We asked 10 leading NBA voices on Substack:

What jumps out to you in the 2026-27 NBA schedule?

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| The Stein Line

Maybe a 3 p.m. tipoff can work on Day 1 of the NBA’s regular season. You can’t really call it Opening Night if the curtain-raiser is an afternoon game, but Major League Baseball certainly has staged successful early starts on Opening Day and the World Cup just proved that some early kickoff times do work if the occasion is right.

What baffles me more than anything was the NBA’s willingness to commence its three-day run of schedule reveals by announcing the Day 1 and Christmas Day slates so early on Tuesday. Good Morning America? The Today Show? Are those shows where the basketball audience is?

It was the 7 a.m. hour in the East and so a good bit of the nation was presumably asleep and/or offline when tweets with schedule details started going out. Very funky.

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| The Basketball Bulletin

The NBA’s increasing focus on daytime games is interesting.

We have the 3 p.m. ET opener between the Celtics and Pistons. Then we have the annual Christmas quintuple-header.

The league returned to its prior form with the all-day MLK Day slate, while adding another all-day slate on Presidents Day too.

If that’s not enough, the vast majority of Saturdays and Sundays feature one or more games that start in the afternoon.

As someone who adores matinee hoops, I welcome this change!

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| Neil’s Substack

Call me a crank, but I am reflexively annoyed at the NBA trying to be like the NFL and make its “schedule release” a thing.

I barely tolerate that behavior from the NFL, but at least the NFL’s regular season matters — each game carries a lot of weight toward teams’ chances of making the playoffs and/or winning their division or, ultimately, the Super Bowl.

Very few games in the NBA regular season matter, which has been a problem for a long time: I once found that 82 games per team in the NBA is the equivalent of a 343-game MLB season, for instance. Baseball doing a schedule reveal of nearly 350 games per team would be absurd, but that’s basically what this is.

If you’re going to try to make this a thing, shorten the regular season so the games actually have stakes; otherwise, let me enjoy my summer.

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| The Morning After

The game I want to see is March 26, Knicks at Charlotte. It's the lowest get-in price ($50) for any Knicks game this year. And I've always wanted the chance to bet that Sion James will outscore Pacôme Dadiet….

More to the point, I'd want to be at Sixers at Cleveland, March 1. There's a chance it's LeBron's last visit to his original pro crib. If there's true harmonic convergence, you could see (A) Cleveland's only championship banner and (B) Joel Embiid in uniform, in the same place. Wear dark glasses and don't look at either one directly.

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| BASKETBALL FEELINGS

Instead of being cheeky and going for some deep cut mid-March, I'm picking the first game on the slate for Christmas Day: Knicks vs. Spurs.

I keep picturing Victor Wembanyama, wandering the city the night before, glum to be missing Réveillon de Noël (though I'm sure there's no shortage of restaurants in New York City that would jump at the chance to serve him sumptuous dish upon dish in the French holiday tradition) and haunted by the image of Jalen Brunson as a stout, indefatigable Santa waiting for him the next morning.

That, and this is the perfect, delicious, pretend-there's-no-stakes-’cause-it's-Christmas but actually infused with rivalry and rich with contention NBA Xmas game. A feast for the senses, a Réveillon de Noël after all.

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Last season, the then-defending champions started 24-1, sparking a debate over where OKC fit in the “greatest team of all time” discussion. The Thunder cooled off, partly because their schedule heated up. In the first quarter of the season, OKC didn’t play a single top-four team.

The Knicks won’t have it so easy. They host Philadelphia on opening night (fourth in preseason betting odds), then play Boston (fifth), Detroit (sixth), and Philly again over the next week. The Thunder played just seven games against above-average competition in October and November; the Knicks have 13 such games.

So don’t be surprised if New York “struggles.” Then again, maybe they continue their championship form and we start another GOAT debate.

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| Knicks Film School

Depending on what happens in the NBA Cup qualifying games, there’s a chance the defending world champions won’t play a home game between November 29 and December 23. And then after a week back in New York for the holidays — including facing the Spurs on Christmas — they’re back on the road for a 10-day, six-game western swing.

If the Knicks can make it through that gauntlet in one piece, they’ll be in postseason form by the middle of January.

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| Fieldhouse Files

I know it’s my beat … but I’m stunned that six Eastern Conference teams will appear on national TV opening week — and the Pacers aren’t one of them.

They pushed OKC to Game 7 of the 2025 NBA Finals and led at halftime despite All-NBA guard Tyrese Haliburton tearing his Achilles.

What a difference one lost season makes. The league moves on fast. Even more: Haliburton’s return won’t happen in front of Pacers fans, but 800 miles away in New Orleans.

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| JSuttHoops

My takeaway from this year’s schedule is that it will be very easy for the Kings to be very bad.

Sacramento has the most jam-packed stretch to deal with: 12 games in 19 days (the most in a 19-day stretch leaguewide) with four back-to-backs.

Between January 2nd and the 20th, they play OKC, Detroit, New York, the Lakers, and lots of average-at-worst teams. With the new lottery rules, there’s never been a worse time to have a stretch like that (or to be a Kings fan).

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| Borracha Laranja

Adam Silver took the NBA Cup from European soccer, by his own admission. And to be fair, the league is carrying a record 115 games in European prime time this season.

But ESPN’s Dave McMenamin reported that Europe came third in the reasoning for the 3 p.m. ET opener, filed as an added bonus: prime time on the continent. That bonus lands at 8 p.m. in Lisbon — the exact minute most of Champions League Matchday 3 kicks off.

Europe is a soccer continent, unfortunately for those of us who’d rather it weren’t, and Paul George versus John Collins will not move it.

Wembanyama’s season debut? Tips at 3:30 a.m. in Paris.

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We asked 16 leading NBA voices on Substack:

After the NBA’s wild offseason, what’s most fascinating to you in the Western Conference?

Check out their answers and subscribe!

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The Contenders

| The Stein Line

Have the Spurs truly passed up the Thunder? Would Oklahoma City actually have repeated as champions if Jalen Williams had just stayed healthy? What about Luka Dončić's post-LeBron, drastically overhauled Lakers … and the new Anthony Edwards/LaMelo Ball partnership in 'Sota? (Also: Are the Jazz as sneaky dangerous as I think?)

I could have focused on any of those enticing mysteries but find myself fixated on what's happening in Denver. The Nuggets are projected to be the NBA's only second-apron team in 2026-27. Nikola Jokić continues to say he will be a Nugget for life but has postponed a contract extension for two straight summers. We do not know (as of press time) if they are going to be able to retain restricted free agent Peyton Watson … when getting younger and more athletic was said to be an offseason priority.

There are additional question marks but you get the point. Are the Nuggets, as currently constructed, still part of the Western Conference elite? They have many around the league openly wondering.

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| Neil’s Substack

I guess the thing I’m looking for in the West is ANY sign whatsoever that this isn’t just a two-team race again with OKC and San Antonio.

They went through the West playoffs with a combined 16-3 record before facing each other in one of the great conference-final epics in recent memory, and all eyes are going to be on them to meet in the WCF again.

That puts the onus on the next tier: Minnesota (bless them, they’re trying something with LaMelo Ball), Denver, Houston, the post-Bron Lakers … Golden State? Portland? Utah???

Show us some reason not to cancel the West schedule right now and just play Spurs-Thunder again next May.

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| The Basketball Bulletin

The Nuggets were already falling behind, and seem in danger of dropping off further this season. The Wolves lack depth. The Lakers are a whole new team. The Rockets are the same team. The Suns, Trail Blazers, Mavericks and Jazz aren’t ready yet. The Warriors and Clippers are on the way down.

Someone will emerge as a challenger. Seeing who figures it out will be fun to watch this season.

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| Knicks Film School

With honorable mentions going to LaMelo in Minnesota, the debut of “Kyrie and Cooper,” and the ticking clock in Portland, my answer is the $229 million elephant in the Frost Bank Center.

I was petrified every time Dylan Harper checked into the Finals. How do they keep him on the bench? If they start him, who sits, and is there any doubt it would be De’Aaron Fox if he didn’t have that contract?

San Antonio’s biggest impediment to the title may be on their own team. I’m fascinated to see how they solve it.

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| SturmStack

As a Dallas resident and NBA enthusiast, I am looking forward very much to seeing where the Mavericks fit in the Western Conference as their evolution should actually produce some very competitive basketball after the franchise has taken roughly a two-year hiatus from anything even sort-of interesting following the WORST TRADE IN THE HISTORY OF THE SPORT.

But, with some of the rubble cleared and a certain GM fired, we would like to think that Year 2 of Cooper Flagg alongside Year 1 of Masai Ujiri and Dusty May will be something approaching fascinating as Kyrie Irving re-enters the chat.

In other words, we are very excited about the return of NBA basketball to Dallas, Texas!

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The Portland Conundrum

| Bald Faced Truth

Portland fans are scattered and distracted.

The team is coming off a surprising season. Remember federal agents arrested the head coach after the season opener. The playoff appearance made the season fun, and the team essentially hired Ted Lasso as the coach in the offseason, but the ownership distraction created by the hostility of Tom Dundon’s takeover has the fan base gripping.

I know the rest of the NBA is on the edge of its seat after a wild offseason, but fans in Portland are thinking about only two things: Is this Clay Bennett 2.0? And where is Adam Silver?

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Jake Fischer | The People’s Insider | Contributor to The Stein Line

What trail will Portland blaze from here? Before even considering the murky ownership and location waters, let’s just consider the fact that the Trail Blazers hope to take a step forward as a contender under rookie head coach Micah Nori, while former All-Stars Damian Lillard and Ja Morant both join Jrue Holiday as veterans around Scoot Henderson and Shaedon Sharpe in Portland’s backcourt … all while Deni Avdija emerged as the franchise face last season.

We’ll know more about the dispute between the team and city by month’s end. I’d have to imagine any lingering uncertainty, though, could cast a pall over what is a season with high expectations and a wonky roster.

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I’m also keeping an eye on Portland, and I’m not sure if I’ll see poetry in motion or a trainwreck given the open questions:

• What will Tom Dundon skimp on next?

• Will he get an arena deal done?

• How does Micah Nori do in his one guaranteed year?

• Can Deni Avdija continue his ascent from discarded Wizard to All-NBA?

• Who brings the ball up? Dame? Ja? Scoot? Jrue? Point Deni?

• Will Clingan jump from analytics darling to All-Star candidate?

• Does Yang Hansen’s hype come back?

• How hard will Shaedon Sharpe dunk?

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The Wolves’ Gamble

| The Morning After

The fearless Timberwolves cut loose Julius Randle and Naz Reid and now base their offense on Anthony Edwards, the incoming LaMelo Ball and returning Ayo Dosunmu, and they still have Jaden McDaniels’ defense. They’ll need a rim protector when Rudy Gobert is out, but this is the most likely team to break up the OKC-Spurs duopoly.

Of course, to get to the Finals you have to beat them both.

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| BASKETBALL FEELINGS

Beyond the Spurs and Thunder, the West is a far more open landscape now, full of sleeping giants. The Nuggets and Warriors, perennial titans of the conference, are on their descent (I never want to count out Nikola Jokić, but there's a waning energy in Denver), and the climbers — Rockets, Suns, Blazers — haven't got a steady foothold yet.

All of it feels less urgent than the East, with the exception of the Timberwolves. I'm fascinated by this team because it seems like a chemistry experiment. The mercurial temperaments of Anthony Edwards and LaMelo Ball, at face, seem too volatile to coexist, let alone cooperate — and these two are being asked to do it for 82+ games. I think we'll know pretty quickly whether this experiment is the ACME exploding kind, or a wholly weird but appealing combo, like espresso and orange juice.

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| JSuttHoops

Have you ever heard of a Siamese fighting fish? It’s native to Southeast Asia and notorious for the fact that you cannot put two males in the same aquarium, or they will tear each other apart.

And with that, I ask: Can Anthony Edwards and LaMelo Ball coexist? Both have been alpha dogs (Siamese fighting fish, if you will) for their entire careers, and now are going to be forced to play off of each other in a potentially incredible but also incredibly risky Timberwolves situation.

If they can pull it off, you have a contender. But if things go south, it could be the thing that pushes Ant out the door in Minnesota.

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| Basketball Poetry

There are probably more mature answers, but I’m entranced by the idea of LaMelo Ball on the Minnesota Timberwolves.

The Wolves desperately needed a sturdy point guard, a better and younger Mike Conley. Instead, they went and got the most avant-garde artiste in the game today. LaMelo Ball has an unusual relationship with risk, and his ability to coexist in a backcourt with Anthony Edwards will make or break a team desperate to surmount the hump. Used to the limitless freedoms afforded the franchise’s face, can Ball compress his excesses into a winning role?

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| Hardwood Paroxysm

The Wolves added LaMelo Ball to a team that has wavered and lazed at times in the regular season, while still knocking off the best teams (Spurs and Thunder) in recent years.

Anthony Edwards is a top-10 player who also doesn’t always play the most disciplined way to attack teams. And now they lose Julius Randle and Naz Reid and add LaMelo Ball, one of the most talented but also loosest and sloppiest players.

How does this … work?

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The Kawhi Situation

| Third Apron

There’s just no way the Aspiration situation drags into the season, right? The Clippers could take this to the bitter end, leave their fate at the hands of an arbitrator, and maybe appeal it (if that’s allowed).

But it seems like there’s a ton of external pressure for them to come to a settlement agreement. The league doesn’t want this to linger and would probably like this to end before Pablo reveals additional details.

Also, despite their public posturing, the Clippers need the Kawhi Leonard trade to go through more than the Raptors do. The internal pressure of adding more draft equity to hedge against the loss of other draft picks, as well as the Raptors potentially giving the Clippers a firm deadline to process the trade, may be enough to get them to negotiate with the league and finally put an end to this.

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Ray LeBov | Basketball Intelligence

I am fascinated by the absurd length of time it continues to take to resolve the Kawhi/Aspiration situation. Like most people I have spoken with, it seems to me to indicate incompetence, corruption or a mistaken belief that it will somehow disappear from attention.

It continues to worsen as we still don’t know when an ultimate ruling will take effect and the impact it will have on teams, players and seasons. It strains credulity that a multibillion-dollar association can (non)perform to such an extent. It generates wild and mild conspiracy theories but maybe just reflects colossal incompetence.

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West vs. East

| NBA con Contexto

Over the last 27 seasons, the Western Conference has dominated the Eastern Conference, winning the head-to-head matchup in 24 of them. But after posting win rates of 57.7% and 55.1% in the 2023-24 and 2024-25 seasons, that edge dropped to 51.3% last season.

With LeBron James and Kawhi Leonard (we believe) switching conferences, Tyrese Haliburton’s return, and the rise of new powerhouses in the Eastern Conference, will we see a shift in the balance of power between conferences?

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We asked 18 leading NBA voices on Substack:

After the NBA’s wild offseason, what's most fascinating to you in the Eastern Conference?

Check out their answers and subscribe!

Subscribe now

| The Stein Line

Is the East really and truly back? That’s my overriding curiosity. Is the East as good as it looks on paper? I can’t wait to find out.

I feel like the East has been subjected to Leastern Conference jabs — many of them coming from me — ever since Michael Jordan’s second Bulls retirement after the 1997-98 season.

Eighteen of the NBA’s last 28 champions came from the West. The East has posted the better head-to-head record in only four of those 28 regular seasons.

Yet it sure looks like a new day now with the Knicks finally winning it all in June and the 76ers superteaming with LeBron James and Jaylen Brown and everything else that has happened in the Least this summer. I mean EAST!

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| The Morning After

When Minnesota plays Philadelphia, one hopes LaMelo Ball guards VJ Edgecombe. It might be one of the few times Edgecombe sees a Ball.

Edgecombe averaged 13.7 shots last year and 16 points as he finished third in Rookie of the Year voting. That was before Jaylen Brown showed up. Brown and Tyrese Maxey were fourth and fifth in points per game, and LeBron James, passer extraordinaire, will need his buckets too, and that doesn’t even assume Joel Embiid will rise from the muck and play a few games before the playoffs.

Chris Bosh was a master at accepting James’ presence and contributing in the margins. Edgecombe will have to be assertive just to stay on the page.

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| SturmStack

The idea of seeing Giannis in Miami will take quite a bit of getting used to as he certainly will not have use for many winter coats any longer and will join an organization unlikely to essentially let him be coach and GM anymore.

Further, they sort of cleaned out their roster to acquire him, which you would never question — aside from the obvious issues it now presents. How Giannis and Bam can be surrounded with appropriate shooting and ball handling without having their own agency to fill these spots (LeBron joke) will present a fair amount of challenges as well.

For those reasons, I think the all-new Heat are incredibly fascinating and have both a high floor and a potentially disappointingly low ceiling.

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| Neil’s Substack

The strong temptation is to say the circus that will be the LeBron Sixers, but I’m actually most fascinated with the Knicks.

After a postseason where basically everything that could go right did, what happens next? They’ll run things back with essentially the same group that won it all, but the market has reverted right back to a state of skepticism with them … and I can’t say that’s necessarily wrong, though it feels like the GOAT playoff run deserves more respect in its title defense.

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| BASKETBALL FEELINGS

The Atlanta Hawks, or should I say Little Canada, are the most fascinating to me in the East right now.

Instead of focusing on the big moves in this conference that might not work, I'm choosing to look forward to the trifecta of Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Lu Dort, and Ryan Nembhard under Quin Snyder, with the honorary Canadian vibes of CJ McCollum to boot.

I liked what the Hawks brought last season, and I like the instant lightness of the post-Trae Young era, the lithe and powerful duo of Dyson Daniels and Jalen Johnson. That team flew firmly below the radar, and once the LeBron James and Kawhi Leonard dust settles (still a bit of an if for the latter) in the East, I don't imagine these Hawks hover below collective attention for long.

And as the most Canadian team in the NBA, I hope it means we get to see more of Coach Snyder's famed, red framed glasses this season.

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| In the N.O.

Is it crazy to pick the Boston Celtics?

While division rivals feature the new-look Sixers, defending champ Knicks, and Kawhi’s expected Odysseus-style return, Boston is betting big on analytics. Trading an MVP candidate yet projecting to improve is basketball heresy — and the source of my fascination.

Will spreadsheets outshine star power? I know I will be tuning in.

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| Shine Bright HQ

My Celtics have been destroyed.

And since I have made the Celtics a full 28% of my personality, I am now barely two-thirds or three-quarters (or whatever) of a person.

What’s crazy is that I am an Eagles buff. I have interviewed Jalen Hurts! I have little reason to hate on Philly. But I can’t move there (professional sports-wise).

I’m actually tempted to go back to my hometown Warriors. That’s how disgruntled I am that Jaylen Brown is gone. And then LeBron follows him? To quote a Raptors fan: Nothing was the same.

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| Borracha Laranja

Philadelphia solved a talent problem and created a pecking-order problem.

Jaylen Brown finished sixth in MVP voting and Boston traded him anyway. He arrived in Philly convinced he’d be 1A and the smartest man in the room, on a team where Joel Embiid is doubted every spring and where the keys had been handed to Tyrese Maxey.

Then LeBron James signed, and the hierarchy of touches reset overnight. Now Brown is the fourth option and he’ll take the toughest defensive assignment so the 41-year-old doesn’t have to. Hardest job, fewest shots.

Everyone’s watching Embiid’s knees. I’m watching Brown’s Twitch feed.

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Jake Fischer | The People’s Insider | Contributor to The Stein Line

I’m ready to see what Indiana looks like with Tyrese Haliburton healthy and Ivica Zubac in at starting center.

The Pacers shopped around the entire league looking for a title-caliber big man in the wake of Myles Turner’s departure, and clearly targeted Zubac with aplomb.

You know by now the Clippers landed the No. 5 pick in June’s draft by way of that deal. Will Zubac prove worth it? I’m so curious to see his fit with Haliburton, because Zubac is neither a traditional pick-and-roll lob threat nor a stretch 5 like Turner, the two archetypes we’ve seen Haliburton thrive with the most.

How will Zubac’s short-roll playmaking fit within all this? The Pacers surely see themselves as contenders in the East after a gap season. Will this all add up to that? I’m fascinated …

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| Moll Don’t Lie

I’m still haunted by the image of Tyrese Haliburton crumpled to the ground minutes into Game 7 of the 2025 Finals. Watching that Pacers run felt like basketball nirvana, and seeing it end that way was a tragedy. In a single postseason, Tyrese produced four or five plays that would’ve been remembered as the defining playoff moment in almost any other year.

A lifelong WWE fan who embraces the heel role with a smile, he brings a joyful sense of showmanship to the game that’s intoxicating. I can’t wait for him to return. In an Eastern Conference that keeps getting deeper, I’m fascinated to see whether Indiana can recapture that magic.

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| Third Apron

The Western Conference has dominated the NBA in the last two decades. The East’s inferiority is the primary reason we’d never get enough votes to eliminate conferences for playoff seeding.

That’s expected to change this season with 11 teams in the East shaping up to be playoff-viable and a ton of uncertainty in the West after the top six.

The NBA is expected to see some form of conference realignment in two years if we get two new teams. If multiple good East teams miss the playoffs, could we see the tide turn with East teams looking to eliminate conference seeding?

Lottery flattening is helping form the type of parity the league has wanted recently, and the East will only get tougher if the Minnesota Timberwolves change conferences.

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| NBA con Contexto

The Hornets have made some of the most surprising moves this summer, trading Miles Bridges and, most notably, LaMelo Ball, in what looks like an attempt to fix the team’s culture.

On paper, they should take a step back after a solid season of growth, but let’s not rule out the possibility that this step back could be minor or even nonexistent.

LaMelo was very important, but his departure will free up minutes and opportunities for other players who seem ready to step up.

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| JSuttHoops

The Bulls are putting out a team of gazelles this season, and I have no idea if it’s going to work.

They have a median height of 6’8” and can present a lineup of Josh Giddey (6’7”), Matas Buzelis (6’8”), Noa Essengue (6’8”), Caleb Wilson (6’10”), and Nic Claxton (6’11”) if they want to.

Cheers to trying to break the NBA with young and (maybe not) dumb lineups!

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| The Basketball Bulletin

What’s fascinating to me is how deep this conference is, for the first time in … decades?

The only “bad” teams in the conference are the Bulls, Bucks and Nets, and none of them look truly terrible (thanks, lottery reform!).

Meanwhile, the Knicks and 76ers are legit title contenders. The Pistons, Celtics, Cavaliers, Raptors, Magic and Hawks are all still around. The Pacers should be back. The Heat, Hornets and Wizards are all going to be better.

Twelve teams for eight playoff spots? Watchable ET hoops? Let’s go!

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| Hardwood Paroxysm

Toronto was really interesting last year, a tale of two teams: a starting unit that couldn’t defend and a bench unit that couldn’t score. But Darko Rajaković showed a real capacity for finding the right lineups in the playoffs.

Jamal Shead, Ja’Kobe Walter, Kawhi Leonard, Scottie Barnes, and CMB would be a small-ball lineup straight from the depths of Hades. This team could win the Atlantic.

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Ray LeBov | Basketball Intelligence

Have the Nets become the new Sacramento Kings East, replacing the Bulls?

Compare:

• Last season: Kings and Nets each a bottom-5 team on both offense and defense.

• Over/under this season: Kings 21.5 wins; Nets 22.5 (each worst in their conference).

• Former Kings with the Nets: Coach Jordi Fernández and now Keon Ellis.

• Rookie point guards taken in the mid-lottery: Darius Acuff Jr. (7th pick, Kings) and Mikel Brown Jr. (6th pick, Nets).

• Top returning players — Domantas Sabonis (age 30) and Michael Porter Jr. (28) — out of sync with each team’s developmental timeline.
  
  

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| Impersonal Foul

In an era obsessed with tall, athletic wings, my eyes are on the good old-fashioned playmaking point guards.

Can Jalen Brunson repeat the magic of last year or go up another level?

Will Tyrese Maxey make even more of a leap and get into the MVP convo (I said what I said) while potentially helping to lead a team to at least a conference finals?

And finally, how is Tyrese Haliburton going to look after that injury?

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| Basketball Poetry

The great tank commanders of old can finally stand down: Almost everyone in the East has clear incentive to win, and almost everyone has the talent to do so.

No more wondering how many Leastern Conference teams will rack up more than 60 losses on purpose (it was three last year). There will be early-evening fireworks on a nightly basis for the first time in far, far too long. My toddler-oriented sleep schedule is already grateful.

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LAS VEGAS — Let’s rank my top 30 NBA prospects after watching them up close at NBA summer league.

This is essentially my updated Big Board, based on career projections for each player. This format is inspired partly by a Nik Oza column last year updating his priors after summer league.

As a reference point, here’s my final pre-draft Big Board along with more complete breakdowns of every top prospect.

And here are my new rankings after NBA summer league:

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LAS VEGAS — Back at NBA summer league, where I stayed through Sunday night’s championship game, watching more of the 2026-27 rookie class up close.

You can find Part 1 here, including the top prospects:

Here’s what impressed me about this next group of prospects — and what left me with doubts:

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LAS VEGAS — I’m here for the NBA summer league, catching the top prospects up close.

Here is what I’m excited about when it comes to this rookie class, and what’s concerned me most:

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Earlier this week, I covered the 13 NBA deals I liked most — the steals of the summer.

I’m happy to report there are fewer deals I didn’t care for. But wow, did a handful of NBA teams make some regrettable decisions.

Here are seven of them, in order from worst to … just puzzling.

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The piece stacks up numbers like these: In Brown's last four seasons in Boston, the Celtics went 47-10 (.825) without him — the equivalent of a 68-win team.

That’s what we do: careful, data-driven work that follows the evidence, even when it leads somewhere unpopular.

Jeremias’ analytics work lives here on 5x5, for paid subscribers — upgrade to get it all, at a special low rate of $30 for the first year.

Upgrade for $30

Thanks for reading!

With NBA superstar salaries soaring above $50 million and even $60 million per season, getting good value is more important than ever. (That’s one reason the Celtics traded Jaylen Brown.)

So I want to highlight eight teams — including contenders — that did amazing work this offseason acquiring players who can make a real difference at a great price.

Here are the 13 deals I’ve loved most:

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The Lakers have undertaken a major makeover this offseason, getting a lot younger in the process.

So, should we expect an improved Lakers team this season?

The numbers are skeptical. Here’s why.

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Jaylen Brown has finally been dealt — he’s going to the 76ers in exchange for 36-year-old Paul George and draft picks.

Did the Celtics gift the Sixers an NBA Finals trip, as Kendrick Perkins suggested on ESPN?

I have been critical of Brown’s performance and his contract:

On the other hand, the 76ers gave up less than the reported asking price of four first-round picks, and moved George’s giant salary.

Given the lower-than-expected price, is Perk right? Did the Sixers win this trade? Did the Celtics blow it?

I say no.

Here’s why.

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Jaylen Brown is a divisive player: His supporters point to a Finals MVP trophy, deep playoff runs, and generally strong performance by the Celtics over the years.

On the other hand, his impact numbers are ugly, at least by the standard Brown is held up to, given his salary and status as a five-time All-Star.

But exactly which numbers are ugly, and why are they so bad?

As his name continues to circulate in trade talks and a debate roars on about how good Brown really is, let’s try to answer those questions.

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Let’s examine the Giannis Antetokounmpo blockbuster from both sides, plus the fallout in Boston — and where things go from here.

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Seven teams delighted, annoyed, and surprised me on Tuesday, based on my NBA Draft Big Board.

Let’s dig in.

Worst

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Most NBA teams have very specific needs, given their current depth chart, long-term contracts and future title aspirations.

Let’s look at the players who (a) should be available and (b) best fit the needs of every team in the first round of this week’s NBA draft. That includes a Plan B and even Plan C for many teams.

For my Final NBA Draft Big Board, in which I rank the top 30 prospects according to stats and film work, click here.

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Here’s how I see the top prospects in the 2026 NBA draft, based on advanced stats and film study — ranked from 1 to 30:

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If you believe the analysts, the 2026 NBA draft is a strong one.

There is little doubt, for instance, that this year’s top 3 picks would’ve supplanted the entire top 3 in the 2024 draft.

But it doesn’t stop there: The entire first round grades out stronger than usual — the statistical evidence backs that up.

That said, this class really shines on just one end of the floor. And even there, the numbers might be overselling it.

Let’s see what the draft model says — and a reason or two it might be overrating this class.

Sky-high projections

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In the stats world, measures of uncertainty are known as standard errors and confidence intervals.

Why would an analyst want these measures? Why would an NBA team?

NBA decision makers can use them to decide whether to swing for the fences in acquiring a player or take a more conservative route. These measures also allow us to calculate the probability that one player is truly more impactful than another.

But while we sometimes see standard errors reported for NBA metrics based purely on lineup data, nobody reports them for metrics that include box-score data.1

While it’s not an easy undertaking, it is possible to compute these standard errors for every modern NBA metric.

Here’s how it’s done:

How it all started

Among modern NBA metrics, there are essentially three main types:

• Lineup metrics, such as Adjusted Plus-Minus (APM and RAPM2).

• Box-score metrics, such as Box Plus-Minus (BPM)

• Hybrids

For the original APM, it’s very easy to come by standard errors and confidence intervals. The method used by APM, known as ordinary least squares regression, spits all that information out together with the estimates.

But APM is too heavily influenced by noise, leading to weak predictive power, so the analytics world moved on to its more accurate cousin: RAPM.

RAPM uses penalization, which makes it more accurate. But it also cost us the ability to calculate standard errors easily.

At the 2011 NESSIS3 at Harvard, a statistical analyst for the Spurs told me that he preferred box-score metrics because we didn’t know the level of uncertainty in RAPM. Of course, what he didn’t recognize is that standard errors also exist in box-score metrics.

But now we’ve come full circle. While we were eventually able to estimate standard errors for RAPM — through my own simulation method, or Justin Jacobs‘ — no one has successfully computed standard errors for box-score metrics.

How box-score metrics work

Here’s a simplified overview of how most box-score metrics create player ratings:

(1) Use multiyear RAPM as the target variable, and (2) use multiyear player stats as independent variables, in order to (3) generate weights (coefficients) for all stats.

So far, the setup might look something like this:4

Then (4) multiply the found weights with more recent player stats, and (5) sum up to arrive at a final rating.

For more, see this article:

The different causes of inaccuracy and uncertainty in box-score metrics

Box-score metrics have uncertainty attached to them implicitly, just like other metrics. But that’s not an obvious fact, so let’s start with a simple example:

1. All the inputted player stats are uncertain

Box-score metrics multiply the player’s stats — such as 3-point percentage — with a weight.

Let’s say a player starts his career by making 5 of his first 10 3-point attempts.

For his 3-point percentage, box-score metrics plug in either 50% or a number that regresses to the league-wide mean.

But we don’t know this player’s true skill, and we’re just making a best guess. The reality is that many possibilities exist at the same time: The player might be a 37% 3-point shooter, but there’s a (slightly lesser) chance that he’s actually a 35% or 39% shooter.

This problem exists across all player statistics.

For example, let’s put Victor Wembanyama in an alternate universe, with a basketball environment exactly like the NBA.

His stats would be different, even if his skills were exactly the same. The numbers would change simply because of random chance.

In other words, if you replayed the entire NBA season, everyone’s stats would be a little different than they are right now, just by random fluctuation.

Generally, we are more certain about the stats of a player who has played more minutes and taken more shot attempts from the various distances. In the example above, the range of possibilities is narrower for someone who made 10-of-20 3s rather than 5-of-10.

Here is a chart displaying the uncertainty around player’s assist rates:

How to determine these estimates and bounds is described here:

2. The model weights are uncertain

Box-score metrics multiply the players’ stats with a weight.

Above, we’ve established that stats have uncertainty attached to them. And the same is true for the weights.

The weights might, for example, imply that an offensive rebound is worth twice as much as a defensive rebound.

But, once again, that represents only a best guess. Instead of a weight of exactly 2.0, it’s very likely the relative weight of an offensive rebound is 1.9 or 2.1.

So, what we need to do is compute standard errors for all of our model’s coefficients. This can be done through a technique called bootstrapping.

We essentially run the model a thousand times over, with the following differences:

• For each run, we choose randomly which players are part of the model, and which ones aren’t. Players can be chosen multiple times.

• From run to run, the model weights will turn out to be slightly different. We can deduce the standard errors of the weights from those differences.

3. The target variable is uncertain

Let’s recall how (almost) all modern box-score metrics generate their weights: A machine learning algorithm finds the best combination of weights so that the resulting box-score player ratings most closely resemble their RAPM ratings.5

But as we noted previously, the RAPM ratings are also uncertain.

In 30-year RAPM, for example, Wembanyama is rated at a +5.2 defensively, with a standard error of 1.1.

Thus, we are 95% certain that Wemby’s true rating exists in a [3.0, 7.4] interval.6

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Putting it all together

As we’ve now seen, every step of the process we laid out earlier contains uncertainties that are usually not accounted for. That’s what we’re here to address.

To then create confidence bounds for our metric, we execute the following Monte Carlo method:

1. For all multiyear stats and every player, we randomly draw new stats, in accordance with the player-specific and stat-specific standard errors we created earlier.

2. We randomly draw RAPM — our target variable — according to the RAPM standard errors.

3. We use bootstrapping to create standard errors for the coefficients.

4. Same as in Step 1, but this time for single-season stats.

We run this setup thousands of times to give us the confidence bounds for our box-score metric.

The results

While the ranking isn’t the primary purpose of the article, here are the top 10 players for the 2025-26 regular season in our box-score metric:7

The top four show no surprises.

Fifth-ranked Ty Jerome averaged a blistering 42/6/12 per 100, with a 62% TS% and 42% 3p%.

But Jerome played only 339 minutes in total. Subsequently, his estimate has the highest standard error attached to it. Note that we have standard errors for the offensive, defensive and total rating.

The lowest standard errors generally belong to players that have played the most minutes and have taken a high number of attempts in stats that denote percentages (FT%, 3p%, etc.).

For this last regular season, we are most certain about Amen Thompson’s, Immanuel Quickley’s and Donte DiVincenzo’s ratings. On the other end of the spectrum, confidence intervals are wide for players such as Walker Kessler and Dejounte Murray.

Future work

For the sake of simplicity, we assumed all of the statistics above follow a normal distribution when creating the appropriate standard errors. At least for some statistics, chances are high that this assumption is incorrect.

There are a number of distributions to choose from, several of which might fit certain stats better than the assumed Gaussian distribution.

In Game 4, the New York Knicks pulled off the largest comeback in NBA Finals history — roaring back to shock the San Antonio Spurs after being down 29 points in the third quarter.

In a related story, Karl-Anthony Towns barely played in the first half due to foul trouble, and then played 18 minutes in the second half.

Towns is now +48 in the NBA Finals when he’s on the court, while the Knicks are -40 when he’s off, prompting this question:

Is he the very best center in the NBA to go against Victor Wembanyama?

In other words, is KAT the Wemby antidote?

Let’s answer those questions, and look at (a) how Towns is doing it and (b) which other centers are best equipped to give Wembanyama trouble.

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The NBA draft is just two weeks away, and it’s about time for teams to make their decisions — on what is considered an especially strong bunch of prospects.

Here is how I would make the top 14 picks:

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