The 2025-26 NBA season is almost upon us and anticipation is building. The NBA has settled into a unique era of parity: The Oklahoma City Thunder threaten to change that with an extended run here, but the new CBA makes it exceptionally hard to build a sustainable contender.
Unfortunately, the NBA awards race has not really reflected that parity. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander broke through for his first-ever MVP award last season, but he'll be right back in the mix in 2026. For the most part, the MVP race has four viable candidates in SGA, Nikola Jokić, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Luka Dončić. Everyone else feels like a long shot.
Perhaps the best way to measure the rising tide of talent in the NBA is actually the All-Star game. We got six first-time All-Stars last season — Victor Wembanyama, Alperen Şengün, Jalen Williams, Evan Mobley, Tyler Herro and Cade Cunningham. There's no reason the NBA can't produce a comparable number in 2026.
The league is just loaded right now. There are so many good teams, so many great players. The Western Conference almost feels like it might collapse under the weight of so much competition. The East, even in its comparatively weakened state, still features a ton of rising stars with the potential to break out this season.
Let us canvass all 30 teams to locate five strong candidates to earn their first All-Star berth in 2025.
Jalen Johnson, Atlanta Hawks
Don't look now, but the Atlanta Hawks are good. Onsi Saleh won his first offseason in the GM chair, fleecing the Pelicans on draft night and meaningfully improving Atlanta's roster across the board. From the Kristaps Porziņģis trade to the signings of Nickeil Alexander-Walker and Luke Kennard, the Hawks addressed key areas of weakness and built a roster perfectly suited to their heliocentric leader, Trae Young.
Part of what makes Atlanta so compelling as an Eastern Conference sleeper, aside from their past flirtation with a deep postseason run, is the looming breakout of Jalen Johnson. The Duke product enters his fifth NBA season without much fanfare, but he was on an All-Star track in 2024-25 before a torn labrum knocked him out for the campaign. In 36 games, he averaged 18.9 points, 10.0 rebounds and 5.0 assists on .500/.312/.746 splits.
Despite the less-than-ideal outcome of the whole Ben Simmons experiment, that archetype has become increasingly viable. Every team wants a jumbo playmaking forward who's moldable within various personnel groups. Not all those swings connect, but Atlanta hit on Johnson in the back half of the first round and stands to reap those benefits for years to come.
Johnson is a crazy athlete, with a singular blend of strength, quickness and coordination. He's rounding into at least a viable 3-point shot, while the face-up drives and slick live-dribble passes make him a real handful for opposing defenses. He commands the glass on both ends and should translate his impressive physical tools into impactful, multi-positional defense long term.
If he can stay healthy and get a long runway next to Young and Porziņģis in this new-look Hawks lineup, we can go ahead and start stitching that All-Star jersey.
Derrick White, Boston Celtics
The East is going to have several open All-Star slots with Jayson Tatum, Tyrese Haliburton and Damian Lillard (RIP) all out of commission (or, in Lillard's case, also no longer in the conference). We can probably cross out Joel Embiid and Paul George. The spots are there for the taking, and with Tatum recovering from an Achilles tear, it would be fitting if a Boston Celtics teammate rises to claim his vacancy.
Derrick White is 31 years old. It's a bit rare for players to cross the 30-year-old threshold and find that next gear, but Boston's bare-bones roster will basically force White to take up a heftier offensive workload. Jaylen Brown is still there to carry the primary scoring burden, but White will be running point and setting the table for a barren lineup. Anfernee Simons and Payton Prithcard will put up shots, don't get me wrong, but White is the only non-Brown Celtic approaching star-level production right now.
The best way to describe White's Celtics tenure to date is that he's the best role player in the NBA. He has not designed his approach around stuffing the box score, but he's a dominant defender and a high-volume shooter. Not that long ago, White's 3-point shot was a point of criticism. Now it's a strength. His growth across the board since breaking into the league with San Antonio deserves recognition. White was the 29th overall pick in 2017; he was a late bloomer in high school and a relative unknown coming out of Colorado. He deserves this late-career recognition.
The Celtics will ask White to self-create more frequently this season and he's capable of it. A slick driver, he knows how to mix speeds with his handle and play angles around the basket. The 3s will fall. He's going to lead the team in assists. And, while Boston might not be particularly competitive as a whole, White will leave his imprint on every game. He will flummox opposing offenses with his activity level and set the table for Boston on the other end. Get ready for the world to appreciate White in a new way this season.
Franz Wagner, Orlando Magic
Paolo Banchero gets the majority of the "next gen" praise for the Orlando Magic, but Franz Wagner has quietly been the better player to date. He just has. It isn't always sexy. The box scores don't leap off the page. But Wagner is Orlando's top wing defender and he's right on par with Banchero as a scorer.
He will need to hit 3s more consistently to reach his ceiling, but Wagner is a dominant slasher, with the size and coordination to win most matchups as a driver. He displays tremendous touch and creativity on his finishes, able to decelerate on a dime and muscle through contact for tough finishes. As the shooting continues to progress, it will only open up more opportunities at the rim. It helps that Wagner is also a willing and able distributor, averaging 4.7 assists (and only 2.3 turnovers) last season.
Orlando is about to take off. The Desmond Bane trade was viewed by many as an overpay, but given the state of the East, how could the Magic not take advantage of such an optimal addition? Bane gives Orlando more spacing and variety in the halfcourt, which was desperately lacking from the offense last season. Factor in the return of a healthy Jalen Suggs and the signing of Tyus Jones, the NBA's most efficient assist-to-turnover point guard, and suddenly Orlando's offense pops. Especially when we factor in the inevitable leaps from Wagner and Banchero, who are only 24 and 22, respectively.
Wagner has not received his due credit for several reasons, none more so than the simple fact that he plays in Orlando. That's a market and a team folks don't really pay attention to nationally. That's about to change in 2025-26, however. The Magic are already an elite defensive unit with one of the deepest rosters in the East. As the offense begins to perk up, this team will shoot to the top of the standings.
Amen Thompson, Houston Rockets
Amen Thompson rocketed (ha) up the NBA hierarchy in his second season. Now the Houston Rockets star is primed for another jump. After winning 52 games and claiming the No. 2 seed in a cutthroat Western Conference with an exceedingly young and inexperienced roster, the Rockets traded pennies on the dollar for Kevin Durant. This team is damn good, and the core pieces (aside from Durant) are very much on the upswing.
It's impossible to definitively pinpoint the "best" athlete in the NBA, but the label might as well belong to Thompson. He's got a twin brother in Detroit who can defy physics in a similar way, but Amen is probably the twitchiest 6-foot-7 "guard" — wing? forward? — to enter the league in, like, decades. At any point? I'm not sure we've ever seen a player move quite like him at that size. LeBron James and Zion Williamson had more power. Vince Carter could climb the staircase like nobody else. But Thompson just sort of glides across space and time, changing direction and elevation as effortlessly as one of those cool mountain goats.
Thompson has (almost) the full skill package, too, which feels unfair. He's a genuinely brilliant passer. His live-dribble, split-second reads are patently absurd. He's the best rebounder for his position in the NBA. He has a robust finishing package at the rim, whether he's just touching the heavens for a dunk or hanging midair and contorting his frame for a finesse layup. All that's really missing in the 3-point shot, but it doesn't seem like he needs it. Any shooting development will just be gravy.
The Rockets couldn't keep Thompson under wraps for long last season. He quickly forced his way into a starting and a starring role. Still, he was not fully unleashed as a scorer and primary facilitator. Thompson's ability to scale down, set screens and play a connecting role in the frontcourt is a huge boon, but it's not where his future lies. Houston will still funnel ball-handling reps to Fred VanVleet and the fast-rising Reed Sheppard, but eventually Thompson should settle in as Houston's primary perimeter star. Good things happen when he's controlling the ball.
Houston is going to win a ton of games and there's a world in which Thompson, not Durant, is quietly (or not so quietly) the Rockets' most impactful player this season. Even if he's not quite on that level, an All-Star bid seems well within reach.
Chet Holmgren, Oklahoma City Thunder
After finishing second to Victor Wembanyama in Rookie of the Year voting in 2024, Chet Holmgren was well on his way to a sophomore All-Star berth before a pelvic fracture knocked him out for three months. The Thunder didn't miss a beat in his absence, of course, because that team is absurd. But Holmgren eventually returned and was his usual, impactful self en route to an NBA Finals victory.
Holmgren will always face elevated injury concern with such a lanky frame, but when healthy, he's clearly one of the 30 best players in the world. And, at 23, he's still getting exponentially better, which is the most annoying aspect of this OKC team. The Thunder were far and away the best team in the NBA last season while just scratching the surface of their collective potential.
The next decade of DPOY awards probably belongs to Victor Wembanyama if he's healthy. But I can hardly imagine how often Holmgren will finish second. The Isaiah Hartenstein signing forced Holmgren out of the paint a bit more often, but he still averaged 2.2 blocks in 27.4 minutes. Weaponized as a weak-side roamer, Holmgren is all arms and effort. He plays incredibly hard and covers an absurd range with his 7-foot-6 wingspan.
There just aren't 7-footers who move like Holmgren. He can help off the perimeter and swoop out of left field for a blocked shot. He can mirror ball-handlers on the perimeter, flipping his hips and staying low in his stance despite a high center of gravity. Put him in the five spot, and he can effectively wall off the paint, mitigating his strength deficiency with sheer reach.
The offense is still coming along, but Holmgren is a proficient spot-up shooter who can beat closeouts, attack the rim on straight-line drives, and read the floor better than your average big. The holes in his repertoire are truly few and far between, and he's about to contribute to a lot of winning in OKC. So long as he plays enough, we can go ahead and pencil in Holmgren's name for the 2026 All-Star Game.