Are the Nuggets being overlooked in the West? (2:16)Alan Hahn and Iman Shumpert discuss why Nikola Jokic can power the Nuggets to another playoff run. (2:16)
NBA InsidersMultiple AuthorsApr 8, 2026, 07:00 AM ET
The end of the 2025-26 NBA regular season is finally here, with the campaign officially coming to a close this Sunday with all 30 teams playing.
Every new season comes with high expectations, with some teams meeting or exceeding those goals and others falling far from the original game plan set in October.
The Oklahoma City Thunder held on as the favorites this season, dominating the Western Conference once again, and they’re set to make a deep run in the playoffs with their attention turned toward a repeat championship. The Dallas Mavericks, after winning the lottery last year and drafting No. 1 pick Cooper Flagg, look toward next season after a dismal first season with their rookie star.
In the East, the Detroit Pistons have exceeded all expectations, only two seasons after sitting at the bottom of the standings with the league’s worst record. The Boston Celtics, almost a year after losing Jayson Tatum to an Achilles injury, are firmly back in the postseason picture.
Ahead of the final days of the regular season, our NBA insiders break down whether each team met or missed preseason expectations in our last edition of this season’s power rankings.
Note: Team rankings are based on where members of our panel (ESPN’s Anthony Slater, Dave McMenamin, Jamal Collier, Michael C. Wright, Ohm Youngmisuk, Tim Bontemps, Tim MacMahon, Vincent Goodwill and Zach Kram) think teams belong.
To say things have gone better than Boston could’ve hoped for is an understatement. Yes, Joe Mazzulla was always expecting this team to be competitive, and the words “gap year” were stricken from the record here. Not only have the Celtics been competitive, but Jayson Tatum is back and playing well, almost a year after his Achilles injury last May, and locking up the second seed in the East is within reach. — Tim Bontemps
Despite an uneven regular season that has the Cavs in position to finish as the No. 4 seed in the East, whether 2025-26 will be seen as a success will depend on the next few months. Cleveland took what is almost certainly the biggest gamble of the NBA season and traded away 26-year-old guard Darius Garland for 36-year-old James Harden — a win-now move that shortens its window for contention but the kind of move that could erase an up-and-down campaign with a deep playoff run. — Jamal Collier
Coming off back-to-back seasons that ended in trips to the Western Conference finals, it has been a strange campaign for Minnesota. The Timberwolves will once again be a top-six seed at the end of the regular season, but with injuries to superstars Anthony Edwards and Jaden McDaniels, it’s difficult to see a repeat performance from last postseason. The Wolves will have to go through Denver and San Antonio first to get back to the conference finals. — Bontemps
Toronto has been in the mix for a playoff spot all season, and now the Raptors just need to complete the job by beating out Philadelphia, Charlotte, Orlando and Miami for a top-six spot in the East. At a minimum, the Raptors have outperformed expectations by securing a winning record this season — but they’d look a lot better as automatic playoff entrants rather than play-in fodder. — Zach Kram
For the Suns to trade away Kevin Durant in a deal that brought Jalen Green and Dillon Brooks, have those two players combine to miss more than 70 games because of injuries, and still finish with an above-.500 record and qualify for the postseason is remarkable. Devin Booker was as effective as ever, first-year coach Jordan Ott was outstanding, Grayson Allen was one of the best bench scorers in the league, and Collin Gillespie earned Most Improved Player consideration. — McMenamin
If the Blazers can get two more wins this week, they’ll finish above .500 for the first time in five seasons. That’s a positive step forward for a franchise that has been transitioning through turbulence. The head coach, Chauncey Billups, was placed on indefinite leave after an FBI arrest in the opening week of the season, and ownership changed hands in the past month. However, the Blazers will have a chance next week to get into the playoffs through the play-in bracket. — Slater
The Bucks missed the playoffs for the first time in nine years after a dysfunctional and meandering season that included an ongoing conflict with superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo. It sets up what will be one of the most monumental summers in franchise history, as owner Wes Edens laid out to ESPN last month, as the team is prepared to either sign Antetokounmpo to another extension or trade its franchise player. — Collier
The Wizards’ surprising midseason decision to accelerate their rebuild by trading for Trae Young and Anthony Davis didn’t affect their course this season: Young played just five games for Washington and Davis didn’t play any, as Washington is on track for the worst record in the NBA. Completing the tank would give the Wizards pole position on lottery night, when the ping-pong balls will determine just how successful this season was. — Kram
Jalen Williams has missed 46 games this season. Isaiah Hartenstein has missed 33. Alex Caruso has missed 24. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has missed 12. Chet Holmgren has missed 11. That’s a whole lot of injury attrition for a team that will again steamroll to a win total in the mid-60s. It hasn’t been quite as historic as that 24-1 start indicated when insiders were predicting a run at the 73-win record. But this machine continues to flex its muscles in the biggest moments and enters the playoffs as the favorite to repeat. The Thunder are 130-30 the past two seasons. — Anthony Slater
Rookie Dylan Harper set the tone at his introductory news conference in June, declaring the franchise’s postseason drought is “going to change pretty quick.” The Spurs bettered their win total from the previous season by more than 25 games, marking the third 20-win improvement in franchise history. A healthy Victor Wembanyama, meanwhile, produced several MVP-level performances anchoring a squad that increased chemistry with each outing. Beyond Wembanyama, the backcourt trio of De’Aaron Fox, Stephon Castle and Harper is San Antonio’s most potent group of talent. Inexperience remains an outside concern as the playoffs approach, but coach Mitch Johnson kept it light and joked, “Ignorance is bliss.” The question now is whether the Spurs are legitimate contenders. — Michael C. Wright
It’s easy to forget the projections that the Pistons would struggle after losing Malik Beasley because of a gambling investigation. But Cade Cunningham elevated into an MVP candidate, Jalen Duren took another huge leap, and Ausar Thompson turned himself into a true Defensive Player of the Year candidate. Could Trajan Langdon and J.B. Bickerstaff have predicted this? Maybe, but it would’ve been on the “best case scenarios” list. Playoff expectations have also been raised this season. Will one playoff series win be enough? Or have the formerly miserable Pistons gotten to the point where a trip to the conference finals or better will suffice, assuming Cunningham is fully recovered from his punctured lung? — Vincent Goodwill
No team, not even the defending champion Thunder, had such defined expectations coming into the year as the Knicks. Finals or bust. Mike Brown was brought in to stretch the rotation, develop the bench and lessen the dependency on the starters. Check, check and check. Karl-Anthony Towns is under fire, Jalen Brunson is still their go-to guy, and yet somehow, they’ve been an up-and-down bunch that can dazzle one night and puzzle the next. They boast a top-three offense and are seventh in defense, yet there are still questions. June is on the horizon, but May beckons as all will be laid bare in the postseason. — Goodwill
Kevin Durant’s arrival provided optimism for an organization that believed it was an offensive engine away from making a serious postseason run after last season’s first-round exit. But veteran Fred VanVleet suffered a torn ACL at an unofficial workout in the Bahamas ahead of training camp that left the Rockets without a true point guard. Making matters worse, center Steven Adams suffered a season-ending ankle injury, and Houston spent the entire season utilizing a committee approach to facilitating the offense. It looked clunky at times, but it improved near the end. The injury woes provided more repetitions for younger players such as Reed Sheppard, Amen Thompson and Tari Eason, hastening development, which could ultimately help in the playoffs. — Wright
When Trae Young got hurt in the fifth game of the season, the Hawks turned into Jalen Johnson’s team. Johnson emerged as a star, Nickeil Alexander-Walker exceeded all expectations, and the Hawks pivoted, trading Young and Kristaps Porzingis while adding CJ McCollum and Jonathan Kuminga to make a team better suited to coach Quin Snyder’s system. They’ve gone 18-3 since Feb. 22. But even though the Hawks could finish as high as fifth, which would be quite the achievement given how much they’ve changed since October, there are no expectations for now. Whatever they do the rest of this season is gravy as they seek to get Johnson and this young group playoff experience before hoping that the unprotected first-rounder they own from New Orleans ends up as a very high pick and a potentially key player to add to the core for 2026-27. — Ohm Youngmisuk
After a fantastic March during which L.A. went 15-2 to shoot up to No. 3 in the West while Luka Doncic’s MVP campaign picked up steam, the Lakers experienced a day that will live in infamy last Thursday. During a 43-point drubbing by the Thunder, Doncic suffered a Grade 2 left hamstring strain and Austin Reaves suffered a left oblique strain — injuries that will knock both players out of the lineup for weeks and put the team’s hopes of a postseason run in serious jeopardy. The untimely injuries have overshadowed a resilient season for the Lakers, where second-year coach JJ Redick adjusted with the group and LeBron James thrived in a third-option role. — Dave McMenamin