Bold Predictions for Jayson Tatum, LeBron James and the Rest of the NBA Season
The remainder of the 2025-26 NBA campaign could be wild.
And not just for the comical amount of losing and "who-the-heck-is-that?!" lineups the league's most egregious tankers still have in them.
Good basketball remains on the menu. A lot of it. Individual excellence still occurs on a nightly basis, remember, and title contenders who aren't in championship form could floor the gas pedal at any second.
It should be a thrill ride, and we're looking to get in on the thrills ourselves with a fresh batch of stretch-run bold predictions.
Hornets Zoom to 6th, Kon Knueppel Wins R.O.Y.
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Whoever sketched out the Charlotte Hornets' new years resolutions might want to consider career-changing to a life coach. Because holy smokes this midseason transformation—"the most dramatic turnaround in-season of anyone that I can remember" as Bill Simmons recently opined—has been...well, transformational.
The numbers say this shouldn't be sustainable—teams just never follow a 16-28 start with a 16-3 surge—but the eye test says Charlotte is maybe just getting started. The Hornets aren't just finding ways to win, they're routinely throttling teams by double-digit points.
They still have a steep hill to climb and multiple teams to leapfrog to avoid the Play-In Tournament, but does anyone trust the Miami Heat, Orlando Magic, Philadelphia 76ers or Toronto Raptors more than these Buzz City ballers? Since Jan. 1, the Hornets have the best net rating, the best offense and the fifth-best defense in the entire league.
Oh, and they have the Rookie of the Year winner, too. Not officially, obviously, but again, it's hard not to trust the trend line. Coper Flagg's modest volume advantages just aren't enough to overshadow Knueppel's far superior efficiency and team success. And that's without even having to account for the way the foot injury that just cost Flagg a month might impact him (or limit his availability) going forward.
The buzz is back, and honestly, it's never sounded better.
Clippers Climb To No. 7, Kawhi Leonard Earns 1st Team All-NBA
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Remember when it seemed like the Los Angeles Clippers pulled the plug ahead of the trade deadline? No disrespect to Darius Garland or Bennedict Mathurin, but when they essentially comprised the in-season returns for James Harden and Ivica Zubac, it felt like L.A. was done thinking in present terms and fully focused on the future.
But with a first-round pick owed to the Oklahoma City Thunder, L.A. had no incentive to bottom out. And based on the way it's playing, maybe there would've been too much talent for those kinds of shenanigans, anyway. Because L.A. looks even better since the deadline (7-4 with a plus-5.2 net rating) than it did before it (23-27 with a minus-0.7 net rating).
A number of factors have played into this, but the biggest is also the most obvious: Kawhi Leonard is awesome at basketball. Like awesome awesome. Like, "wait, are we sure this guy still isn't the best two-way player on the planet?" awesome.
He's been on an absurd run for a while now, but just to snapshot his post-deadline contributions: 28.9 points on 49.5 percent shooting (88.3 percent at the line), 7.2 rebounds, 3.3 assists and 1.2 steals. Oh, and he's a plus-72 in 312 minutes.
Leonard feels like a cheat code in the fight for No. 7, particularly with Stephen Curry fighting a nagging knee injury and Devin Booker perhaps being overburdened by the injury subtractions of Dillon Brooks (fractured hand) and Mark Williams (stress fracture in his foot). Leonard should keep the Clippers trending up, and that elevation could be enough to snag him an All-NBA first team spot, which he last secured in 2020-21.
Jayson Tatum Posts a Career-High Field-Goal Percentage
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Tatum's fast track back from an Achilles tear suffered in May is all kinds of inspirational. And interesting. Between his talent level, institutional knowledge and familiarity with the Celtics' most critical contributors, you want to believe this will be as simple as hopping back on a bicycle after a long layoff.
The reality is almost certainly more complicated. He might look a lot different on this side of such a severe injury. And the team he's joining is clearly different than the one the injury bug forced him to leave behind. Roles have changed. Rotation regulars have been replaced. It's like if your sibling purchased your childhood home. You'd recognize the bones and a lot of the faces, but everything would feel a little off.
"He's not gonna be the guy leading this team," former Denver Nuggets coach Michael Malone said on ESPN's Get Up. "This is Jaylen Brown's team."
Tatum almost certainly won't look like himself. Not right away, at least. If he's smart with his approach, though, he should be able to be much more selective with his shots now. He shouldn't be atop opponents' defensive game plans anymore, and the times he's asked to create something out of nothing should be fewer and farther between.
This won't be comfortable. It may not even be fun, at times. And yet, there's a universe in which Tatum absolutely cooks in a support role that his stats and stature show he's overqualified to fill. If his transition back to the court is smooth and mostly stumble-free, he just might be the most efficient version of himself yet. If his burden is lighter and his shot quality is up, there's a real chance he winds up besting the career-high 47.5 field-goal percentage he posted as a rookie—in a similarly complementary role.
LeBron James Has Two Triple-Doubles
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The crown may not fit King James quite as snuggly as it once did, but he'll never look out of place in the throne. The 41-year-old remains an age-defying statistical marvel. His volume output may have decreased a bit, but he's still one of only five players averaging at least 21 points, seven assists and five rebounds.
"LeBron's greatest hits, he just keeps adding to them," Lakers coach JJ Redick told reporters after James set the NBA's all-time mark for field goals made. "He just plays and plays. And the greatest hits are just ... he's got a hell of a catalog."
So, why not a couple more entries in it, right? While two triple-doubles may have once qualified as a slow month for James, he's sitting on a single such effort so far this season. But when he's not as active on the glass (two games with double-digit rebounds) or as heavily tasked with shot-creation (11 games with double-digit assists), he really needs to nail his night to leave that kind of imprint on the stat sheet.
Could we actually see two such lightning strikes down the stretch? Well, he might be leveling up right now for the playoff run ahead (he's shooting 56.3 percent over his last six outings), and L.A. could always try to get more careful with Luka Dončić's workload to keep him as fresh as possible for the postseason. It's asking a lot, but that never seems like asking too much from James.
Steph Curry Returns and Guides Golden State To Playoffs
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With Jimmy Butler done for the season, Stephen Curry struggling to shake a nagging knee injury and Kristaps Porziņģis' questionable designations always feeling like wishful thinking that isn't rooted in reality, the Golden State Warriors are running on fumes. They have a 5-7 record since the start of February, and it's a minor miracle that mark isn't worse when they're 21st in net rating over this stretch.
Of course, some will argue that record should be worse with the Warriors seemingly having more to gain from a lottery entry than a Play-In Tournament invite. But Golden State isn't tanking its way out of the West's top 10, and it wouldn't want to, anyway, with Curry still angling to find his way back inside the lines.
"He's staying around the guys, staying positive," Draymond Green told reporters after the Warriors' overtime win against the Houston Rockets on Thursday. "He's texting me today like, 'Keep going, I know it's tough, but promise you I'm coming back.'" He does a great job staying in it even when he's not here or playing, does a great job of staying in it.""
If Curry makes it back, the Warriors will have life again. They clearly aren't contenders or anything, but it'd be infinitely easier to trust their offense (with a healthy Curry) and experience over those of the Phoenix Suns and Portland Trail Blazers in potential win-or-go-fishing matchups.
This might be written with fingers crossed, but if Curry is keeping hope alive, we'll gladly do the same. The Dubs are getting out of the Play-In. Book it.
