With most teams having played at least 20 games, the NBA season has reached its quarter mark, so it’s time to take stock of what we’re seeing. Yesterday, we covered seven teams that stood outwith surprising starts to the 2025-26 NBA season. Some for better reasons than others. Today, we're going to look at which individual players have provided some of the most impressive breakouts of the early season.
Austin Reaves - Guard, Los Angeles Lakers
Entering this season, Austin Reaves and the Lakers had to figure something out heading into his free agency next summer: Could he thrive and be the No. 2 offensive option they needed next to Luka Doncic? Twenty games into the season, the only question is how much the Lakers will have to pay Reaves next summer to keep him. He is averaging 28.1 points and 6.6 assists a game, has shown he can work next to Doncic when the Slovenian is healthy, and more importantly, showed he can take over the offense when Doncic is out — and even hit a game-winner.
"There's a cadence right now to his game," Lakers coach J.J. Redick said of Reaves. "He's got a great understanding of when he has a good matchup. He's got a great understanding of how to play with Luca [Doncic]. And so the flow state that every athlete kind of searches for. He's just in that right now."
Reaves should be an All-Star this season and will be in the All-NBA conversation as well. All of which is going to earn him a massive pay raise this summer.
Jalen Duren - Center, Detroit Pistons
Last summer, when the Pistons and Jalen Duren talked about an extension to his rookie contract, Duren and his agent threw a big number on the table. Detroit balked. The Pistons had questions about how well Duren fit with Cade Cunningham and if he could defend the paint well enough as a big man.
Looking back, the Pistons probably should have taken Duren's offer, because his play so far this season has earned him an even bigger payday. Duren is averaging 19.6 points a game on 66% shooting, plus he's pulling down 11.8 rebounds a game. However, the raw numbers don’t begin to tell the story of how he fits on offense. Duren has become Cunningham’s best pick-and-roll partner: Detroit scores a league-best 1.45 points per possession when he is the pick-and-roll screener, and he is shooting 83.3% when he gets the ball back on the roll (stats via Basketball University).
Then there is the key reason Duren looks like a first-time All-Star (and is maybe the frontrunner for Most Improved Player) — his defense. He has transformed from the guy teams tried to isolate against into a solid, physical defender that helps anchor the Pistons' second-ranked defense. Duren is going to get paid this summer, and he will have earned it.
Alex Sarr - Center, Washington Wizards
Another big man who deserves to be getting more attention is Wizards center Alex Sarr. Yes, the Wizards are bad, but Sarr is part of an exciting future they have there (along with Kyshawn George,who Eric interviewed earlier in the season).
Last season, Sarr was the 2nd overall pick in the NBA Draft but looked overmatched as a 19-year-old. He averaged 13 points, 6.5 rebounds, 2.4 assists, and 1.4 blocks per game but shot just 39.4% from the field and was taking over five three-pointers a game, despite shooting a 30% clip from deep. This season, he has become a far more efficient and effective scorer, averaging 19.1 points, 8.6 rebounds, 3.3 assists, and 2.0 blocks on 51.5% shooting.
Sarr is now taking almost six shots per game in the restricted area and shooting 74% on those looks after taking just 2.9 shots per game from that close last year and shooting 63.5%. He’s also being used as a pick-and-roll screener 24% of the time with the team scoring 1.05 points per possession on those looks, which is up from the 0.79 points per possession they scored on his 26.3% pick-and-roll usage last year. He’s also become a strong rim protector, as his 50.8% block rate ranks seventh among all NBA starters, and his 11.0 contested shots per game rank 2nd among all centers. Considering he’s only 20 years old, the ceiling is getting considerably higher for Sarr.
Ryan Rollins - Guard, Milwaukee Bucks
There is perhaps no better story in basketball this year than Ryan Rollins. The Bucks guard has taken the long and winding road to get to this point. He was a second-round pick in 2022 out of Toledo and barely played for a veteran-led Warriors team. He was then traded in 2023 with Jordan Poole to Washington, where he played 10 games before being released because he was caught shoplifting. The Bucks then signed him to a two-way deal in 2024 when he had averaged about 5.5 minutes per game in 25 career games over two years. He wasn’t asked to do much last year, but played well in limited opportunities when Damian Lillard was injured, so the Bucks re-signed him to a three-year, $12 million deal. Bucks general manager Jon Horst said at the time that Rollins could outplay that deal, and boy has he ever.
With Kevin Porter Jr. hurt to start the year, Rollins was given a chance to start at point guard, and he hasn’t looked back. The 23-year-old is averaging 17.9 points, 5.9 assists, 4.0 rebounds, and 1.6 steals per game. He’s shooting 48.5% from the field and 39.4% from beyond the arc on 6.0 three-point attempts per game. He has earned the admiration of his teammates, like Giannis Antetokounmpo, and looks ot be a real part of the Bucks’ future, whether that future contains Giannis or not.
Deni Avdija - Forward, Portland Trail Blazers
There are a few front office people around the league watching this breakout season from Deni Avdija in Portland and cringing, thinking about how their team had a chance to land him while Washington didn’t realize what they had, but their teams chose another direction.
Portland did, and now they are benefiting from a physical 6’8” forward who can run the floor, run the offense, and is leading the surprising Trail Blazers by averaging 25.8 points, 7.1 rebounds, and 6.1 assists a game, all while shooting 38% from 3-point range. He leads the league in drives, averaging 19.4 a game — that’s more than Shai Gilgeous-Alexander — and he’s shooting 50% when he does put his head down and go hard to the rim. On the other end of the court, he has fit in well with one of the high-pressure defense-into-offense teams around the league, and he’s been asked to guard bigger wings and has thrived in that role.
Even in the deep West, Avdija has to be a first-time All-Star this season. On a Portland team starting to build something serious, Avdija has become a cornerstone.
Keyonte George - Guard, Utah Jazz
It’s a bit of a lost season in Utah with Walker Kessler out for the season, and Lauri Markkanen the subject of plenty of trade rumors. However, the Jazz have to be happy about what they’ve seen from third-year guard Keyonte George. The 22-year-old has become a far more effective scorer on his drives and mid-range, which has led to him upping his scoring from 16.8 points per game to 22.8 points per game on 44.6% from the field, which is up from an identical 39.1% in each of his first two seasons. He’s also getting to the free-throw line far more often, averaging 7.0 attempts per game after being at 4.3 last season.
A big component of that is his newfound aggression. George is averaging 10.7 drives per game and shooting 47.1% on those drives. Last season, he averaged just 8.6 drives per game and shot 42.8% on them. What’s more, 76.5% of his drives end in points this year, which is a big increase from a 62.2% mark last year. George is now taking 5.5 shots per game in the paint after taking just 3.4 last year. He’s also connecting on 50.9% this year after making just 41% of those last year. We’ve also seen growth in his mid-range game, with him now taking 2.4 mid-range shots a game and connecting at 43.8%, which is a huge step up from last year, when he took just 1.2 mid-range shots a game at a 35.4% clip. Yes, George remains a subpar defender, and that will likely always be a component of his game, but his offensive improvements can’t be denied, and that’s at least something for Jazz fans to be excited about.
