The 2025/26 NBA season is right around the corner. Teams and players across the league are getting up to speed with the rigours of full, hardcore basketball, with the pre-season in full swing.
Every season brings the hope of a fresh start and a clean slate for all teams and players. Among the players, there will be quite a few looking to break out, establish themselves as stars of the league, and carve a name for themselves and their sides.
With that said, here are five players we believe are set to have a breakout 2025/26 NBA season.
Note: Stats for the players mentioned here have been taken from StatMuse.
All eyes will be on the No. 1 pick of the 2025 NBA Draft, as the Dallas Mavericks look to build from their year of ruin that saw them trade Luka Doncic and watch their season spiral into absolute freefall.
In Cooper Flagg, the Mavericks believe they have the perfect cornerstone to once again pull them back into contention. And by the looks of it, Flagg looks ready to take the NBA by storm.
The 18-year-old had a superlative campaign in his only collegiate season at Duke, having led the Blue Devils in scoring (19.2 ppg) and steals (1.4 spg). He can shoot the 3-ball with ridiculous efficiency (38.5%), and has the physical components to become a reliable defensive asset as well.
While the step-up from college basketball to the NBA is something that a lot of rookies find hard to adjust to, Flagg has the tools, the mindset, as well as the right team to flourish into a bona fide star.
In what was his sophomore season in the league last time out, Amen Thompson confounded expectations by shocking the league with his freakish athleticism and astonishing defensive chops. He also starred on a personal level with 14.1 ppg, 3.8 apg, and 8.2 rpg. His defensive wizardry catapulted him to the NBA All-Defensive Team, while he finished fifth in the voting for the NBA Defensive Player of the Year award.
Thompson is already considered to be by many as the best athlete in the league, but this coming season is a golden opportunity for him to show everyone that athleticism is not the only thing that defines him.
Given that veteran point guard Fred VanVleet has suffered a torn ACL, with Jalen Green traded to the Phoenix Suns, Thompson is set to have a much bigger role in a young, feisty, and fiercely competitive Houston Rockets team who will be looking to improve on their 52-win season from last year.
Thompson has been earmarked by general managers across the league as the most likely player to have a breakout season this year.
The Detroit Pistons were the feel-good story last season as they doubled their win tally to reach the playoffs, where they went down fighting to the New York Knicks.
For the first 30 games of the season, Jaden Ivey was on a mission to take the NBA by storm. He raced out of the gates registering career-highs in points, assists, and rebounds before breaking his fibula in January this year. He was also shooting a jaw-dropping 40.9% from three-point range, having seemingly refined his game completely.
Now back to full health, Ivey has a great opportunity to show that his pre-injury form was not just a hot streak, rather a sustained evolution of a player ready to take the Pistons to the next level.
It might come as a surprise to see the name of the reigning Defensive Player of the Year pop up in a list of players expected to have a breakout season. That said, given his personal development curve, the fascinating makeup of the Cleveland Cavaliers squad, and a significantly weaker Eastern Conference landscape, Evan Mobley stands out.
Mobley was a key cog in the wheel of a rampant Cavaliers side that blitzed to 64 wins in the regular season last time out. Coach Kenny Atkinson’s play scheme heavily involved Mobley in offensive phases, which also led to him having the best offensive season of his career while also winning the DPOY award.
However, we are yet to see the best of the offensive side of Mobley’s game, and that shows how good he is. With the likes of Max Strus, Darius Garland, and Dean Wade already facing time on the sidelines, Mobley is expected to get more touches and more plays on the offensive side to well and truly show his actual ceiling.
Given the way the Cavs are built, they will go where Mobley takes them.
The current holder of the NBA Most Improved Player award will look to add another layer of quality and finesse to his game, which already saw huge improvements last season.
Dyson Daniels is an elite defensive player capable of stifling defence, which saw him finish second in the DPOY voting, behind only Evan Mobley. He led the NBA in steals (3.0 spg) and had respectable offensive numbers to act as an able foil to Trae Young in a rather underperforming Hawks side.
Daniels will look to take his defensive chops up a level while also taking the step to being a pivotal piece in the Hawks’ rotation, as this is a golden opportunity for the team to make a run in the playoffs given the Eastern Conference’s decline in quality this season.
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