The year 2025 has been filled with seismic stories in the NBA, many of which will play out through 2026 and beyond. Real game changers, literally and figuratively.
On New Year’s Eve, we look back at the 10 biggest NBA stories of 2025.
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1. Luka Doncic trade
On February 1, we all thought Shams Charania had been hacked. No way it’s real.
Turns out it was real: Dallas Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison had convinced a new owner to trade a fan-favorite 25-year-old, top-five player in the world, entering the prime of the NBA’s most hated empire. For pennies on the dollar. It was unfathomable.
It changed everything. Before the end of the year, Harrison had been fired. Dallas collapsed without Doncic, slipped into the lottery, then was blessed by the basketball gods when its 1.8% chance ended up giving the Mavericks the top spot in the NBA draft and Cooper Flagg. The Lakers instantly became a threat again, although they are still figuring out how to build a team around Doncic that works.
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This trade out of nowhere will go down as one of the biggest NBA stories of the decade, perhaps the first half of the century. The changes have been seismic, and nothing in 2025 has been this significant.
2. Chauncey Billups and Terry Rozier arrested and charged
Federal authorities have arrested and charged current Miami Heat player Terry Rozier and Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups in two illegal gambling investigations. Former NBA player and assistant coach Damon Jones (who was charged in both cases) was also arrested. One of these indictments alleged that Rozier worked with illegal gambling consortiums to rig players’ bets by leaving a game early due to an “injury” (players betting big on his unders). The other had Billups as the face of a rigged poker game, where being with the Hall of Famer and the coach was the draw to bring in the people who had lost at the rigged games.
Rozier and Billups pleaded not guilty as their cases moved through the court system. The NBA has reopened its investigation and both men are on unpaid leave from their teams. And through it all, the NBA continues to maintain strong ties and promote legal gaming products and applications (in states where permitted).
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This is a story we’ll hear a lot more about in 2026.
3. Thunder wins NBA title
More than just a title, it was like the start of a dynasty.
Oklahoma City was clearly the best team in the NBA last season, winning 68 games behind MVP Shai Gilgous-Alexander, and in the end, it was fitting that this crew won the first title in city history. Jalen Williams played through incredible wrist pain, Chet Holmgren became a star in the middle, and a deep team that could bring a scorer like Alex Caruso off the bench proved too much for everyone.
This is a young team – SGA is 27, Williams and Holmgren are on their rookie contracts (although that changes next season) – and while the fiscal aprons will hit them hard in the coming years, the club’s stock of quality picks (they could have three first-rounders this season) allows them to replenish the cabinets without much spending. The NBA has worked hard to make dynasties nearly impossible (whether that’s a wise strategy is another topic), but no team is better positioned to beat those odds than the Thunder.
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4. Tyrese Haliburton tears Achilles in Game 7
The biggest “what if” of 2025 — and one of the biggest in NBA history — is what if Haliburton hadn’t torn his Achilles tendon early in Game 7 of the NBA Finals.
The Pacers had improbably pushed the Thunder to a decisive game thanks to their depth, their pressure, their pace and the play of Haliburton. In Game 7, Haliburton played through a sore calf, but he came out hot, hit 3 of 4 from deep, scored nine points in quick succession, then got to the middle of the first quarter where he took a step back to explode forward, his Achilles tendon tore and he fell to the ground.
Would the Pacers have won Game 7 with him? We will never know. The injury also turned the Pacers into a lottery team for the 2025-26 season, but it creates a nice bounce-back story for 2026-27.
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5. Jayson Tatum tears Achilles
Going into last season and even into the playoffs, Boston was the team to beat. The defending champions had won 61 games with the league’s second-best defense and a top-10 offense. The Celtics had the talent, the experience, and a Finals showdown with the Thunder could have been epic.
Then, with about three minutes left in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference semifinals, Jayson Tatum dove to the ground in a scramble to recover a loose ball, tore his Achilles tendon and couldn’t get up. That ended his playoff run and Boston’s chances (although whether they would have beaten the Knicks in that series, even with him, is debatable at best and more likely doubtful).
Tatum’s missing time was the start of an offseason financial reset for the Celtics, who fired Kristaps Porzingis and Jrue Holiday and implemented what was supposed to be a sabbatical for the Celtics. Maybe that’s not it at all. Boston sits in third place in the open East and Tatum is expected to return in the early months of 2026, setting up a very interesting playoff run. However, his injury caused a sensation this year.
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6. Dallas wins the lottery and selects Cooper Flagg
Don’t buy anyone who tells you Nico Harrison had a plan – trading Luka Doncic to get a 1.8% chance of winning the NBA Draft Lottery is not a plan. It’s a pipe dream.
Sometimes dreams come true. They did it for Dallas, which landed a key franchise player for the next 10 years in Flagg. After a slow start because Jason Kidd played him out of position (or at least felt he had to because of the way the now-fired Harrison built the team), Flagg has come on strong and is averaging 19.4 points and 6.4 rebounds per game while playing solid defense. He looks like the next long-term fan favorite in Dallas, and the new owner there won’t make the same mistake twice.
7. The Knicks advance to the Eastern Conference Finals
There’s nothing more fun than thrilling at Madison Square Garden in the playoffs. It’s one of the hallowed grounds of sports, and after too many years of watching their team wander through the wilderness, Knicks fans once again have something worth cheering for — not just a relevant team, but a contender.
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Game 1 of last season’s Eastern Conference Finals might have been the best game of the year, even if the ending was painful for Knicks fans.
Honorable Mention Stories
• Changing of the NBA guard with young people (like Oklahoma City, but also Victor Wembanyama and Tyrese Maxey) stepping up to the plate and taking over the league in a generational change.
• Jimmy Butler joins Stephen Curry at Golden State in pursuit of one more ring in the Bay.
• Endless trade rumors about Giannis Antetokounmpo.
• Chris Paul/Clippers part ways.
• The Kawhi Leonard/Aspiration/Clippers story. Many people may think this should be higher on the list. Pablo Torre and his podcast “Pablo Torre Finds Out” caused a stir just before the start of the NBA season with an investigative report into what was called a “no-show” deal between Leonard and San Francisco-based environmental credits company Aspiration, with seven anonymous former employees of the company claiming the deal was made to help the Clippers skirt the salary cap. The Clippers have vehemently denied any wrongdoing from the start, with owner Steve Ballmer claiming he was one of the investors misled by Aspiration (whose CEO pleaded guilty to wire fraud). The NBA has resumed its investigation.
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So why is it so low on the list? Because the buzz in league circles right now is that there isn’t as much meat on the bone as early reports suggest, and that the Clippers won’t face as severe a punishment as some were hoping. This is something to watch out for in 2026.
