TrueHoop

Get more from Henry Abbott in the Substack app Available for iOS and Android

This might be the first of many years Victor Wembanyama is the best player in basketball. RONALD CORTES/GETTY IMAGES Join us as we discuss this story on video live at 10 am ET Thursday. Every year at TrueHoop we discuss which team are on the bus ride that could end in an NBA championship. The way the season works, the season starts with a list of contenders, and 82 games makes the list shorter. As the 2026-2027 season begins, David Thorpe sees ten teams, a full third of the league, on the bus.

Sam Presti would never invade Ukraine, and is not generally like Vladimir Putin. But those two men use the media similarly. Mostly, they avoid saying things on the record, and go about their professional duties with the cameras at some distance. And then once in a long while, they sit down in front of the microphone and issue forth big impenetrable walls of words. Presti spoke for 90 minutes last Thursday. I always listen, because sometimes there are brilliant life lessons baked in there.

Two Finals plays, almost a decade apart. The difference: Look at the key defenders. Pascal Siakam is as long and as tall as he gets, Victor Wembanyama, on the other hand ... no surprise, Pascal's team won that championship. (Apologies for the crappy screengrabs.) The Raptors were in trouble. Hoping to clinch their first title, on the road, they were not just facing a good team. They were trying to end a dynasty.

The Spurs and Thunder are so lucky that their young players, like Dylan Harper and Cason Wallace, know how to win. But … is it really luck? WILLIAM PURNELLGETTY IMAGES On Monday morning, David and I talked about how NBA players develop, how that’s like a group project in high school, and Cason Wallace. Here’s a lightly edited transcript. That’s me, Henry, in bold, and David in regular font. I’ve had many high school and college students in the back of my car talking about their stresses in life.

Three quick things. Had a lot of fun talking Clippers, NBA, Steve Ballmer, Kawhi Leonard, and the like with Pablo Torre. Join us shortly on Substack Live, with Nick Nemeth who knows crazy amounts about the Lakers and Mark Walter. I’m newly re-obsessed with Deutsche Bank. It matters. It matters a ton.

The Clippers will run through Darius Garland, a talented guard who is only 26. And good news: the current roster features ten players who are younger than Garland. OOBUM IM/GETTY IMAGES As John Hollinger points out, the Clippers were surprised by the NBA’s harsh punishment: The Clippers clearly were either unaware or in denial about how deeply they were in trouble, or they would have spent last season trading all their firsts while the Wachtell investigation meandered.

Breakout candidates. MIP lists. Ready to make a big jump! I’m a little tired of those labels. My mind works differently. I perused the depth charts of all 15 Eastern teams, and found ten guys who made me think “this is a big season for him, what can he do about it?” In some cases, it seems the player is ready to make a step forward, but perhaps the depth of the roster will inhibit that. That’s just one of a few challenges these players may face.

NBA Chief Communications Officer Mike Bass issued the following statement: 5:27 PM · Aug 17, 2026 · 2.55M Views 253 Replies · 893 Reposts · 7.45K Likes On August 17, an article by ESPN’s Don Van Natta, Baxter Holmes, and Ramona Shelburne found, essentially, that the NBA was not going to meaningfully punish Clippers billionaire Steve Ballmer for circumventing the salary cap to sign Kawhi Leonard.

The Knicks are the East favorites, but they’ll have plenty of competition. DUSTIN SATLOFF/GETTY IMAGES The NBA regular season begins in exactly two months. There are a few serious questions left unanswered in terms of roster construction. But no matter where some of those players land, we do know a few things heading into these final weeks before camp begins.