The 2025-26 NBA season is here! Over the next few weeks, we’re examining the biggest questions, best- and worst-case scenarios, and win projections for all 30 franchises — from the still-rebuilding teams to the true title contenders.

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“Seeing these guys getting better, seeing these guys fighting all the way until the end — those are wins for us,” Fernández told reporters. “Winning starts now.”

That winning came at a cost, though: namely, depressing Brooklyn’s lottery odds, and eventually landing the No. 8 pick in June’s 2025 NBA Draft. Instead of Cooper Flagg or Dylan Harper, the Nets came away with BYU ball-handler Egor Dëmin, the first selection in an unprecedented class featuring five first-round picks. (We might not see them all right away: Dëmin reportedly suffered a plantar fascia tear after Summer League, while swingman Drake Powell, the 22nd overall pick out of UNC, still hasn’t been cleared as he battles left knee tendinopathy. Marks said on media day he anticipates both being ready for opening night.)

Influenced heavily by that quintet of draft-night arrivals, the Nets enter the 2025-26 season as far and away the youngest team in the NBA, with an average age of Brooklyn’s roster at 23.6 years old, according to RealGM. Eight Nets have yet to reach their 23rd birthday. No player on this roster has more than six years of NBA experience.

Brooklyn’s leading scorer, 23-year-old guard Cam Thomas, ended a lengthy summertime stalemate in restricted free agency by signing his $6 million qualifying offer — a “bet on yourself” decision dramatically increasing the odds he’ll suit up in a different uniform next season. The most seasoned Nets just arrived in trade: 28-year-old wings Terance Mann and Haywood Highsmith (still rehabbing after meniscus surgery), and the 27-year-old MPJ, who enters the nation’s No. 1 media market following a summer full of noxious podcast/livestream commentary — which also included the claim that, after years of back injuries, he’s not sure how much longer he wants to play in the NBA, and that he plans to make that decision one year at a time from here on out. (Seems notable, with Porter Jr. on the books for $79.1 million over the next two seasons.)

Porter Jr. is a gifted shot-maker — 40.6% from 3-point range on more than 10 attempts per 100 possessions for his career — and it’ll be interesting to see him try to stretch his game beyond the narrowly tailored catch-and-shoot parameters in which he operated next to Nikola Jokić and Jamal Murray. He’s never averaged more than 1.09 dribbles per touch, according to Jared Dubin of Last Night in Basketball; unassisted baskets accounted for fewer than 20% of his made shots in each of the lastthreeseasons.

[Get more Nets news: Brooklyn team feed]

For all those gifts and all that possibility, though, Porter Jr. was primarily a means to an end: a way to turn Brooklyn’s vast oceans of cap space (still getting creative in trying to hit the salary floor!) into an unprotected Nuggets first-round pick in 2032, when Jokić will be 37 and Denver might have cycled out of consistent contention. The trade transformed present-tense cash into another future lottery ticket to add to the dozen first-round picks and 19 second-round selections Brooklyn controlled.

The juiciest of those, in all likelihood? Their own first-rounder in next June’s 2026 Draft, with prospects like Darryn Peterson, A.J. Dybantsa, Cameron Boozer and Nate Ament looming.

So: Expect plenty of minutes, touches and ball-handling opportunities for all those bright young things. Expect plenty of chances for them to learn — the hard way — how to communicate and execute on defense. Expect Fernández and Co. to prioritize development above all else, and expect Marks to welcome any and all trade-deadline check-ins on the availability of guys like Mann and center Nic Claxton (reportedly healthy after suffering through back issues amid a frustrating down season).

Just don’t expect many nights where Brooklyn finishes with more points than its opposition. It’s admirable for Fernández to tell his young charges that winning starts now. For the Nets’ rebuild to take off, though, winning’s going to need to start with a whoooooooole lot of losing.

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Best-case scenario

Fernández continues to coax meaningful development out of the gaggle of 22-and-under players under his care, with one (or more) of Dëmin, Traoré, Saraf or Bufkin popping enough on the ball to inspire confidence that Brooklyn’s got a real path to a point guard of the future. That development, however, isn’t meaningful enough to produce anything more than the worst record in the NBA, guaranteeing a top-five pick and a chance at the type of potentially transformational homegrown talent the Nets have lacked since before Barclays Center even opened. MPJ’s podcast mic breaks and he can’t find another one, no matter how many thousands of dollars he spends on Ubers.

If everything falls apart

None of the rookies look like difference-makers, but Fernández once again makes chicken salad out of chicken feathers to the degree that sicko NBA podcasters are putting guys like Tyrese Martin and Jalen Wilson on their 58-Name Most Improved Player long lists. Brooklyn once again wins more games than is clinically recommended, once again drops into the bottom half of the lottery, and once again enters the summer wondering if there’s any reason to believe in, well, anything.

2025-26 schedule

• Season opener: Oct. 22 at Charlotte

• Complete schedule

Over/under win total: 20.5

For Nets fans’ sake, let’s try to manifest the under.

More season previews

East: Atlanta Hawks • Boston Celtics • Brooklyn Nets • Charlotte Hornets • Chicago Bulls • Cleveland Cavaliers • Detroit Pistons • Indiana Pacers • Miami Heat • Milwaukee Bucks • New York Knicks • Orlando Magic • Philadelphia 76ers • Toronto Raptors • Washington Wizards

West: Dallas Mavericks • Denver Nuggets • Golden State Warriors • Houston Rockets • Los Angeles Clippers • Los Angeles Lakers • Memphis Grizzlies • Minnesota Timberwolves • New Orleans Pelicans • Oklahoma City Thunder • Phoenix Suns • Portland Trail Blazers • Sacramento Kings • San Antonio Spurs • Utah Jazz

The 2025-26 NBA season is here! Over the next few weeks, we’re examining the biggest questions, best- and worst-case scenarios, and win projections for all 30 franchises — from the still-rebuilding teams to the true title contenders.

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That will require better health for a team that lost the fifth-most games in the league to injury last season, according to Spotrac, with Murray, the since-traded Brandon Ingram, All-Defensive wing Herb Jones, ascending two-way swingman Trey Murphy III and Jose Alvarado among the many, many Pelicans who missed significant time. The most important of them, of course: Zion Williamson. And more than anything, New Orleans’ chances of being good enough not to hand Atlanta a golden ticket rest on — stop me if you think you’ve heard this one before — a full, healthy, superstar-level-impact season from one of the most tantalizing, frustrating and inescapably alluring players in the world.

We’ve seen Williamson look like a destroyer of worlds for stretches — like the beginning of the 2022-23 season, when he had the Pelicans looking like a title contender … right up until he suffered a season-ending hamstring injury.

We’ve seen him play a mostly full season, logging 70 games and more than 2,200 minutes in 2023-24 … but with his scoring, rebounding, field-goal percentage and overall impact dipping in the process. Those Pels won 49 games and made the play-in tournament, with Zion looking like the best player on the floor against the Lakers … right up until he hurt his hamstring.

What we haven’t seen since 2020-21, though — when he played 61 of 72 games, averaged 27 points per game on 61.1% shooting and earned his first All-Star berth — is Zion doing both. The Pelicans need him to be that kind of ever-present and overwhelming star; they need him to take the stretch he had last season when he looked like he’d leveled up as a playmaker and all-around force (right up until, natch, he was shut down with a back injury) and maintain it for 70 games.

Give me a healthy Williamson, Jones and Murphy — playmaking, size, shooting and athleticism across the 2 through 4 spots, with Jones reclaiming his spot as arguably the best perimeter defender in the league — and you can talk me into the shot-creation swings on Jordan Poole, who bounced back from an “oops, all memes!” 2023-24 in Washington to average 20.5 points and 4.5 assists per game on .591 true shooting last season, and Fears, a hiccup-quick penetrator whom our Kevin O’Connor actually compared to Poole coming out of Oklahoma. Piece together that kind of offensive firepower on the perimeter, and maybe the question marks at center — second-year pros Yves Missi and Karlo Matković, rookie Queen, veteran giving tree Looney — and on defense more broadly become less worrisome. (Willie Green, who conjured up consecutive top-10 finishes in defensive efficiency in 2022-23 and ’23-24, has his work cut out for him.)

[Get more Pelicans news: New Orleans team feed]

The only way it all works, though, is if Williamson stays on the court. The Pelicans have projected confidence in him doing so, with Dumars guaranteeing his contract and calling on the former No. 1 overall pick to be “responsible and accountable” to his teammates and the franchise. Williamson has responded by getting in what appears to be the best shape of his professional career, telling reporters on media day that he hasn’t felt this good since his reality-rending lone year at Duke and that he’s ready to give “whatever my team needs.”

More than anything, it needs him — all of him, all the time. Anything less, and drastic changes could be coming in New Orleans.

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Best-case scenario

Lucy finally lets Charlie Brown kick the football. Zion puts it all together, playing 70-plus games, making All-NBA First Team, finishing on or just outside the MVP ballot and returning to the All-Star team … where he’s joined by Murphy, who builds on the leap he took last season before tearing his labrum. After playing a grand total of zero minutes together last season, Williamson, Jones and Murphy form one of the league’s most frequently used and potent trios, providing an elevated baseline and support structure that allows youngsters Fears, Queen and Missi to get in where they fit in. Poole continues last season’s resurgence, Murray comes back looking like the star they traded for him to be, and the Pelicans ride a top-10 offense to a top-10 seed in the West — postseason participation that makes the pick debt to Atlanta less onerous.

If everything falls apart

Williamson can’t stay healthy, the house of cards crumbles, the Pelicans took on $65.9 million worth of Poole for no tangible benefit, and they watch the Hawks take a top-five pick off their hands.

2025-26 schedule

• Season opener: Oct. 22 at Memphis

• Complete schedule

Over/under win total: 30.5

If Zion plays 60 games, I think the Pelicans will win at least half of them, which would leave us with the over. All that’s left, then, is to put our money down on Zion staying healthy.

No, by all means: You go first.

More season previews

East: Atlanta Hawks • Boston Celtics • Brooklyn Nets • Charlotte Hornets • Chicago Bulls • Cleveland Cavaliers • Detroit Pistons • Indiana Pacers • Miami Heat • Milwaukee Bucks • New York Knicks • Orlando Magic • Philadelphia 76ers • Toronto Raptors • Washington Wizards

West: Dallas Mavericks • Denver Nuggets • Golden State Warriors • Houston Rockets • Los Angeles Clippers • Los Angeles Lakers • Memphis Grizzlies • Minnesota Timberwolves • New Orleans Pelicans • Oklahoma City Thunder • Phoenix Suns • Portland Trail Blazers • Sacramento Kings • San Antonio Spurs • Utah Jazz