Ranking the Best Young Cores Ahead of 2025-26 NBA Season
Youth and hope are synonymous in the NBA, but this is the apron era. That means young players now have to prove themselves as drivers of winning right away.
Whereas we could have once given a high ranking based on future potential alone, we must now give more weight to what a team's collection of young talent has already done.
Runways are shorter. The training wheels come off sooner. They have to; financially-driven breakups happen more quickly than ever.
We'll still focus on the top-end quality and overall quantity of the core, and fit matters as well. As usual, players must be in their age-25 season or younger for 2025-26. But the new focus is on success.
Promise is great, but we're going to heavily consider a core's track record this time around. The only thing better than a collection of young players who project to win at the highest level is one that already has.
5. Orlando Magic
1 of 5
The Core: Paolo Banchero (23), Franz Wagner (24), Jalen Suggs (24)
Had he played enough games to qualify, Banchero would have earned All-NBA consideration a year ago. One of the league's most promising under-25 scorers, the 6'10" forward pushed his three-point volume to a career-high 6.2 attempts per 36 minutes and got to the foul line a whopping 8.4 times per game. That last stat will be the key to Banchero's continued climb up the scoring-leaders chart; his combination of size, aggression and ball-handling will allow him to pile up easy points at the line for years to come.
Of all the players we've covered, Banchero (25.9 points per game as a 22-year-old) may have the best shot to one day lead the league in scoring.
Wagner continued his steady overall improvement last year and was in the MVP discussion before an oblique injury cost him most of December and January. Like Banchero, he's a handful when going downhill—even if his attacks are more about craft than pure force.
Shooting concerns intensified for Wagner last season, as he hit under 30.0 percent from deep for the second year in a row. He's already a high-end starter who earned a rookie-scale max extension, but he can't become a true star if teams don't have to guard him beyond the arc.
Suggs has produced exactly one great season in four tries, but it still feels smart to assume the 2023-24 campaign was the best reflection of his ability. The combo guard landed on the All-Defensive second team and hit 39.7 percent of his threes in 75 starts that year. One of the most intense and aggressive defensive guards in the game, Suggs will be a two-way force if he's merely a league-average shooter from deep.
Others: Anthony Black (22), Tristan Da Silva (24), Jase Richardson (20), Noah Penda (20), Jett Howard (22)
4. Detroit Pistons
2 of 5
The Core: Cade Cunningham (24), Ausar Thompson (23), Jaden Ivey (23), Jalen Duren (22), Ron Holland II (20), Isaiah Stewart (24)
Cunningham finished seventh in MVP voting last season and was the primary offensive force on a Detroit Pistons team that tripled its win total. He and the Pistons also gave the New York Knicks a real fight in the first round of the playoffs.
That Cunningham managed all that while surrounded by a young supporting cast that still had major shortcomings speaks to his status as one of the top under-25 players in the NBA.
That's not to say the rest of the Pistons' youth corps is underwhelming. It's just that all of them come with at least one potential question mark.
Thompson is an elite defender who shoots just 19.8 percent from deep for his career. Holland comes with similar shooting uncertainties. Ivey appeared to break out early last season, averaging 17.6 points and hitting 40.9 percent of his threes, but he logged just 30 games before injury shelved him for the year.
Duren must improve in space defensively, and Stewart's offensive role is murky if he isn't going to be a reliable perimeter shooter.
Together, that group is still among the most intriguing around—largely because one or two of them will probably address their aforementioned weaknesses and push toward stardom.
Others: Bobi Klintman (22), Marcus Sasser (25)
3. San Antonio Spurs
3 of 5
The Core: Victor Wembanyama (22), Stephon Castle (21), Dylan Harper (19), Devin Vassell (25)
The Spurs might have landed here if its entire core was Wembanyama. Analyzing him is like taking on a dare to see how hyperbolic you're willing to get; no projection seems too outlandish in the wake of what he's done to this point in his career.
Wemby will be the league's best defensive player for the foreseeable future, and he's arguably held that status from the moment he entered the league. Everything about his profile is much harder to forecast—in a good way.
Don't rule out a scoring average north of 30.0 points per game as he adds strength and craft while improving his shot diet and, potentially, leading the league in three-point attempts. Considering Wemby has averaged over 3.7 assists per game in each of his two seasons, he's also a terrific bet to rate behind Nikola Jokić in the big-man passing hierarchy.
All-NBA nods are a given, as are multiple DPOY honors. As soon as this season, it might even rate as a disappointment if Wembanyama finishes outside the top five in MVP voting.
Castle and Harper are young, exciting guards with great size who both come with shooting questions. Castle possesses elite athleticism and high defensive potential, traits he flashed in winning Rookie of the Year. Harper, the No. 2 pick in 2025, is the more natural scorer and ball-handling facilitator. His feel and polish make two-way stardom easier to see than it is for Castle, whose jumper seems a longer way from reliability.
Others: Carter Bryant (20), Jeremy Sochan (22), Julian Champagnie (24)
2. Houston Rockets
4 of 5
The Core: Alperen Sengün (23), Amen Thompson (23), Jabari Smith Jr. (22), Tari Eason (24), Reed Sheppard (21)
Sengün has already made an All-Star team and totes career averages of 16.0 points, 8.6 rebounds and 4.1 assists. Though lacking the vertical lift required of traditional rim-protectors, the big man has figured out how to function in the Houston Rockets' defensive ecosystem. Houston finished fourth in defensive efficiency last year, and Sengün's presence on the floor actually improved its defensive rating by 6.6 points per 100 possessions.
Some of that owes to Sengün often sharing the floor with Thompson and Eason, a pair of legitimate terrors on D. Thompson is among the best on-ball stoppers in the league and has a sky-high ceiling. If he ever figures out how to shoot, he'll join Sengün in future All-Star games.
Smith brings even more defensive versatility. He can guard wings in space, protect the rim and, best of all, spread the floor as a true three-point threat.
Sheppard is the wild card. He played sparingly as a rookie, but that had as much to do with the Rockets' guard depth as anything else. The No. 3 pick in the 2024 draft will play the entire 2025-26 season as a 21-year-old and should get more opportunities to prove his shot-making and underrated defensive disruption are as real as they seemed in pre-draft analysis.
Thompson may be the only potential superstar in the group, but four of the five players in Houston's young core were major contributors on a team that won 52 games a year ago.
1. Oklahoma City Thunder
5 of 5
The Core: Jalen Williams (24), Chet Holmgren (23), Cason Wallace (21)
The Oklahoma City Thunder need Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to put in another award-winning season if they want to repeat as NBA champs, but they don't need him to walk away with the No. 1 spot here.
Jalen Williams made his All-Star debut and earned a spot on the All-NBA third team in 2024-25, producing averages of 21.6 points, 5.3 rebounds and 5.1 assists on a 57.3 true shooting percentage. Nine other players in the league matched those figures a year ago, but J-Dub was the youngest on the list and the only one to make an All-Defensive team.
There's not a more complete under-25 player in the entire NBA, but teammate Chet Holmgren might give Williams a run for his money this coming season.
Holmgren is a year younger and has even greater defensive potential. An elite shot-blocker with the mobility to defend in space, Holmgren has all the tools to become the league's best floor-stretching, paint-protecting big man.
Wallace may not have star potential, but the rugged and athletic guard already proved himself as a key piece on a title-winner. He'll play his age-22 season in 2025-26, has shot 38.9 percent from deep for his career and rated in the 92nd percentile in Defensive Estimated Plus/Minus last year.
Others: Ajay Mitchell (23), Jaylin Williams (23), Nikola Topić (20), Thomas Sorber (20)
Stats courtesy of NBA.com, Basketball Reference and Cleaning the Glass. Salary info via Spotrac.
Grant Hughes covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Bluesky and subscribe to the Hardwood Knocks podcast, where he appears with Bleacher Report's Dan Favale.
