ALL NBA Teams - The Fifteen Best Players of the 2025-26 Season

Fifteen spots. Thirty teams. One season worth arguing about.

The 65-game rule shaped this ballot more than any single performance. What happened this season — Wembanyama and Jokić needing token appearances in meaningless games to qualify, Dončić getting in through a birth and a hamstring, Cunningham through a collapsed lung on a diving play — is not what the rule intended. But the rule is the rule. Availability is part of the job. And with Dončić and Cunningham now eligible after the NBA and NBPA granted their extraordinary circumstances challenges, the ballot looks exactly as it should.

Here is where I land.

ALL-NBA FIRST TEAM

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Oklahoma City Thunder
The unanimous first pick on every ballot that matters. 31.1 points, 6.6 assists, 4.6 rebounds, 55.3% shooting. Best record in the NBA. No debate.

Nikola Jokić, Denver Nuggets
27.7 points, 12.9 rebounds, 10.7 assists, 56.9% from the field. The first player to lead the league in both rebounds and assists per game since 1967-68. He's on this team every year until further notice.

Victor Wembanyama, San Antonio Spurs
25.0 points, 11.5 rebounds, 3.1 blocks. The most dominant two-way player in the league. First Team at 22. This is only the beginning.

Luka Dončić, Los Angeles Lakers
33.5 points, 7.7 rebounds, 8.3 assists. Led the league in scoring. The hamstring ended his season at 64 games — the extraordinary circumstances provision kept him on the ballot. Had he stayed healthy, this First Team looks different at the top.

Cade Cunningham, Detroit Pistons
23.9 points, 9.9 assists, 5.5 rebounds. The engine behind Detroit's number-one seed in the East. A collapsed lung on a diving play for a loose ball nearly took him off this ballot entirely. It shouldn't have — and ultimately didn't.

ALL-NBA SECOND TEAM

Jaylen Brown, Boston Celtics
28.7 points, 6.9 rebounds, 5.1 assists. The case for Brown on this team starts with context: Boston was supposed to have a gap year. Jayson Tatum went down with an Achilles injury. The Celtics had shed their championship depth in free agency and trades. What remained was Brown and a collection of players nobody expected to matter.

The Celtics finished second in the East. That's on Brown — and only Brown. He carried an offensive load that would have broken most players and delivered career-high production doing it. The numbers tell part of the story. The team result tells the rest.

Donovan Mitchell, Cleveland Cavaliers
27.9 points, 5.3 assists. Mitchell is the most consistent player in this field who nobody talks about enough. Cleveland finished fourth in the East — not a superteam, not a juggernaut, but a disciplined winning organization built around one star who shows up every single night.

Mitchell doesn't generate headlines. He generates wins. In a ballot dominated by historic individual performances and eligibility drama, his steady excellence almost got lost entirely. It didn't — and it shouldn't.

Kevin Durant, Houston Rockets
26.0 points, 5.5 rebounds, 4.8 assists across 78 games. One of only two players in NBA history with a career 25-plus points per game average and a true shooting percentage above 60%. At 37, Durant is still doing what almost no one else in basketball history has done — scoring at elite volume with elite efficiency, night after night, year after year.

Houston finished fifth in the West. KD is the reason they were that high. The Rockets are a fascinating team built around youth and athleticism — Durant is the veteran anchor who makes all of it work. There's an argument he's been underappreciated this entire season simply because his excellence has become expected.

Kawhi Leonard, LA Clippers
27.9 points, 5.7 rebounds, 3.5 assists. The most underrated season in this entire field. Leonard set career bests in PER, BPM, true shooting percentage and scoring rate. He led a Clippers team that dealt away veteran assets at the trade deadline to a winning record. He did it at 34 years old after years of injury concerns.

The narrative around Kawhi has always been about availability. This season, he was available — and when he was on the floor, he was arguably the most efficient scorer in the league outside the top three. His peers voted him onto multiple straw poll ballots. The voters saw it. So did I.

Jalen Johnson, Atlanta Hawks
22.5 points, 10.3 rebounds, 7.9 assists. The breakout of the year — full stop. After the Trae Young trade sent Atlanta into a rebuild, Johnson became the primary option and embraced it completely. A point forward operating as a franchise centerpiece, Johnson turned potential into production at a rate nobody predicted.

The numbers are extraordinary for a player at his position. 7.9 assists per game from a power forward is a starting point guard's statline on most teams. His athleticism, versatility, and improved offensive aggressiveness made him a nightly problem for opposing defenses. The Hawks made the playoffs. Johnson is why.

ALL-NBA THIRD TEAM

Tyrese Maxey, Philadelphia 76ers
28.3 points, 4.2 rebounds, 6.8 assists — all career highs. Maxey carried Philadelphia's entire offensive load for most of the season with Joel Embiid frequently unavailable. The 76ers finished above .500. That is entirely on Maxey. He leads this third team precisely because the volume and the weight of his season were unlike almost anyone else in this field.

Jalen Brunson, New York Knicks
26.0 points, 4.8 assists. Not his best statistical season — Brunson himself would admit that. But durability and volume still matter, and Brunson played through everything to keep New York relevant. The Knicks made the playoffs for the fourth straight season. There is no version of that story without Brunson as the central character. What he does without the ball, within the flow of a complex offensive system, still doesn't show up in any box score. It shows up in the standings.

Jamal Murray, Denver Nuggets
25.4 points, 7.1 assists, 42.3% from three. Jokić gets the headlines — and deserves them. But Murray quietly delivered a full second-star season for Denver that deserves recognition. His shot creation in late-game situations, his willingness to take the hard shot when nobody else will, his shooting efficiency on high-volume attempts — all of it was at a level that would define most players' careers. Denver finished third in the West. Without Murray matching Jokić's ambition on the other end, that seed doesn't exist.

Deni Avdija, Portland Trail Blazers
24.2 points, 7.0 rebounds, 6.8 assists. The biggest individual statistical leap of the season. Avdija improved by more than seven points per game from last season — the largest jump among any major player in the league. A first-time All-Star. A driving force behind Portland's playoff appearance when nobody had them in their bracket. The Israeli forward has become a genuine star — and this ballot is his formal recognition of that fact.

Jalen Duren, Detroit Pistons
19.5 points, 10.5 rebounds, 2.0 assists, 65% from the field. First All-Star selection. The youngest player in NBA history to average a double-double over the course of a full season. Duren is the anchor of Detroit's defense and the interior presence that makes everything Cade Cunningham does possible. At 22, still on his rookie contract, he is about to become one of the highest-paid centers in the league this summer. Every dollar will be earned.

OUTSIDE LOOKING IN

Scottie Barnes, Toronto Raptors
18.1 points, 7.5 rebounds, 5.9 assists. Barnes was the heartbeat of a Toronto team that overperformed every preseason projection. His positional versatility — capable of guarding positions one through five, capable of initiating offense — makes him one of the most valuable players in the league regardless of the box score. The third team was simply too crowded this season. Barnes will be on this list soon.

Chet Holmgren, Oklahoma City Thunder
17.1 points, 8.9 rebounds, 1.9 blocks. The most difficult omission on this ballot. Holmgren was arguably the second-best center in the league this season after Jokić — and on the best team in basketball, his impact was real, sustained and often understated. The Thunder's defense runs through him as much as it runs through SGA. In a year where the roster depth around him obscured his individual contribution, Holmgren got lost in the conversation. He shouldn't have.

Alperen Şengün, Houston Rockets
20.4 points, 8.9 rebounds, 6.2 assists, 1.1 blocks, 1.2 steals. A skilled, versatile center who posted All-Star caliber numbers on a playoff team. Şengün's combination of interior scoring, playmaking and improved defense made him one of the most complete big men in the league this season — a Jokić-lite skillset at 23 years old, developing at a pace that should concern every center in the league. In a year with a deeper pool of eligible forwards and guards, he couldn't break through to the third team. That's not an indictment of his season. It's a reflection of how strong this ballot was top to bottom.