Exactly what happens during the 2025-26 NBA season is exclusively revealed here today*
*No ... not really. We were exaggerating. But for the third straight year we have commissioned a Strat-O-Matic computer simulation to learn what S-O-M thinks could happen
Computer simulations, in my experience, tend to generate some wild outcomes.
It's a theory that was certainly validated when I saw a recent simulation piece authored by one of my favorite former ESPN teammates: Kevin Pelton. The Machine, as he's known to colleagues, wrote about a particularly unruly simulation among a thousand his network conducted for the 2025-26 NBA season that had Cleveland finishing seventh in the East at 44-38 ... and Detroit finishing 12th in the East at 36-46 ... and Golden State posting the league's best record at 63-19 — ahead of 58-24 Oklahoma City in the West — but then losing to the Orlando Magic in the NBA Finals in seven games.
I'm pretty confident that little-to-none of that is going to happen. I suspect the wise Mr. Pelton feels the same.
However ...
These computer simulations are supposed to be fun and edgy with at least some of the surprises they spit out. So it's in that spirit that I continue an annual tradition here at The Stein Line by publishing my own simulation for the season ahead as conducted by my lifelong friends at Strat-O-Matic.
That's indeed the same Strat-O-Matic that introduced peerless sports strategy board games in the 1960s that for decades — and now via computerized versions — have enabled baseball, football, hockey and, yes, basketball fanatics at home to pretend they are big league managers and coaches.
I began playing Strat-O baseball as very young sports nerd in the late 1970s, added basketball and hockey to the menu soon thereafter and love seeing what the Strat-O computer comes up with every fall when I ask the company for input. (It is a 100% true story that I skipped my first school dance at a local roller-skating rink in fifth grade because a new edition of Strat-O-Matic hockey landed on the front porch that same afternoon.)
We repeat: All of the outcomes shared below are random outputs at the whim of the simulation … with some prone to strike you as extreme. For example: I personally would never suggest, as this Strat-O simulation does, that Giannis Antetokounmpo-led Milwaukee is going 31-51 ... or that Brooklyn will finish a full game better in the standings than the Bucks at 32-50 ... or that Memphis is going to be a top-four team in the West at 49-33 after shipping out Desmond Bane and starting the season with no shortage of injuries ... or that the Eastern Conference playoffs alone will generate five separate sweeps.
Yet seeing all this on paper is undeniably thought-provoking. Editors like
I have again below sprinkled in a few screencaps furnished to me to help illustrate how the 2025-26 Strat-O standings, regular-season statistical leaders and 16-team playoff bracket all played out.
Let's dig into some of the standout highlights from this simulation (for entertainment purposes only):
🏀 The Strat-O Cavaliers and Strat-O Thunder both went 66-16 and wound up meeting in the NBA Finals. The simulation even says that the Cavs forced a Game 7 after falling into a 3-1 hole in the championship round, but they couldn't prevent Oklahoma City from winning a second straight title to become the NBA's first back-to-back champions since Golden State in 2017 and 2018. (The truth, of course, is that actually is a rather chalky sequence of events.)
🏀 The Strat-O Cavs also won the simulated East by a whopping 16 games — 50-32 Detroit was seeded second — and then went 12-1 in the playoffs against the Raptors, Magic and Pistons to win the conference.
🏀 Three of the four first-round series in the simulated East ended in sweeps (as shown in the playoff bracket below). All four first-round matchups in the West, by contrast, somehow stretched to seven games. One more time: Highly unlikely but fun.
🏀 San Antonio's Victor Wembanyama missed out on the playoffs for the third successive season according to this simulation. So did the Los Angeles Lakers after the simulated purple-and-gold, like Dallas and Golden State, went 42-40. Imagine this matchup in real life: The Mavericks beat the visiting Lakers, 117-103, in the West's deciding Play-In game to claim the eighth and final playoff spot ... after the Lakers eliminated the Spurs in the teams' 9 vs. 10 Play-In game.
🏀 How 'bout those Bulls toppling Toronto in the 7 vs. 8 East Play-In game after Chicago has been eliminated in the Play-In round in real life in three straight seasons?
🏀 The highest-scoring individual game all season (in this simulated version of it anyway) was delivered by Minnesota's Anthony Edwards: 68 points in an overtime game at New Orleans on Feb. 6, 2026.
🏀 Giannis also delivered a 60-point game — also in New Orleans — on Feb. 20, 2026.
🏀 Dallas' Cooper Flagg won the simulated Rookie of the Year award after averaging 18.5 points and 4.8 assists per game. Denver's Nikola Jokić wrested the MVP award back from Oklahoma City's Shai Gilgeous-Alexander ... with Detroit's Cade Cunningham finishing a surprising third.
🏀 In the race for the most Ping Pong balls in a 2026 NBA Draft that will feature AJ Dybantsa, Darryn Peterson and Cameron Boozer, Washington had by far the league's worst record at 15-57. Charlotte (25-57) was next in line and an apparent coinflip will be needed to break the simulated tie between Utah and Portland, which both went 27-55.
Chances are you will scan through the various screenshots above and see things you want to quibble with besides what I mentioned about Milwaukee and Brooklyn and Memphis. Once again: I think that's OK.
The goal here was to creatively preview the season ahead as we count down the last few days until the new season starts for real with Tuesday's Rockets-at-Thunder Ring Night.
You are urged as always to tell me in the comments what jumps out at you as potentially prescient or outlandish from my Strat-O pals. And many thanks to John Garcia and Jerry Milani for providing all this fodder!
PS — For reference and to illustrate how much these simulations got right in the first two incarnations … here are links to our Strat-O-Matic pieces from the past two Octobers:
@Stein - How many games did it project Embiid + PG to play (43 wins tells me a decent enough number)?