans Steven Adams, their most potent extra-possession weapon, for the entire second half of their schedule. Now they have Fred VanVleet (plus a sneaky great pickup in Marcus Smart) and Adams back. 

Now break down the anatomy of their 2025-26 results. They went 1-7 in overtime games, for instance. That's not likely to happen again, particularly with a more purposeful late-game offense under VanVleet's flag. Also, don't get too caught up in the lottery reform narrative as it pertains particularly to the Rockets, who were not a team feasting on tankers last season. 

Among the top 10 Western Conference teams, only the Clippers lost more games to below-.500 opponents last season than the Rockets, who dropped games to the Jazz, Pelicans, and the Mavericks, Kings and Blazers twice each during an extended December-January stretch.

Even modestly better fortune in coin-toss OT games and/or against the weakest competition puts the Rockets closer to 55 wins last season. Indeed, Cleaning the Glass pegged them as an expected 56-win team based on point differential; their 52 wins was about the worst outcome possible. And again, they are better this season with the assets to make a needle-moving trade should things not go well early. This is an easy over. 

Anthony Edwards wins 3-point crown

Edwards led the league two years ago with 320 3-pointers, and he's going to do it again this season thanks to his new quarterback LaMelo Ball, who raises the percentages of his shooters more than any player not named Nikola Jokić.

Let's do some math: Last year, Kon Kneuppel led the league with 270 3s. Edwards was 20th with 205 at a 39.9% clip, but he made 48% of his catch-and-shoot triples. The year before that, he made 44.4%. This year, he will get a lot more of these catch-and-shoots, so I'm predicting a career-high shooting percentage. Let's call it 42% and say Edwards plays in 70 games (up from 61 last year). If he gets back to the 10 3s that he attempted per game in 2024-25, that comes to 294 made 3s. 

I'll round that up to 300 and still call it conservative because I actually think there's a chance he shoots closer to 44-45% with the kinds of looks he's going to get, and he could also play in closer to 75 games. In the four years prior to last season, Edwards averaged 77 games played. Regardless, the 3-point crown is going back to Minnesota. 

Hornets make double 3-point history

The record for most 3-point attempts and makes in a single season belongs to the 2024-25 Boston Celtics, who put up 3,955 triples and made 1,497 of them. This year's Hornets will eclipse both marks.

Last year, the Hornets attempted 43.3 3s per game, second in the league to Golden State and five shy of the 48.2 that Boston jacked up in their record year. Charlotte lost LaMelo Ball and Miles Bridges, who combined to put up 16 3s per game last season, but they added three gunners in Grayson Allen, Royce O'Neale and Naz Reid, who combined to attempt 21.3 3s per game last season.

Add in Kon Knueppel, who led the league with 270 made 3s last year, Brandon Miller, who put up 8.2 per game and stands to tick up his scoring aggression this season in Ball's absence, and Coby White putting up his five a game and generating a lot more with his downhill attacks, and it is entirely within reason that the Hornets end up taking 50 3s a game this year. Combine that kind of volume with the fact that all these guys are high-percentage shooters, and Charlotte becomes a good bet to shoot its way into the record books. 

De'Aaron Fox will end up on the bench

It looks like the Spurs are going to start the three-guard lineup to begin the season, but that won't last. Fox is on a huge contract and was an All-Star last season. He's never been a diva, but NBA egos are delicate. Easing him into this demotion, if you want to call it that, is probably the right play as the Spurs have a lot of margin for error before the games get really serious. 

When they do, Fox will be coming off the bench. He just doesn't make sense alongside Dylan Harper, who is too good to go back to the bench, and Stephon Castle, who has never been there in the first place. All of those guys are drive-first players who are maximized with as much shooting around them as possible. 

That's why Julian Champagnie is ultimately the best fit in the starting lineup. He spaces the floor for the guards and Wembanyama to attack the paint. Last year, Spurs lineups with Champagnie, Wembanyama, Devin Vassell and two of the three guards outscored opponents by 17.6 points per 100 possessions. 

By contrast, the three-guard lineups, albeit in very small samples, were crushed to the tune of -29.9 in the regular season and -24.3 in the postseason, per Cleaning the Glass. San Antonio's best five is two guards (Harper and Castle), two shooters (Vassell and Champagnie) and Wembanyama, with Fox slotting into the Manu Ginóbili overqualified sixth-man role. That's where this is headed. The Spurs are just going to do it slowly, if they don't find a trade partner for Fox and do away with the problem entirely. 

Kyrie Irving will be traded

It just makes too much sense. He's not on Dallas' timeline, and he's one of the few guys who can legitimately move the championship needle if he were to go to the right team. Think Detroit or Houston. Both of them are immediate top-shelf contenders with Kyrie, and they both have the draft capital Dallas needs to start adding, being that they don't control their own first-round pick for the next four years. 

Other teams that would make sense? Toronto, big time. Also the Magic, who have the defensive infrastructure but lack a true superstar scorer unless Paolo Banchero learned how to shoot efficiently over the summer. The Heat would love to have him for their halfcourt creation but probably don't have the assets to get him after sending so much to Milwaukee for Giannis. 

Kyrie makes sense on just about any team, really, and he looked fully back from his ACL rehab during preseason play. There is no reason to think he won't be the same old Kyrie, and that's a player who a lot of teams can use more than the Mavericks this year, especially if they get off to a slow start. 

Anthony Davis will be traded

This is a lot like the Kyrie situation in Dallas. The Wizards are indicating the desire to be competitive, but they won't be. That Trae Young contract is baffling. The "idea" of Young and Davis pairing up to make Washington competitive now while the young guys develop is fine on paper, but the reality is Young just isn't good enough and Davis almost certainly won't be healthy enough. The Wizards cannot, under any circumstances, ink Davis to another big extension in addition to the Young contract. They have to get something for him while they can. 

Now, what that something will be will depend largely on how healthy he is and how well he plays over the first few months of the season. It could get tricky if he and the Wizards play well, because that could encourage Washington to actually keep and extend him. If he's hurt or doesn't play well, who is going to want to deal with his next contract? Best-case scenario: Davis is healthy and plays well, but the Wizards as a whole don't. 

Either way, the Wizards have to come to their senses on this. One highly overpaid veteran to provide stability for the young guys is one thing. Two is a disaster. Someone will convince themselves that Davis can shift their title odds dramatically enough to take a swing on him, and if he can stay healthy, they'll be right. Whenever that team emerges, the Wizards have to pull the trigger instead of looking for an unrealistic trade package for a 33-year-old big man with almost no chance of staying even halfway healthy over the course of his next contract.

Zion Williamson will be traded

Williamson and Derik Queen are about the worst basketball fit possible. Neither guy can shoot or defend. Zion needs the ball in his hands with shooters all around him. It's just not going to work here, and the Pelicans are clearly committed to Queen moving forward. 

New Orleans has needed to trade Zion for a while now. Sure, it's understandably hard to officially give up on a guy you once pinned your entire franchise's future on and who still shows the ability of an All-NBA-level player when he's healthy, as he did last season while averaging 21 and 5 on 60% shooting and playing in 62 games, but selling high is the play here. 

If Williamson looks good to start the year and is healthy, there will be a market for his services. It might not be the kind of value the Pelicans want, but whatever it is, they need to jump. The Zion era in New Orleans was over long ago. They just haven't admitted it yet. 

Payton Pritchard will be an All-Star

Pritchard won Sixth Man of the Year two years ago, averaged career highs in points, assists and rebounds last year, and will now continue his ascension this season with his first All-Star selection. Pritchard is poised to pop out of the No. 2 scoring void left by Jaylen Brown's departure. I'm predicting north of 20 PPG on what I believe will be the No. 1 seed in the East. That's an All-Star. 

If you watch Celtics basketball, you know how good Pritchard is not just as a shooter but as an individual shot creator (he gets deep into the paint with Kyrie-like wiggle) and pressure defender. Last year, Boston outscored opponents by 13.5 points per 100 possessions with a 90th percentile offense and defense when Pritchard was on the floor without Brown, per Cleaning the Glass. 

He's a genuine engine, and Paul George is going to complement his creation wonderfully with his lower-usage shooting. Go back two years, and you'll find that lineups with Pritchard and Tatum but without Brown sported a +11.1 net rating with what would have ranked as the No. 1 offense in the league. Mark it down. Pritchard is going to be an All-Star. 

Warriors won't even make the Play-In

We're going to hear all kinds of talk about the Warriors using Jimmy Butler's salary to make a splash move, but it won't happen. This organization has paralyzed itself by way of next-era analysis, and it's now obsessed with all the cap space it can create next summer. 

Maybe it's the right play at this point. Golden State could have, and should have, been more aggressive in years prior, but now it's hard to see an actual realistic trade target that would put the team into contention. I think they see this season as a prelude to next, which is a risky position to take with Stephen Curry set to turn 39 in March. 

As such, this just isn't a team that can compete. The only way would be for Curry to play 70 games at an out-of-his-mind level, and his body just isn't going to withstand that. The team is simply too old and way too devoid of size and athleticism. They're going to be injured up and down the roster all season. I'd be surprised if Curry plays in 50 games, and with how deep the West is, that's not going to be enough to make the Play-In tournament. Their over/under win total line is set at 37.5, and I've got that at a comfortable under.