A new NBA season is almost here, and the big questions never really change: who’s taking home the ring? Who’s walking away with the MVP trophy? Which young players are about to make some noise? This year, though, the picture looks unusually wide open. Several teams made big moves over the summer, and a rookie class that’s already turning heads hasn’t even played a regular-season game yet.
Spurs and Thunder Head the Betting Boards
San Antonio and Oklahoma City open the season as co-favorites at most sportsbooks. The two teams played out a brutal Western Conference Finals last spring, one that went the full seven games before the Spurs came out on top, and both return this year with their young cores largely intact.
Right behind them sit the Knicks, the reigning champions after finally snapping a title drought that stretched back more than five decades — though oddsmakers aren’t exactly betting on a repeat.
The real headline of the offseason, though, came out of Philadelphia. After landing Jaylen Brown and then pulling off the signing of LeBron James, the Sixers went from an afterthought to one of the names people are actually taking seriously as title contenders.
The MVP Race Looks Tight From the Start
On the individual side, Victor Wembanyama enters the year as the name on everyone’s lips after another dominant campaign in San Antonio. He’s got company, though. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is chasing back-to-back MVPs, a feat only a handful of players have ever pulled off.
Luka Doncic and Nikola Jokic remain fixtures in the conversation, as they seemingly always are. Below them, a younger wave is closing the gap fast, with Anthony Edwards and Cade Cunningham the two names creeping closest to that top tier. As usual, how this plays out will come down to individual numbers as much as where each of these players’ teams land in the standings. If you want to track how the race shifts week to week, basketball picks at realgm.com get updated daily with analysis covering these same contenders.
The Rookies Already Making People Pay Attention
The 2026 draft class arrived with names that had been on people’s radar for a while. AJ Dybantsa, taken first overall by Washington, and Darryn Peterson, who went second to Utah, headline what’s widely considered one of the deepest classes in years. Cameron Boozer, picked third, landed in Memphis carrying plenty of expectations of his own. All three flashed real potential through the preseason and Summer League, and it’s already shaping up to be a tight race for Rookie of the Year from the opening weeks.
Keeping Track of It All
With so many storylines running at once — the title chase, the MVP race, the rookie battle — it helps to have somewhere reliable to check in on before each night of games, especially with how fast things are shifting right now. Between the usual heavyweights and the new names starting to break through, this NBA season has more than enough going on to follow from start to finish.