With most teams having played at least 20 games, the NBA season has reached its quarterfinals, so it’s time to take stock of what we’re seeing. Yesterday, we covered seven teams that stood out with a surprising debut for the 2025-26 NBA season. Some for better reasons than others. Today we’ll take a look at which individual players have made some of the most impressive early-season breakthroughs.
Austin Reaves – Guard, Los Angeles Lakers
Going into this season, Austin Reaves and the Lakers had to figure out a solution before hitting 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’s averaging 28.1 points and 6.6 assists per game, has shown he can work alongside Doncic when the Slovenian is healthy and, more importantly, has shown he can take over when Doncic is out – and even score a game-winning goal.
“There’s a cadence to his game right now,” Lakers coach JJ Redick said of Reaves. “He understands very well when he has a good game. He understands very well how to play with Luca (Doncic). And so the state of flow that every athlete is looking for. He’s right in there right now.”
Advertisement
Reaves is expected to be an All-Star this season and will also be in the All-NBA conversation. All this will earn him a massive salary increase this summer.
Jalen Duren – Center, Detroit Pistons
Last summer, when the Pistons and Jalen Duren talked about extending his rookie contract, Duren and his agent threw a big number on the table. Detroit hesitated. The Pistons wondered how well Duren was adjusting to Cade Cunningham and if he could defend the painting well enough as a great man.
In hindsight, the Pistons probably should have accepted Duren’s offer, as his play so far this season earned him an even bigger salary. Duren averages 19.6 points per game on 66% shooting, and he grabs 11.8 rebounds per 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 the league’s best 1.45 points per possession when he’s the pick-and-roll screener, and he shoots 83.3 percent when putting the ball back on the roll (stats via Basketball University).
Advertisement
Then there’s the biggest reason Duren looks like a first-time All-Star (and may be the favorite for Most Improved Player): his defense. He’s gone from being a guy team you tried to isolate against to a strong, physical defender who helps anchor the Pistons’ second defense. Duren will be paid this summer and he will have deserved it.
Alex Sarr – Center, Washington Wizards
Another big man who deserves to get more attention is Wizards center Alex Sarr. Yes, the Wizards are bad, but Sarr is part of the exciting future they have there (along with Kyshawn George, who Eric interviewed earlier in the season). Last season, Sarr was the No. 2 pick in the NBA draft, but he seemed overmatched at 19 years old. He averaged 13 points, 6.5 rebounds, 2.4 assists and 1.4 blocks per game, but shot just 39.4 percent from the field and made five three-pointers per game, despite shooting 30 percent from deep. This season, he has become a much more effective and efficient scorer, averaging 19.1 points, 8.6 rebounds, 3.3 assists and 2.0 blocks on 51.5% shooting.
Sarr now takes nearly six shots per game in the restricted area and is making 74% of those shots after taking just 2.9 shots per game in this closeout last year and shooting 63.5%. He’s also 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 solid rim protector, as his 50.8% block rate ranks seventh among all NBA starters, and his 11.0 contested shots per game ranks second among all centers. Considering he’s only 20 years old, the ceiling is considerably higher for Sarr.
Advertisement
Ryan Rollins – Guard, Milwaukee Bucks
There may be no better story in basketball this year than that of Ryan Rollins. The Bucks guard took a long and winding path to get here. He was a 2022 second-round pick out of Toledo and barely played for a veteran-led Warriors team. He was then traded in 2023 with Jordan Poole in 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 he played well on limited opportunities. Damien Lillard was injured, so the Bucks re-signed him to a three-year, $12 million contract. Bucks general manager Jon Horst said at the time that Rollins could top this deal, and he always has.
With Kevin Porter Jr. injured early in the year, Rollins was given the 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 percent from the field and 39.4 percent from beyond the arc on 6.0 three-point attempts per game. He earned the admiration of his teammates, as Giannis Antetokounmpoand doesn’t appear to be much of a part of the Bucks’ future, whether or not that future contains Giannis.
Deni Avdija – Forward, Portland Trail Blazers
There are a few front office people around the league who look at this stellar Deni Avdija season in Portland and grimace, thinking about how their team had a chance to land him when Washington didn’t realize what they had, but their teams went another direction.
Advertisement
Portland did it, and now they benefit from a physical 6’8″ forward who can run the court, run the offense and leads the surprising Trail Blazers averaging 25.8 points, 7.1 rebounds and 6.1 assists per game, while shooting 38% from 3-point range. He leads the league in practice, averaging 19.4 per game – that’s more than Shai Gilgeous-Alexander – and he shoots 50% when he puts his head down and goes hard to the rim. On the other side of the floor, he fits well into one of the high-pressure defensive-offensive teams in the league, and he has been asked to guard bigger wings and has thrived in that role.
Even in the deep West, Avdija should be an All-Star for the first time this season. On a Portland team that is 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 numerous commercial rumors. However, the Jazz have to be happy with what they saw from third-year guard Keyonte George. The 22-year-old has become a much more efficient scorer on his attacks and from the midrange, allowing him to increase his scoring from 16.8 points per game to 22.8 points per game on 44.6% from the field, compared to the same 39.1% in each of his first two seasons. He’s also getting to the free throw line much more often, averaging 7.0 attempts per game after being at 4.3 last season.
Advertisement
A big part of that is his newfound aggression. George averages 10.7 drives per game and shoots 47.1% on those drives. Last season, he averaged just 8.6 drives per game and shot 42.8% on them. Additionally, 76.5 percent of his practices are ending in points this year, which is a big increase from last year’s 62.2 percent. George is now making 5.5 shots per game in the paint after making just 3.4 last year. He’s also connecting at 50.9% this year after making just 41% of those last year. We’ve also seen growth in his mid-range game, now averaging 2.4 mid-range shots per game and connecting at 43.8%, which is a huge step up from last year when he only made 1.2 mid-range shots per game at a rate of 35.4%. Yes, George remains a mediocre 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 Jazz fans are excited about.
