After an inexplicably dead offseason, the NBA is back. The day that NBA fans always anticipate with anxiety and excitement landed on Oct. 21 this year, and it was nothing short of mind-blowing. After that, Opening Week should’ve slowed down, but it didn’t. Looking ahead with a one-week sample size in our back pockets, the 25-26 NBA season is going to be exciting.
Starting off with the first matchup of the year, Oklahoma City Thunder fans got everything they could’ve wished for in this one game — a ring ceremony, a championship banner unveiling and a double-overtime win against ex-Thunder MVP Kevin Durant and the Houston Rockets. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the reigning MVP, hit two free throws with 2.3 seconds left in the latter overtime to clinch a 125-124 win for the Thunder.
OKC fans should have one major takeaway from this game: If they can beat last year’s two-seed with the addition of KD while being down an All-Star in Jalen Williams, they can feasibly do anything. We may see the first repeat NBA champion in seven years. Beyond that, this game was proof that Chet Holmgren is a lock for the All-Star game. Holmgren showed that when he’s not actively recovering from a hip fracture, he’s an incredible player on both sides of the ball.
That being said, the Rockets have no reason to fret. Their young star in Alperen Sengun gave them 39 points and 11 rebounds, pushing the game to be the thriller it was. Being able to pressure the reigning champions to just a one-point win with two overtimes is no small feat.
Moving on to the other game of NBA Opening Day, the Lakers are surprising, to say the least. My first thoughts, directly after this game, was that Luka Dončić needs help. He nearly dropped a 40-point triple-double on the Golden State Warriors, and the Los Angeles Lakers still lost by 10.
However, there’s more to the story. LeBron is staring off this season out with a sciatica, and this team realistically shouldn’t be winning games without him. Yet Deandre Ayton is playing real basketball, Dončić’s transformation couldn’t have been more true and Austin Reaves is practically a demigod at the moment with averages of 34 points, nine assists and seven rebounds so far. While I’m inclined to believe that this is going to be an outlier of their season, we have to hold out until LeBron comes back to make any real judgement.
The following day had many more games than the NBA Opening, but it was still stock full of absolute highlights. For instance, VJ Edgecombe scored the most points in an NBA debut since Wilt Chamberlain in 1959. In the same game, Tyrese Maxey gave the Boston Celtics 40 points to grasp a win for the Philadelphia 76ers, 117-116.
Unfortunately for Sixers fans, this happiness was fleeting. Joel Embiid’s prime years have definitely passed, robbed by injury. Paul George, though he looked washed last year, has only gotten worse. Further, they nearly lost to a broken-apart Celtics team without Jayson Tatum, Kristaps Porzingis or Jrue Holiday. The future for Philadelphia’s young stars looks bright, but the present is dreary as ever.
It is at this point that I must acknowledge the elephant in the room; or rather, the giraffe. Simply put, the NBA needs to watch out: Slenderman has arrived. Coming off of a serious blood clot that sidelined him for the majority of last season, the 7’ 4” Victor Wembanyama threw 40 points and 15 rebounds into the Dallas Mavericks’ faces, closing them out in a 30-point victory. He went out there and made Anthony Davis, a member of the NBA 75, look small. This year’s potential Defensive Player of the Year looks like he’s coming for the MVP as well.
The next day’s matchups only took a step further. We saw Shai Gilgeous-Alexander drop 55, which Benedict Mathurin responded to with 36 points. Meanwhile, we got another overtime thriller between the Warriors and Denver Nuggets, with 42 from Steph Curry and an efficient 50 points from Aaron Gordon. However, both games are clear outliers, and not much can be taken away in terms of the season to come.
As for other key points of opening week, we saw that the now-skinny Zion Williamson may finally live up to his draft predictions, Anthony Edwards has taken the leap to being an MVP caliber player and Evan Mobley really is the Cleveland Cavaliers’ future. Luckily, to provide us with some constancy, at least the Chicago Bulls are still a play-in team. Some things just never change.
To summarize, the 25-26 NBA season appears as if it’ll be one for the history books. Luka Dončić is back in contention for best player in the league, Victor Wembanyama is simply unstoppable and the OKC Thunder may actually go back-to-back. Starting with the most-watched Opening Day since 2010, the NBA season is just getting started.
