We have a problem. 

Of the fifteen players who made the 2024-2025 All-NBA teams, a staggering eight of them will be ineligible for repeat honors this year on account of the dreaded 65-games rule, those being Steph Curry, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Cade Cunningham, Anthony Edwards, Jayson Tatum, Tyrese Haliburton, LeBron James, and Jalen Williams. 

Here’s an amusing exercise – my All-Ineligible Teams for the 2025-2026 season

1st Team All-Ineligible

• Cade Cunningham
• Luka Doncic
• Anthony Edwards
• Steph Curry
• Giannis Antetokounmpo

2nd Team All-Ineligible

• Tyrese Haliburton
• LeBron James
• Jayson Tatum
• Anthony Davis
• Joel Embiid

3rd Team All-Ineligible

• Damian Lillard
• Kyrie Irving
• Lauri Markkanen
• Jimmy Butler
• Jalen Williams

Honorable Mentions: Pascal Siakam, Jaren Jackson Jr, Austin Reaves, Trae Young, Tyler Herro, Franz Wagner, Darius Garland, Paul George

As of today (Tuesday the 7th), I cannot actually tell whether or not Devin Booker qualifies, since the 65-game rule has a bizarrely strict minutes minimum (engineered to prevent players from starting the game then subbing out immediately to pick up a cheap credit) which may exclude games in which a player exited early with injury, as Booker did numerous times this year. At minimum, he will need to play each of the five remaining games, despite Phoenix being locked into the seven seed (a situation in which Booker would otherwise surely rest, skipping the meaningless games to ensure health for the postseason, as all teams have done with their superstars across all sports for over a decade). Even Kawhi Leonard, Nikola Jokic, and Victor Wembanyama, presumed first-teamers, remain a tweaked ankle away from disqualification, none of them having yet played even 63 games as I write this entering the final week of the NBA season. Is this really working as intended? 

I’d say that is a question for a different article, but that article would be three words long (“no, obviously not”). Still, I won’t opine. The task of picking All-NBA teams this season is a bizarre, confusing headache. We’ll walk through my process in real time. 

Gathering the candidates

The only logical strategy I can conceive of is to approach the list of all players who could still qualify and rank them in order, extending the list to 20 or 25 names to ensure I am prepared for an armageddon scenario in which Kawhi, Jokic, Wemby, Booker, and others on the cusp of eligibility all twist their ankles or contract the flu. So, step one, let’s go find 25 names. As always I’ll employ a balanced diet of traditional and advanced statistics to accompany my intuitive assessments from copious observation throughout the season, but I’m not going to belabor my process until we are parsing among the top 25. 

• Category One: MVP-caliber seasons
  • Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
  • Nikola Jokic
  • Victor Wembanyama
  • Kawhi Leonard
• Category Two: Certain inclusions 
  • Donovan Mitchell
  • Tyrese Maxey
  • Kevin Durant
  • Jamal Murray
  • Jaylen Brown
  • Jalen Brunson
  • Jalen Duren
  • Devin Booker (are you eligible?)
• Category Three: Would not make All-NBA in a normal season, but at minimum THREE of these players will make it this season
  • LaMelo Ball
  • Jalen Johnson
  • James Harden
  • Scottie Barnes
  • Chet Holmgren
  • Derrick White
  • Deni Avdija
  • Pascal Siakam
  • Stephon Castle
  • Alperen Sengun
  • Bam Adebayo
  • Kon Knueppel
  • Karl-Anthony Towns

“No, surely he’s missing some players,” I hear you all muttering under your breaths. I assure you, I am not! The situation is precisely this bleak. Here’s a lightning-speed guide for the skeptics, which you should freely skip if you trust my meticulousness. 

West

• Thunder: Shai and Chet are listed above. Jalen Williams is ineligible. 
• Spurs: Wemby and Castle are listed above. Fox was undeserving. 
• Nuggets: Jokic and Murray are listed above. 
• Lakers: Luka and Reaves and LeBron are all ineligible. 
• Rockets: Durant and Sengun are listed above. Amen was undeserving. 
• Timberwolves: Anthony Edwards is ineligible. Randle and Gobert were undeserving. 
• Suns: Devin Booker is listed above. No others deserving. 
• Clippers: Kawhi is listed above. Garland is ineligible. 
• Trail Blazers: Deni Avdija is begrudgingly listed above. No others deserving (Clingan was momentarily considered)
• Warriors: Steph Curry, Jimmy Butler, and Kristaps Porzingis all ineligible. 
• Mavs: Cooper Flagg narrowly missed the top 25. Kyrie Irving is ineligible. 
• Pelicans: Zion and Trey Murphy both received consideration, but were undeserving. 
• Grizzlies: I don’t think a single player on this team is going to play 65 games. 
• Kings: Sabonis and Lavine ineligible, but nobody deserving regardless
• Jazz: Lauri Markkanen, JJJ, and Keyonte George all ineligible.  

East

• Pistons: Jalen Duren is listed above. Cade Cunningham is ineligible. It’s a tragedy. Ausar was briefly considered and rejected. 
• Celtics: Jaylen Brown and Derrick White are listed above. Jayson Tatum ineligible. 
• Knicks: Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns are listed above. OG Anunoby was considered and narrowly missed the top 30.  
• Cavs: Donovan Mitchell and James Harden are listed above. Jarrett Allen is ineligible. Evan Mobley was considered. 
• Hawks: Jalen Johnson is listed above. No others deserving. 
• Raptors: Scottie Barnes is listed above. Brandon Ingram was considered and rejected. 
• 76ers: Tyrese Maxey is listed above. Embiid and Paul George both ineligible. Edgecombe not deserving. 
• Hornets: LaMelo Ball and Kon Knueppel are listed above. Brandon Miller ineligible. 
• Heat: Bam Adebayo is listed above. No others deserving (Herro, Powell ineligible)
• Magic: Paolo and Bane deemed undeserving. Franz and Suggs ineligible. 
• Bucks: Giannis ineligible. No others alive or breathing.
• Bulls: Josh Giddey both ineligible and undeserving. No others talented. 
• Nets: Michael Porter Jr ineligible and undeserving, no others relevant. 
• Pacers: Pascal Siakam is listed above. Haliburton and Zubac ineligible. 
• Wizards: lol. Anthony Davis and Trae Young ineligible.

As you can well see, I am missing nobody. This is going to be horrifying. 

Arranging First Team All-NBA

Sigh. It is two (2) days later. Thursday, now. I sit down to continue writing, and already we are inundated with fresh dilemmas. Both on track to finish the year with exactly 64 games played, Cade Cunningham and Luka Doncic are now filing “Extraordinary Circumstances” appeals to the NBA in the hopes of regaining eligibility for All-NBA honors. This does me no good, as I intend to release this article well in advance of that arbitration. Victor Wembanyama (sitting at 63 games played) exited Monday’s game against the 76ers with a rib contusion, one which reportedly is making it challenging to “take deep breaths.” Despite this, and despite the Spurs being mathematically locked into the 2-seed and resting all of their other important players for the postseason, Wemby is planning on trotting out there on the last night of the regular season for 21 minutes to secure eligibility for both Defensive Player of the Year (which he’ll win unanimously) and 1st Team All-NBA. “But Justin, hold on, doesn’t he have to play two more games to qualify?” you ask, being the fool that you are. No, of course not, because he played in the NBA Cup Final, which does *not* count towards the official NBA Standings or Statistics leaderboard (the Spurs did not receive a loss and the Knicks did not receive a win), but which *does* miraculously count toward qualification for postseason awards. Oh, and I received official word that Devin Booker will not qualify due to the aforementioned early exits, which means that Devin Booker could play 66 games and be ineligible while Wembanyama plays 64 games and wins Defensive Player of the Year. 

The only construction I am able to conceptualize given the uncertainty is a ranked choice voting First Team All-NBA, so here is my ballot. 

1. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (66 GP, 33.3 mpg), OKC: 64-16 (1st in West)
   1. 31/4/7 on 67.0% True Shooting, 2.2 turnovers, +9.3 EPM (1st)

2. Victor Wembanyama (63 GP, 29.2 mpg), SAS: 61-19 (2nd in West)
   1. 25/12/3 on 62.4% True Shooting, 2.4 turnovers, +8.7 EPM (2nd)

3. Nikola Jokic (64 GP, 35.1 mpg), DEN: 52-28 (3rd in West)
   1. 28/13/11 on 66.8% True Shooting, 3.8 turnovers, +8.1 EPM (3rd)

4. Luka Doncic (64 GP, 35.8 mpg), LAL: 51-29 (4th in West)
   1. 34/8/8 on 61.8% True Shooting, 4.0 turnovers, +6.7 EPM (5th)

5. Kawhi Leonard (64 GP, 32.0 mpg), LAC: 41-39 (8th in West)
   1. 28/6/4 on 63.4% True Shooting, 2.1 turnovers, +6.7 EPM (6th)

6. Cade Cunningham (62 GP, 34.2 mpg), DET: 58-22 (1st in East)
   1. 24/6/10 on 57.2% True Shooting, 3.7 turnovers, +4.5 EPM (13th)

7. Donovan Mitchell (70 GP, 33.5 mpg), CLE: 51-29 (4th in East)
   1. 28/5/6 on 61.7% True Shooting, 2.8 turnovers, +5.0 EPM (10th)

8. Kevin Durant (76 GP, 36.4 mpg), HOU: 51-29 (5th in West)
   1. 26/5/5 on 64.5% True Shooting, 3.2 turnovers, +4.0 EPM (17th)

Visualized, more plainly:

• Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
• Nikola Jokic
• Kawhi Leonard
• Victor Wembanyama 
• Luka Doncic, Cade Cunningham, Donovan Mitchell

*First substitution if a third player becomes ineligible: Kevin Durant*

The only controversial opinion implied by this ballot relates to its exclusion of Jaylen Brown, who I expect will be named to the First Team by the voters ahead of both Mitchell and Durant. Bear with me, please, because the following paragraphs are neither narratively consistent nor straightforward. The thesis is “Jaylen Brown’s impact lags behind his production but not to the extent implied by his On/Off numbers, he is still a deserving All-NBA player (though not a first teamer) and I am fed up with the use of On/Off as a substitute for player analysis.”

Across the last four seasons (regular season and playoffs), the Boston Celtics have played 11,180 minutes with Jaylen Brown on the court, and 6,965 minutes with him off the court. Filtering out garbage time, the Celtics outscored their opponents by 7.1 points per 100 possessions with Jaylen Brown on the court. This is an excellent number at first glance, but what may shock those of you who do not live on basketball twitter is that the Celtics outscored their opponents by 13.8 points per 100 possessions with Jaylen Brown off the court. Collapsing the sample to this season, the optics only worsen for Mr Brown: +6.2 with him on the floor, +13.9 with him off. These galling ‘On/Off’ splits are typically how Brown’s detractors argue against his standing amongst the league’s elite. 

I vociferously despise this argument, and I will not be euphemism-gaslit into entertaining +/- as a serious statistic warranting serious analysis. Giving this contextless poison of a number a sophisticated hat and calling it WOWY or Net Rating or On/Off (ooo look at me I added a slash) does not magically transform it into an advanced analytic. To quote myself from last season’s MVP article, On/Off is, on a theoretical basis, as much a reflection on the substitute as it is on the starter. 

Jusuf Nurkic began the 2017 regular season as the backup to Nikola Jokic, playing 17.8 minutes per game. As such, his On/Off numbers were mortifying. With Nurkic in (and thus Jokic out), the Nuggets were obliterated (-8.9 per 100 possessions), and with Nurkic out (and Jokic engaging in Jokic magic), the Nuggets performed well (+2.5 per 100 possessions). Denver reasons that Nurkic must not be particularly good, so they trade him to Portland for Mason Plumlee. Care to guess what Jusuf Nurkic’s On/Off splits looked like as a Portland Trail Blazer? The answer is +10.1 – the Blazers made mincemeat of their opponents with Nurkic in (+7.6), and struggled enormously with him off (-2.5). This trend would continue for the next two seasons, with Nurkic registering sterling On/Off splits surpassing those of Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum throughout what became a long and lucrative career as a Portland Trail Blazer. 

Do you suppose Jusuf Nurkic simply improved by a +21.9 net rating margin between takeoff and landing of his flight from Denver to Portland? Perhaps they had a basketball court in the Denver airport and he was able to get some shots up. Or perhaps this stat is a reflection of team circumstances. It is NOT a reliable tool for individual player evaluation. 

When Jaylen Brown goes to the bench, he is replaced by superior rebounders and defenders (Walsh, Hugo, Harper, etc) while usage rates for both Payton Pritchard and Derrick White increase dramatically. The expected result of this is a slightly improved defense and significantly worse offense, unless Pritchard and White are able to somehow compensate for Jaylen’s offensive contributions (spoiler: they are). 

While sharing the court with Jaylen Brown, Payton Pritchard averages 16.5 points and 5.2 assists per 75 possessions on 56.6% True Shooting – with Brown off the court, Pritchard is prime Damian Lillard. Per 75 possessions without Jaylen, Pritchard averages 26.9 points and 7.8 assists with just 1.2 turnovers on 60.8% True Shooting. Likewise, Derrick White elevates from 16.3 points per 75 to 23.4 with Brown on the bench, himself boasting a 3:1 assist to turnover ratio. 

That Pritchard and White are evidently underrated and underutilized need not derail our analysis of Jaylen Brown’s impactfulness in a vacuum. Failing to improve upon the output of an offense in comparison to a substitute initiator averaging 27/5/8 on 61% True Shooting who never turns the ball over is not a failure to produce impactfully, it is a statistical casualty of an overtalented roster. Remember, the Celtics are still an excellent team when Brown is running the offense (+6.2 per 100 possessions). 

If you remain unconvinced that WOWY is a sham, then this final blow ought to sway you, knowing that most if not all of my readers are Knicks fans. Over the last two seasons, Jalen Brunson has a -6.1 On/Off. Accounting for low leverage minutes (blowouts and garbage time), the New York Knicks have performed 6.1 points per 100 possessions better with Jalen Brunson on the bench than with him on the court. Can we be done now?

Returning to the matter of Jaylen Brown – the widespread discourse has reduced his case to a false binary. Either you favor the eye test and the traditional box score numbers, where he is averaging a smashing 29 points, 7 rebounds, and 5 assists per game, or you operate as a slave to the analytics (*insert spooky ghost noise*). Indeed, the analytics are no friend to Brown (he ranks 49th in EPM this season at +2.3), but they happen to be an entirely unnecessary boogeyman in formulating persuasive arguments against him. As is often the case, the analytics merely hint at a truth already evident in the box scores for those willing to analyze closely. 

There is nothing inherently valuable about scoring 29 points per game. Efficiency is traditionally tacked on as an accessory to volume, a bonus category by which some of the league’s leading scorers may receive extra credit, which is exactly backwards. There is only efficiency. Scoring should exclusively be scaling upwards from a foundation of efficiency, as 200-250 points will be scored throughout a basketball game and an individual player’s contributions to that total cannot be deemed valuable unless the rate at which they converted scoring attempts into points met or exceeded the average rate among the game’s other participants. 

This claim reads as artless and inflexible, but it is deeply sensitive to context and mundane in practice. A player’s points are themselves valuable if and only if the efficiency at which they were generated exceeds the rate at which points are otherwise scored by his teammates. Every shot attempt has an opportunity cost. That does not mean that a player’s scoring gravity is without value – that being the manner by which a defense contorts and compromises itself in order to specifically limit a player’s scoring – and it does not mean that efficiency looks like the same True Shooting Percentage in all situations. 

In the 2020 Western Conference Semifinals, the Los Angeles Lakers defeated the Houston Rockets in 5 games in a high-scoring series that saw the Lakers average 111 points per game on 61% True Shooting and the Rockets average 103 points per game on 58% True Shooting. If you’re familiar with the series, you will already know where I am going with this. Russell Westbrook scored 20 points per game on 48% True Shooting, in a series where the Lakers happily sagged off of him and encouraged him to fire away. Subtracting his 92 field goal attempts and 26 free throw attempts from the Rockets totals, Houston scored at a teamwide efficiency of… 61% True Shooting, exactly on par with the Lakers. A shot attempted by Russell Westbrook was worth 0.96 points, while a shot attempted by anyone else wearing the color red was worth 1.22 points. In this particular case, Westbrook’s 20 points per game were of explicitly negative value – the Rockets would have paid his $50 million salary thrice over in order to surgically remove his arms and ban him from touching the basketball, in retrospect. Zero points per game on zero shots per game is a statline that would have been clowned, sure, but given that the Lakers were cheating off of him defensively regardless, it would have been categorically and inarguably better than the results he put forth across his 20 points per game. 

Compare that to the 2004 Eastern Conference Finals performance by Jermaine O’Neal. His 20 points per game on 48% True Shooting appear identical to those of Westbrook in 2020, but O’Neal’s were liquid gold in a series that featured an average score of 75-73 and a teamwide efficiency of 43% True Shooting from the Indiana Pacers. Or to LeBron James’ 36 points per game on 48% True Shooting in the 2015 Finals against Golden State, when the Cavaliers starting lineup consisted of Iman Shumpert, Matthew Dellevadova, Timofey Mozgov, and Tristan Thompson. 

So what of Jaylen Brown’s 29 points per game on the 2025-2026 Boston Celtics? Jaylen has scored at an efficiency of 57.4% True Shooting, or 1.15 points per scoring attempt. The Boston Celtics score at an efficiency of 58.3% True Shooting, or 1.16 points per scoring attempt. Their offense scores 121.5 points per 100 possessions with him on the court, and it scores 121.5 points per 100 possessions with him off the court. So, a wash? I don’t think it’s that simple. Brown is responsible for nearly 40% of Boston’s field goal attempts in transition (4.3 per game, 2nd most in the NBA), which oddly works both for and against him – those transition points are highly additive for Boston, but they also indicate that his other 17.5 nightly shot attempts are going in even less often than indicated by his 57.4% True Shooting. Jaylen is taking 11.8 midrange shots per game, and he is making only 43% of them. Those are uniformly bad shots if taken at any time other than the last five seconds of the shot clock. Is Jaylen taking an aberrant proportion of his shots late in the clock? Actually, yes! He takes 4.7 shots per game with 0-7 seconds remaining on the shot clock, second-most of any player in the NBA. 

Who is first? Payton Pritchard… hm. Perhaps Boston just tends to operate late in the shot clock since they work so diligently to generate great shots. 

Still, Brown deserves at least partial relief for the inefficiency of those 4.7 shot attempts. Surprisingly, given the Celtics’ identity, Brown is a rather poor three-point shooter. His 34% accuracy on the season matches his average since 2021 and places him in the 43rd percentile among all players. This isn’t a function of difficulty, either – Brown actually shoots a higher percentage on self-generated threes (35%) than he does on catch-and-shoot threes (33%). So, at 1.02 points per possession, those are not particularly worthwhile shots either. Jaylen should clearly be shooting fewer jump shots. 

Where he undoubtedly helps the Celtics’ offense is in his ability to get to the rim. He leads all Celtics with 5.8 rim attempts per game, making 67% of them, and gets to the line 7.6 times per game, knocking down 80% of his free throws. Owing to the threat of these highly efficient drives, Brown draws a second defender more often than any other Celtic, which manifests itself partly in Boston gathering more offensive rebounds during Brown’s minutes, despite Brown himself being a non-factor on the offensive glass. 

All told, I think Brown’s 29 points per game are a mild but meaningful net-positive, despite a per-possession scoring rate that is slightly below the team’s average.

Where Jaylen loses me is his playmaking, turnover rate, and defense. He averages 5.1 assists and 3.6 turnovers per game, a disappointing ratio consistent with the eye test. He takes a lot of frustrating, contested shots, has a habit of overdribbling into turnovers, and routinely misses open teammates both downhill and on the wings when he operates as the pick-and-roll initiator. He also has picked up a reputation as some elite defender, one which comprehensively contradicts the available evidence both on TV and in the data. Jaylen has been a borderline-negative defender in EPM and other advanced metrics over the last two seasons, aligning with his increasing idleness off-ball and bizarrely low deflection rates. His (career-high!) seven rebounds per game may appeal to you, but consider that his offensive rebounding rate, a paltry 1.1 per game, is actually lower than it was when he averaged only 5 rebounds per game earlier in his career. To me, this is reflective of the statistical bloat that comes with being ‘The Guy’ – uncontested rebounds go to them by default, as they’ll be the one taking the ball up the floor. If all high-volume scorers seem to have strangely robust rebounding numbers to you, this is why.    

Looking at the guys ahead of him on my imaginary ballot, Shai, KD, and Kawhi are all drastically more efficient scorers than Jaylen and significantly better defenders than him while maintaining a lower turnover rate. Luka and Cade are all-time great passers operating in far worse offensive environments than Jaylen. Jokic is Jokic, Wemby is Wemby, and Donovan Mitchell has been slightly but soundly superior to Jaylen in every single category listed above throughout the entire season. Hence, Jaylen Brown will not be making my First Team All-NBA. I hope I’ve tempered your outrage. 

Arranging Second Team All-NBA

It is now Saturday! Congratulations to me for derailing this process with a four-and-a-half page diatribe on WOWY and Jaylen Brown and the 2004 Indiana Pacers that I’m sure could not possibly be cut-and-pasted into an article for which it would be actually relevant. Updating our State of the Eligibility Union, Victor Wembanyama has officially qualified! So, too, has Kawhi Leonard. Our plot twist of the weekend is that Mister Jokic, the three-time MVP, remains at 64 games with just one remaining, and his coach David Adelman said ominously that “adult conversations” will need to take place prior to that Sunday contest in which every other Nugget will be resting for the postseason. With no update on Luka or Cade’s appeals, I am going to continue to assume the presence of neither on my ballot, which makes 2nd Team All-NBA pretty easy! 

Reminder, the current first teamers are: Jokic, SGA, Wembanyama, Kawhi, and Donovan Mitchell, with Cade/Luka assumed out and Jokic assumed in. 

SECOND TEAM

• Kevin Durant (76 GP, 36.4 mpg), HOU: 51-29 (5th in West)
  • 26/5/5 on 64.5% True Shooting, 3.2 turnovers, +4.0 EPM (17th)

• Tyrese Maxey (69 GP, 38.2 mpg), PHI: 44-37 (8th in East)
  • 28/4/7 on 59.1% True Shooting, 2.4 turnovers, +3.6 EPM (21st)

• Jamal Murray (75 GP, 35.4 mpg), DEN: 53-28 (3rd in West)
  • 25/4/7 on 63.0% True Shooting, 2.3 turnovers, +3.4 EPM (25th)

• Jaylen Brown (71 GP, 34.4 mpg), BOS: 55-26 (2nd in East)
  • 29/7/5 on 57.4% True Shooting, 3.6 turnovers, +2.3 EPM (49th)

• Jalen Duren (70 GP, 28.2 mpg), DET: 59-22 (1st in East)
  • 20/11/2 on 69.0% True Shooting, 1.9 turnovers, +4.6 EPM (12th)

This team became really easy with all of the eliminations. The ten guys I have already named (excluding Cade and Luka) plus Jalen Brunson make up the list of players I assume will be unanimous All-NBA selections this season, with the remaining four spots an utter and unadulterated battlefield of chaos. To give each of them their flowers briefly…

Kevin Durant has found himself in arguably the most unpleasant offensive environment in the Western Conference – the Houston Rockets have no point guard, no shooting, and no intelligent design to their offensive approach. KD emerged nine free throws shy of a 50/40/90 season (64.5% TS) on 26 points per game and carried the Rockets to a 120.1 offensive rating with him on the court. He struggled with turnovers, as he always does, but in this particular season that felt like a coaching and personnel issue rather than a Durant issue. He was also a significant positive defensively, improving upon two relatively poor defensive seasons in Phoenix. 

The 76ers would be stranded alone in a deep dark forest if not for the guiding hand of Tyrese Maxey this season. Maxey seamlessly flowed between roles depending on the status of his unreliable co-stars, happily coasting to 22 points per night and taking half of his attempts from three when Embiid/Paul George were available only to flip the switch and shoulder a 35% usage rate (>30 ppg) with those guys out. He wasn’t the world’s most efficient scorer, nor was he able to consistently overcome his size and strength deficits defensively, and it’s clear that repeated hand and finger injuries have sapped his efficiency down the stretch. 

Jamal Murray would have a strong case for First Team All-NBA if not for some ghastly defensive metrics (-1.7 D-EPM). He shot 44% from three on eight attempts per game, annihilating the Nuggets’ single-season record, made 89% free throws, notched a 7:2 assist to turnover ratio, kept Denver afloat at 11-6 in games Nikola Jokic missed this year, and elevated the team offense to a preposterous 127 offensive rating in his minutes on the floor. It may shock people to hear that Denver’s offense scored at the exact same rate during the Yes Jokic No Murray minutes as they did during the No Jokic Yes Murray minutes. 

Jalen Duren was a paragon of efficiency, and as such was this season’s premier darling of the advanced stats. 69% True Shooting is I would guess the second-highest mark ever recorded in a 20+ point per game season (I cannot verify this quickly, but I know Jokic hit 70% in ‘23 and it was historic). Duren’s limited minutes (very often due to the Pistons crushing their opponents en route to 60 wins) also markedly undersells his dominance. Per 36 minutes, Duren averaged 25 points and 13 rebounds, far more in line with how oppressive he felt.

Arranging Third Team All-NBA

It is now Sunday, and the season has ended! Does that mean we have clarity on All-NBA eligibility? Of course not, you ignorant oaf, we must await deliberation at the appeals court for Plaintiff Doncic and Plaintiff Cunningham. Er, would they be the defendants in this case? Alas. Nikola Jokic made it to 65 games! This is due cause for celebration. 

The 3rd team is a total nightmare, if my ten and a half pages of procrastination haven’t been evidence enough of that fact. After Brunson, who we will proudly offer the first slot on the team, none of these candidates deserve this distinction, and yet we are obliged to award it to FOUR of them. Blank spaces would be my preference in solidarity with the fallen. 

The player I am most comfortable by far slotting into this team is LaMelo Ball. LaMelo’s disarming style and deeply unserious off-court behavior rendered him hopelessly underrated and underappreciated for years, perhaps appropriately so, but he has weaponized his flare for the dramatic into a teamwide hailstorm of chaos that turned Charlotte into the most terrifying force in the Association for three months. The Hornets are 32-16 since January 1st with the best offense in basketball (120.8 ORTG) and second-best net rating (+10.4) to San Antonio, launching and converting on the most threes of anyone (17.3/44.6 per game) with a starting lineup that outscored opponents by the largest margin of any starting lineup in NBA history (+29.1 per 100 possessions). There is a potent Tyrese Haliburton aroma to LaMelo’s impact – at 20 points per game on 55% True Shooting and 7.3 assists, his statistical profile is underwhelming, but, through a combination of urgency initiating offense and masterful court mapping, he singularly elevates the performance of all other players on the roster. Kon Knueppel goes from 59% True Shooting to 67% True Shooting with LaMelo on the court alongside him. Brandon Miller gets 5% more efficient (55 -> 60), Diabate gets 9% more efficient (60 -> 69), Bridges gets 9% more efficient (52 -> 61), Grant Williams gets 6% more efficient (58 -> 64), and Sion James gets 11% more efficient (50 -> 61). LaMelo makes every player around him better to an absurd degree. The Hornets have a 126 offensive rating when LaMelo plays, which would be the NBA record by 5 points per 100 possessions. His advanced analytical footprint is accordingly superb (+4.6 EPM, 11th in NBA), and his per 36 stats are more in line with a traditional superstar: 26 points (on 13 three-point attempts), 6 rebounds, and 9 assists per game. 

Typing this out, I am honestly quite comfortable with LaMelo as an All-NBA player. His low minutes work against his case far more than they hurt Duren or Wembanyama, since the Hornets really needed those minutes (they finished 9th, just a single game out of the 7-8 line), and his defense is at times infuriating, but the impact is unquestionable. 

Huzzah. Two down, three to go. I’m gonna break some of the top remaining candidates down into categories and then have them duel, since that will entertain me in this bleak midwinter of a selection process. 

Category One: Impressive statistics, but are they empty calories? 

• Jalen Johnson (72 GP, 35.2 mpg), ATL: 46-36 (6th in East)
  • 23/10/8 on 58.3% True Shooting, 3.4 turnovers, +1.5 EPM (85th)

• James Harden (70 GP, 34.8 mpg), LAC/CLE: 40-30 (when Harden played)
  • 24/5/8 on 62.1% True Shooting, 3.5 turnovers, +2.8 EPM (39th)

• Deni Avdija (65 GP, 33.3 mpg), POR: 42-40 (8th in West)
  • 24/7/7 on 59.9% True Shooting, 3.8 turnovers, +1.9 EPM (64th)

Category Two: Analytics darlings with underwhelming statistics

• Derrick White (77 GP, 34.1 mpg), BOS: 56-26 (2nd in East)
  • 16/4/5 on 53.0% True Shooting, 1.7 turnovers, +4.4 EPM (14th)

• Chet Holmgren (69 GP, 28.9 mpg), OKC: 64-18 (1st in West)
  • 17/8/1 on 65.0% True Shooting, 1.6 turnovers, +6.0 EPM (8th)

• Scottie Barnes (79 GP, 33.5 mpg), TOR: 46-36 (5th in East)
  • 18/7/6 on 57.9% True Shooting, 2.6 turnovers, +2.7 EPM (42nd)

Category Three: Sneaky good seasons from inconsistent contenders

• Karl-Anthony Towns (75 GP, 31.0 mpg), NYK: 53-29 (3rd in East)
  • 20/12/3 on 62.4% True Shooting, 2.5 turnovers, +3.5 EPM (23rd)

• Bam Adebayo (72 GP, 32.4 mpg), MIA: 42-40 (10th in East)
  • 20/10/3 on 55.1% True Shooting, 1.7 turnovers, +3.5 EPM (24th)

Duel for Slot Three: James Harden vs Derrick White

It is hard to imagine two different players, so I’m amused and pleased with myself at having transmogrified this exercise into a deathmatch between them. Can Derrick White’s defensive brilliance (he made my imaginary 1st team All-Defense) possibly offset such an oceanic gap in scoring volume and efficiency? My instinct is that it’s going to be tough, but I’ll attempt to talk myself into it. 

If you don’t watch a lot of Celtics games you are going to think I have lost my marbles, but I’m saying it anyway – Derrick White is one of the best rim protectors in the NBA. Courtesy of databallr.com, we notice first that White is the closest defender on 7.6 shots at the rim per game (88th percentile volume), and that those shots are going in at a rate that is 8.5% lower than league average. That ‘Rim Defensive Differential Percentage’ as tracked by databallr has Derrick White in the 97th percentile, just a fraction of a percentage point behind Rudy Gobert and Jarrett Allen. He finished 13th in the league in total blocks with 98 on the season, 15th in blocks per game, and 11th in databallr’s estimation of ‘Rim Points Saved’ on the season with a staggering figure of 66.5. This is among the reasons why Derrick White is 9th among qualifying players in Defensive EPM (+2.6) – it goes without saying that he is an immaculate help defender and a bulletproof answer to the league’s highest scoring guards. The Celtics were 27th in defensive rating with White off the court this season, yet finished as a top-4 defense. 

The issue for White, who I personally revere as a basketball player and who I know will be on ballots for a lot of sharp analysts, is that he has been in a miserable and unremitting shooting slump for the entire season, resulting in his worst offensive year as a Celtic. I suspect there is an unspoken impulse to handwave this. White is an elite shooter. In his first three years as a Celtic, he knocked down 39% of 6.7 attempts per game in the regular season, and 42% of 7.5 attempts per game in the postseason. Nobody believes, and nor should they, that his 32% mark on the season in 2025-2026 is an accurate reflection of his talent and likely to persist throughout the playoffs. But I cannot give him credit for shots that he did not make when retrospectively concretizing his value-add across these 82 games. His 53.0% True Shooting tells a clear story – when Derrick White shot the basketball, the Celtics offense saw inferior results to those of shots attempted by any other player on the team. As discussed for other players, this need not necessarily be a death sentence. White’s reputation as a lethal shooter does create gravity for others in the offense, and he is a strong passer who rarely turns the ball over. Still, unlike with LaMelo Ball or Cade Cunningham, there is no overwhelming evidence in analytics or in the relative performance of his teammates with him on the court to suggest that White is a secretly vital cog to the functionality of the Boston offense, which, if anything, improved by a half-tick when Derrick White went to the bench (121 -> 122 ORTG, mostly noise). 

None of this is to suggest I was blown away by the season authored by the 2017-2018 Kia NBA Most Valuable Player James Harden, though I have found his midseason adaptability somewhat astounding, this being the third time in five years that his play has arguably improved after a midseason trade. Harden was traded from Houston to Brooklyn during the 2021 season, from Brooklyn to Philadelphia in the 2022 season, and this year from Los Angeles to Cleveland, and in each case he scored more efficiently with more assists and fewer turnovers post-trade. The best compliment I can give 2025-2026 James Harden is that he was essentially 2024-2025 James Harden with a slightly higher rim rate and significantly better accuracy from beyond the arc. I had James Harden on my All-NBA Third Team last year, so I suppose I will begrudgingly welcome him back and use this to strengthen my side of the Harden vs Wade debate in future articles. 

Winner: James Harden

Duel for Slot Four: Deni Avdija vs Bam Adebayo vs Chet Holmgren 

Much oxygen has been wasted in the direction of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and his 9.0 free throw attempts per game, when in fact that 9.0 number is considerably below average for 30+ point per game scorers historically. The idea that Shai benefits disproportionately from ‘foul-baiting’ in comparison to other legendary players is flatly betrayed by the most basic evidence. What possible explanation could I have for starting this paragraph talking about SGA? 

Deni Avdija is a merchant and a fraud and it is my duty as a fan of the dying sport that is NBA basketball to oppose his All-NBA campaign with every morsel of influence I possess. Lost in the misguided firestorm about SGA’s favorable whistle, Deni Avdija averaged MORE free throws per game than him, despite being Deni Avdija and scoring three billion fewer points on an infinitely worse offense with infinitely inferior skills. Avdija ranked first in the Association by a country mile in free throws attempted per shot attempt (0.58). This is because Deni Avdija is a merchant and a fraud. Deni Avdija is shooting 31% from three (22nd percentile), 40% in the midrange (41st percentile), and 61% at the rim (42nd percentile). This means that you could pick a player completely at random, have them replace Deni Avdija no matter where he is standing on the basketball court, and the resulting shot would be more likely to go in. He got less accurate from both inside and outside the arc compared to himself last season, he commits more turnovers than anyone in the league besides Luka Doncic, and he unilaterally mutilates an otherwise elite Trail Blazer defense when he is on the court, partly I’m sure because he is one of the only basketball players in the world with a wingspan shorter than their height. It is for these reasons that the advanced analytics are unimpressed by his gaudy numbers, and have him ranked as the 3rd most impactful Portland Trail Blazer behind Donovan Clingan and Jrue Holiday. 

With that said, it is indisputable that getting to the free throw line is the most efficient method of scoring points in the game of basketball. Just ask the Washington Wizards, who were utterly humiliated by our next contestant Bam Adebayo to the tune of 43 free throw attempts and 83 points in a single game. Hilariously, that game accounted for 10.3% of his free throw attempts for the entire season. Bam has a far stronger analytical profile than Deni, cracking the top-25 in EPM and grading out more favorably yet in bball-index.com’s ‘LEBRON’ metric (13th), driven by his unique defensive versatility as a center that can guard all five positions and play every PnR coverage at a high level. His evolution as an outside shooter has not been perfect (31.7%), but his willingness to fire 5.5 attempts per game from beyond the arc even as they continue to miss has allowed for a radical re-configuration of the Heat’s approach offensively. An odd fact about this season is that Miami scored 120.9 points per game, the 2nd most in the NBA, yet finished 12th in offensive rating behind the Clippers, who finished 24th in points per game. Obviously, Miami’s pace was blistering. Whether or not this experiment was a success depends I think on what your preseason expectations were for this roster, but regardless Bam is one of the only Centers in league history in good enough shape to render such an experiment even possible. If you believe, as I do, that this Heat roster is atrocious, then you are likely to have emerged from this season with a very fond view of Bam’s campaign. I prefer his season to Deni’s. 

None of that is necessary, however. Chet Holmgren is going to run away with this fourth slot in a landslide. I’ll give you the thirty second stump speech, then spend the rest of my time attempting to verbalize the nauseating unease I feel watching him play basketball. 

Chet averaged 21.3 points per 36 minutes (like all OKC players, he needs to have his season-long stats normalized due to frequent blowouts) and over 11 rebounds with a True Shooting Percentage of 65.0%. He shot 79% at the free throw line, 74% at the rim, 49% in the midrange, and 36% from three on nearly four attempts per game. All of those marks are elite for his position, and yet his offense is merely the bonus, as he is going to finish 2nd behind only the alien in San Antonio for Defensive Player of the Year honors, and deservedly so. Derrick White’s rim protection numbers were cute, noteworthy for a guard, but opponents shot 15.4% worse at the rim when Chet Holmgren was the closest defender this year. Databallr estimates that he saved 129.7 points with contests at the rim this season, first among all players in the category, including Wemby. He was the anchor of the best defense in the league (for the second straight season) and the second best player on a 64-win team, and it is impossible to find an advanced analytic that has him outside the top ten for the season, let alone the top fifteen or twenty for All-NBA purposes. 

So, yeah, he’s the guy. Great. I cannot argue with those results. In determining the All-NBA teams, my feelings about the sustainability of a player’s success going forward are irrelevant. But hear me loud and clear – I refuse to be browbeaten by the analytics into accepting Chet Holmgren as some reliable star-level NBA player moving forward. Perhaps I am flying a little bit too close to the Stephen A. Smith Sun with this take, but I have two eyes. If this is what an NBA superstar looks like, then I ought to gouge them and put two calculators in their place. Chet looks flagrantly ridiculous at all times. Maybe I’m just bitter because a group of teenagers told me I looked (and played) like Chet during a friendly 4v4 game at my local park. But I cannot watch this cartoonishly misproportioned man and his deeply sunken eyes collapse unprovoked to the floor multiple times a game without incurring an unflinching dread that he will someday take one too many elbows to the chest and fragment into his component parts like Mr. Potato Head and have to be swept off the floor of the arena by traumatized staff. I understand that it would be ridiculous to describe a professional basketball player as unathletic, but I counter that it would be profoundly more ridiculous to observe this human run, in a manner that engenders momentary uncertainty as to whether or not the playing surface is itself uneven, then claim with a straight face that he is athletic. Nothing about his shooting motion is consistent from one time to the next. Every dribble is an adventure. I do not trust him to make passes that have to travel any distance in the air, and I am convinced he is getting away with seven travels and five defensive fouls per game on the back of the referee being visually unable to process Chet’s disjointed movement patterns in time to blow the whistle. 

With that off my chest, we can head to the final spot (which may not ultimately matter since it is now Tuesday at 2:11 a.m and there is speculation that Luka may in fact win his appeal). 

Winner: Chet Holmgren

Duel for Slot Five: Karl-Anthony Towns vs Jalen Johnson vs Scottie Barnes

Much like with Deni Avdija, I have included Scottie Barnes only to vocalize my confusion as to why he has garnered such support for All-NBA honors. Barnes improved a ton offensively, which has been joyous to witness for a player who was closer to a liability on that end as recently as a year ago. That “improvement” has been a jump from 52% True Shooting to 58% True Shooting, and a slight reduction in volume (18.1 ppg) to accommodate the arrival of Brandon Ingram. He is still a putrid outside shooter, a shaky ball handler, and an undersized four. I appreciate that he is a terrific defender (he made my imaginary Second Team All-Defense), but I am not yet convinced he is an affirmatively good offensive player, leaving him well on the fringes of the All-NBA conversation for me. 

Thinking Basketball put out an incisive video about Jalen Johnson a month ago, one which negatively colored my perception of his impactfulness. The thesis was, more or less, “just because you are doing a lot of things, does not mean you are doing them in a way that drives winning. You have to either score, pass, rebound, or influence the performance of those around you at an aptitude that is above average relative to the volume you are taking on.” I don’t want to belabor a paragraph that can be condensed to, “yeah, I agree.” Jalen Johnson is at 58% True Shooting, a mark very similar to Jaylen Brown’s, who we highlighted at length as an example of statistical bloat earlier on. Jalen’s shot profile is very similar to Jaylen’s, in that his rim pressure is valuable but he takes too many jump shots and is surprisingly unreliable from long distance. Unlike Jaylen, however, Jalen lacks a superstar reputation, which concretely diminishes the frequency with which opponents will send multiple defenders his way. This gravity is the primary engine of Jaylen’s All-NBA case, so Jalen’s rings hollow without it. 

Did I make that sufficiently incomprehensible? I think removing the last names was a deft touch, really ensuring that nobody would be able to keep track of who is who on their first read. Anyway, I’m giving my final spot to KAT, though he won’t make my final roster if Luka wins his appeal. In a season that I’m sure has been impossibly frustrating for him, KAT has navigated puzzling droughts of involvement with a lot of grace. He has put forth a wonderful defensive season (maybe the best of his career) animated by his sheer dominance as a rebounder, and he sustained fine efficiency (62% True Shooting) despite having his best weapon (his three-point shooting) largely schemed out of the offense. The analytics agree – KAT’s +3.5 EPM nearly surpasses that of Johnson and Barnes combined. 

Winner: Karl-Anthony Towns

The Official, Final, Set in Stone, yet conditional, and pending appeal, All-NBA Ballot

Justin’s First Team All-NBA

• Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
• Victor Wembanyama
• Nikola Jokic
• Kawhi Leonard 
• Donovan Mitchell

Justin’s Second Team All-NBA

• Kevin Durant
• Jamal Murray
• Tyrese Maxey
• Jaylen Brown
• Jalen Duren

Justin’s Third Team All-NBA

• Jalen Brunson
• Lamelo Ball
• Chet Holmgren
• James Harden
• Karl-Anthony Towns

If Luka ultimately is made eligible, slot him into the first team in place of Donovan Mitchell. Duren would move to the Third Team to make room for Donovan. KAT would be out to make room for Duren. 

If Cade and Luka are both made eligible, Cade would slot into the Second Team ahead of Jaylen Brown. James Harden would then be cut to make room for Brown on the Third Team. 

Thanks for reading : )