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.
Some of it, the continued dominance of the Thunder and Nuggets, and the struggles of the Nets and Wizards, was to be expected. However, there are a few teams that have really stood out with surprising starts to the 2025-26 NBA season. Some for better reasons than others.
Let’s look at some of the teams that have given us the biggest surprises at the start of the season.
Detroit Pistons
As the calendar flips to December, the Detroit Pistons are sitting with the second-best record in the entire NBA at 17-4. The fact that the Pistons are a good team isn’t surprising. They finished 44-38 last season and earned the sixth seed in the Eastern Conference before giving the New York Knicks all they could handle in a 4-2 first-round series loss. They came into the 2025-26 season with a core that included five key members who were 24 years old or younger and a collection of experienced veterans like Tobias Harris, Caris LeVert, and Duncan Robinson. Still, not many people saw them making this big a leap.
The Pistons are 5th in the NBA in net rating, with the 13th-ranked offense and the 2nd-ranked defense. Offensively, they’re 12th in the league in points per game but are a highly efficient offense that is 8th in field goal percentage and 2nd in rebounding. They don’t shoot particularly well from deep, ranking 2nd-to-last in made three-pointers per game, but they push the pace and rely on their physical defense. They’ve also been buoyed on offense by a big leap from center Jalen Duren, who is averaging 19.6 points, 11.8 rebounds, 1.9 assists, and 1.0 blocks per game in 18 games this season. He has become a tremendous complement to Cade Cunningham, who has taken his game to a new level. The 24-year-old remains limited when shooting from beyond the arc, but is ninth in the NBA in scoring at 28.2 points per game, while also ranking 2nd in the league with 9.3 assists per game to go along with 6.5 rebounds and 1.5 steals. Both he and Duren rank inside the top 15 in Player Impact Estimate, among all starters, so while this hot start may be a surprise, it has all the makings of something real.
Toronto Raptors
Toronto had underachieved for a couple of seasons with this Island of Misfit Toys roster that never seemed to mesh, too many same-sized midrange players, and the addition of Brandon Ingram last season at the trade deadline just felt like more of the same. It wasn't. This is a team that plays pressing, aggressive defense and converts those opportunities in transition — no team starts more of its offense in transition than Toronto, at nearly 20%. Also, they are touching the paint — fifth in the league in points in the paint — and Ingram is leading a mid-range shot renaissance north of the border that is working. The Raptors are not reliant on the 3-pointer (they are in the bottom five in the league in percentage of points from beyond the arc). All of that gives them some stability. Toronto has been a great story early this season, and they are a team poised to take a big swing at the trade deadline if the right opportunity presents itself.
Miami Heat
The Heat headed into the season preparing for their first year since 2018 without Jimmy Butler running the show. With Tyler Herro also sidelined by offseason surgery, the team needed to switch up how they played if they had any shot of remaining successful. Well, all head coach Erik Spoelstra did was drastically reshape his offensive philosophy to essentially cut out any form of pick-and-roll and replace it with constant motion. The Heat play with the league’s fastest pace and run an offense based around a cut-and-replace style of constant motion. While they are 11th in offensive rating, they rank 2nd in the league in points per game, 2nd in drives per game, 3rd in assist rate, and attempt the most shots per game of any team in basketball. While they don’t shoot tons of threes, they rank 5th in three-point field goal rate, so this is an offense that can beat you in a number of ways. So far, that has propelled the Heat to a 14-7 record that puts them third in the Eastern Conference. With their new pace and style, they are proving to be a real challenge for anybody to figure out.
Phoenix Suns
Kevin Durant is out the door, Dillon Brooks comes in and picks up his scoring load — who had that on their 2025-26 NBA bingo card? Phoenix looked on paper like a team in transition from its failed “Big 3” era to whatever was coming next. Instead, credit coach Jordan Ott came in, and both got this team to play hard — something it did not do a season ago — and gave it an identity. Phoenix is a trapping, pressing defensive team now in the Oklahoma City/Toronto mold. Beyond that, Ott gave players space on offense to be themselves and step up, and not only is Brooks doing that (a career high 22.3 points per game for the defensive specialist), but players such as Collin Gillespie and Grayson Allen are thriving. Plus, this team still has Devin Booker to fall back on. The Suns are building something real in the desert.
San Antonio Spurs
The Spurs were supposed to be an ascending team, but they weren’t necessarily supposed to have arrived already. Despite star Victor Wembanyama missing multiple weeks with a calf injury and point guard De’Aaron Fox starting the year late with an injury, head coach Mitch Johnson has the Spurs sitting at 14-6 and in fourth place in the Western Conference. When he’s been healthy, Wembanyama has been otherworldly, averaging 26.2 points, 12.9 rebounds, 4.0 assists, 1.1 steals, and 3.6 blocks per game in his 12 contests. However, the Spurs have really taken off because of the play of their guards. Fox has averaged 24.5 points, 6.4 assists, 3.5 rebounds, and 1.5 steals in his 12 games, and second-year combo guard Stephon Castle has had a mini breakout this year, posting 17.3 points, 7.5 assists, 5.8 rebounds, and 1.7 steals per game in his 13 contests. With rookie Dylan Harper also acquitting himself well, the Spurs have three young guards who are able to push the pace and facilitate an efficient offense around their star center. What’s even more impressive is that none of those four players has played more than 13 games this season. If this team can get everybody healthy, they could make some noise in the playoffs.
New Orleans Pelicans
Blame injuries if you want, there have been plenty, although Zion Williamson being out for an extended period — this time with an adductor strain — can't be a surprise. Blame Willie Green if you want; the Pelicans used him as a scapegoat and fired him 12 games into the season (they should have fired him over the summer in that case). The fact of the matter is, New Orleans is a young, banged-up, and ill-fitting roster struggling without an identity, all of which has interim coach James Borrego thinking more long-term than short-term. “This is a process of learning, exploring, seeing what lineups, giving guys opportunities to grow, to lean into mistakes, to take risks, to fail, to succeed. That's all part of growth,” Borrego said. That all sounds good, except the Pelicans traded away the rights to their first-round pick next June to move up in last year’s draft and select Derik Queen (who shows real potential, but that doesn’t make the process good or the price fair).
New Orleans has come to a pivot point: Is it time to move on from Zion Williamson as the foundation of what they are building? How can the Pelicans build anything of substance without a stable foundation they can count on to just be on the court? That likely is a question for next offseason, but it may be time to explore the trade market, even if the return is not going to be near what they might hope.
Los Angeles Clippers
We started writing this even beforethe Clippers released future Hall of Famer Chris Paul at 2:40 a.m. on Wednesday, but that’s just par for the course in what has been a disaster of a season. The season began with the NBA launching an investigationinto whether Clippers owner Steve Ballmer used back-channel investments to give star wing Kawhi Leonard more money while circumventing the salary cap. Leonard then missed an extended period of time with an injury, veteran Bradley Beal was lost for the season with a hip injury, wing Derrick Jones Jr. was lost for a few weeks due to injury, and newly acquired John Collins struggled so much to fit into the offensive flow that the team has reportedly already begun looking to trade him.
After a big loss to the Heat on Monday, the Clippers now sit at 5-16 on the season. They rank 24th in net rating, with the 27th-ranked defense and 20th-ranked offense (mostly thanks to James Harden). They play at the third-slowest pace in the league, put up the second-fewest shots per game, and are 19th in field goal rate, 21st in made three-pointers per game, and 26th in rebounds. Everything about this team seems fractured and disjointed, and with one of the oldest rosters in the league and no first-round pick in the 2026 NBA Draft, it’s hard to see where the Clippers go from here.
