What will future generations of NBA fans learn about the 2025-26 season?
Last year, I analyzed the moments from previous basketball seasons that are still remembered years -- if not decades -- after they occurred, from the invention of the shot clock in 1954-55 to the Dream Team revolutionizing international basketball in 1991-92 to the Dallas Mavericks trading Luka Doncic in 2024-25, and everything in between.
In the process, I identified five broad categories of events that linger in the collective memory. Let’s fit the top moments from the 2025-26 season into those categories to answer that opening question.
1. Incredible achievement
I consulted with a handful of other basketball minds -- including media members and front office employees -- to generate a list of the most memorable moments from the 2025-26 season (which, for these purposes, spans from opening night last October through this summer). Every one of them listed the New York Knicks’ title first.
More specifically, they listed a great number of memorable facets of the Knicks’ title, including: OG Anunoby’s tip-in to complete the greatest Finals comeback ever, the emphatic sating of the franchise’s 53-year title drought, the team’s sheer playoff dominance across multiple rounds, the spectacle of watch parties throughout New York City and the presence of President Donald Trump at the only Finals game the Knicks lost against the San Antonio Spurs.
So we start today’s exercise with a clear early favorite. Can any other candidate unseat it as the defining moment of the 2025-26 season?
One moment with a potentially fascinating future legacy is Bam Adebayo’s 83-point game. After all, I previously identified 1961-62 as the year that Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points and 2005-06 as the year that Kobe Bryant scored 81, so it should follow that Adebayo’s achievement would be equally durable.
Yet only one of the folks I consulted even mentioned Adebayo’s 83-point game on his list, and it wasn’t near the top. I suspect Adebayo’s scoring outburst won’t carry the same historical weight, for two reasons.
First, both Chamberlain and Bryant are two of just eight 30,000-point scorers in NBA history, and they’re two of just five qualified players to average at least 35 points per game in a season; racking up lots of points in a single night fits within a broader narrative about the two legends’ phenomenal scoring ability. Adebayo, conversely, is an All-Star but not an inner-circle Hall of Famer, and 83 points represented a shocking deviation from the narrative of his career, rather than an affirmation of it.
Second, Adebayo scored 83 points against a Washington Wizards team in the midst of an effort to finish at the bottom of the standings. The seeming artifice of Adebayo’s performance means it didn’t inspire the same level of awe in the moment, which could translate to less memorability for future generations.
There were a fair number of other individual achievements this year, as well. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander broke Chamberlain’s record for consecutive 20-point games, Nikola Jokic led the league in both rebounds and assists per game, and Kon Knueppel led the league in 3-pointers as a rookie. But those accomplishments feel more like deep-cut statistical curios than self-evidently memorable moments.
2. Key moment in the journey of a memorable team or star player
Among my handful of consultants for this project, the second-most-mentioned option for 2025-26 was Victor Wembanyama’s rise to superstardom. In his third season, Wembanyama reached the Finals, won Defensive Player of the Year in a unanimous vote and generally inserted himself into the “best player in the world” discussion.
This hypothetical can only be answered in retrospect, years down the line -- but if Wembanyama continues on his current trajectory and becomes one of the most dominant and decorated players in NBA history, then the 2025-26 season will be remembered as the year he broke out.
3. The start of a new era, or the end of an old one
This category includes one possible contender, one dark horse candidate and one late entrant. Taking them in order:
The 2025-26 season could be remembered as the nadir of the NBA’s tanking epidemic, with eight teams losing at least 56 games. The league created a new lottery structure in response. While that system is slated to last only three years before it’s revisited, if this latest effort to curb intentional losing actually succeeds, then this past season could be remembered for inspiring that change.
It’s also possible that future generations could look back on the 2025-26 season as an important first step in a change to how NBA games are consumed. When the league’s new TV contract kicked in last season, it brought dedicated national broadcast packages to streaming channels -- rather than network or cable television -- for the first time.
It doesn’t seem too far-fetched to imagine a distant future in which every NBA game is viewed this way, in which case this partial change in 2025-26 will take on greater historical import.
And finally -- as I was in the process of completing this list -- ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne broke the stunning news that Los Angeles Lakers owner Mark Walter was selling the team just a year and change after he bought it from the Buss family. For now, it seems as if this resale is a one-off decision brought on by Walter’s individual circumstances. But if others follow Walter’s lead and we enter an era of NBA owners who treat their franchises like house-flippers, then this Lakers sale will be a crucial starting point.
4. Unexpected deviations from the norm
This category generally refers to major changes in the schedule due to such causes as a lockout or worldwide pandemic. Fortunately, there were no such interruptions in 2025-26.
5. Pathos and controversy
For all the positive feelings engendered by the last year of NBA basketball, a couple of controversies also elbowed their way into the conversation.
The LA Clippers played through their 2025-26 schedule under the shadow of the NBA’s investigation into potential salary cap circumvention -- which still lingers, as a proposed Kawhi Leonard trade between the Clippers and Toronto Raptors remains in limbo while the investigation continues. Numerous sources mentioned this scandal as one of the most memorable candidates from this season.
In other scandalous news, Chauncey Billups coached just one game for the Portland Trail Blazers before he and former Miami Heat player Terry Rozier were both arrested as part of a pair of gambling-related federal investigations.
From a historical perspective, I think that Jontay Porter -- whom the NBA banned for life in 2024 -- might stand as the primary representative of this era of betting-related controversies, because his case came first. But Billups and Rozier are more notable NBA figures than Porter, so they could gain that historical symbolic notoriety instead.
Separately, the Celtics’ trade of Jaylen Brown -- mere months after Celtics president of basketball operations Brad Stevens won NBA Executive of the Year -- is another late entrant to the candidate pool. The 2024-25 season stands as the year that Doncic was traded, so it’s possible that the next season could be the year of another memorable trade.
But Brown isn’t the same level of star as Doncic, and his trade -- while still controversial -- wasn’t nearly as surprising as the late-night Doncic stunner. It’s a strong option, but not overwhelmingly so.
The verdict
After reviewing all of the proposed candidates, the first answer ultimately seems like the right one. It’s unlikely that all of the individual moments that currently stand out from the Knicks’ title run will withstand the test of time -- but at least some seem like they certainly will.
For instance, the Knicks’ historic Game 4 comeback, which climaxed with Anunoby’s tip-in, should be referenced in every future Finals game in which one team is blowing out its opponent. And this triumphant Knicks squad resonates even more because of New York’s primacy as an NBA market.
Other options, such as the Brown trade, the start of the sport’s streaming era and Wembanyama’s first dominant season, could also become crucial NBA memories for decades to come. But New York’s long-awaited playoff run is eternal. The 2025-26 season is the year that the Knicks won the championship.
