Now that NBA 2K26 is here and in players’ hands, we decided to see what the game has to tell us about the upcoming NBA season. Like our Madden NFL 26 simulations for the NFL earlier this summer, we ran ten simulations of the upcoming season to see what consistent trends emerged and what they tell us to expect when the real games start happening. Here are the ten biggest takeaways from our simulations.
The Big Picture Revelations
Before looking at some of the specific predictions that 2K was most certain of, some top-line revelations are interesting after ten passes through the 25/26 NBA season:
2K Is More Confident Than Madden
The most notable aspect to emerge as the simulations began to roll out was how much more consistent the 2K simulations were compared to their Madden counterparts. While Madden was fairly certain the Ravens would be monsters this year, much of the rest of the league was more variable. With 2K, the early trends tended to carry out through the remaining sims, through some combination of the game being more distinct with its differences and the larger sample size of games in both the regular season and playoffs having the virtual and real-world effect of reducing the chances for surprise results.
So You’re Telling Me There’s No Chance
In those more varied predictions for the NFL, every team managed to make the NFL playoffs at least once. Despite the NBA having a higher percentage of teams in the opening round, as well as an additional four teams exiting in the play-in, the same was not true for our NBA simulations. The Nets, Wizards, and Jazz never made it to even a play-in game, something only the bottom third of the league does each season, while the Hornets managed a single one-game elimination in the lower play-in game.
The Old Guard Is Mostly Cooked
For the most part, 2K truly believes that the NBA has been handed over from a generation of players like LeBron, by himself, and his nearest peers in the likes of Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, and company. A lone standout year for James Harden marked the only elite year for a player over 35, while teams like the Lakers and Warriors struggled to make much of an impact on the postseason across any of the ten simulations.
The Awards Picture
Another area where 2K had a lot of consistency across its simulations was in which players ended up walking home with end-of-season hardware for their individual efforts:
Wemby Is A Monster Trapped In A Room With A Low Ceiling
While repeated results were the name of the game throughout the sims, nowhere was that more true than in the case of Victor Wembanyama. Wemby was not just a ten-time 1st Team All-Defense player for the Spurs, he was the best defensive player of the year as decided by virtual voters all ten times. Unfortunately for Wemby and the Spurs, the team around him was still not strong enough to do much with it, with San Antonio maxing out at a five seed and managing just a total of one second-round win in the two times they managed to escape the opening round.
Role Player Russ Is A Threat
Russel Westbrook is currently still without a team as the NBA season nears, and if 2K is to be believed, teams would be wise to bring him on. While T.J. McConnell nearly matched Russel with Sixth Man of the Year awards in 30 percent of the simulations each, Russ has the distinction of doing it for four different teams, having been added by the Heat, Cavaliers, Pistons, and Clippers before turning in award-winning years.
A Poor Team Showing Is Not Disqualifying For Jokic
Westbrook’s former teammate, Nikola Jokic, is one of the most unique and most dominant forces in the history of basketball, and 2K sees no reason for that to quit being the case this season. Jokic was the league’s regular-season MVP in half of all simulations, with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander having four of his own and Anthony Edwards grabbing the last trophy. What was different between the two, however, was how their teams did in winning it. While Shai hosted a home playoff series all four times, Jokic had to hit the road in three of five, including a trip to the play-ins as league MVP.
The Big Prizes
While individual awards and schadenfreude watching the bottom of the standings can be fun, it’s the top of the league that ultimately matters. Here’s what 2K had to say about the top teams in the league and how their 25/26 seasons are currently shaping up:
The Knicks Are Trophy Certainties (Just Not The Big One)
Knicks faithful can take heart in the fact that 2K is certainly in big on the Knicks this season, as they were a dominant force in the Eastern Conference. There were no down years for New York in our simulations, with them earning the Eastern Conference’s top seed seven times. In the three sims, they fell off the top spot, they never dropped below the third seed, always finding themselves as one of the conference elites. Unfortunately, they failed to build off an NBA Championship in the first sim, failing to hold seed the other six times they were top dogs and managing just one more finals appearance as a 2-seed.
That doesn’t mean they didn’t get their share of hardware, however. New York won the NBA Cup in the last six simulations we ran, totaling seven wins over the course of the full simulation. More strikingly, only Wemby could best Zachary Staples’ eight wins as he captured Executive of the Year four times for every one that he didn’t.
The Hawks And Cavs Are The Best Of The Rest Out East
The Knicks weren’t the only teams hanging out at the top of the East consistently. The Pistons and Pacers each managed one simulation as a 3-seed; otherwise, it was New York, Atlanta, and Cleveland holding the top three spots on lockdown. Like the Knicks, however, they also struggled to translate those high seeds into NBA Finals runs, with the Cavaliers managing just one and the Hawks two, as neither side was able to conquer their Western Conference foes and become Champions.
The West Is Still The Best
They weren’t the only teams struggling in the Finals, however. The NBA has long been dominated by Western Conferences sides, and 2K is all but guaranteeing it happens again. After the Knicks captured our first simulation’s title, the Western Conference proceeded to win the remaining nine. What’s more, the championship series were rarely close, as the East managed just a combined twelve victories across those nine losing efforts as their Western foes breezed their way to cakewalk win after cakewalk win with no series even requiring a game seven.
Nico Was Right
The trade sending Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers was one of the most mocked trades in the history of not just the NBA, but the big four of US sports. Dallas GM Nico Harrison was widely panned across all circles, from NBA insiders to players to die-hard fans to casuals. Harrison got a boost when the Mavericks beat the odds in the draft lottery, allowing them to grab ace prospect Cooper Flagg, but they still sit in the bottom ten of championship odds with most sports books.
Nobody tell that to 2K26. They won the Western Conference seven times. While the first of those runs came in the Knicks’ lone triumph, the other six were part of the West’s utter dominance meaning the Mavericks were winners of our simulations more than the rest of the NBA combined. There have been criticisms that winning in 2K undervalues the need to have depth on your squad, and with Kyrie Irving and Anthony Davis, the two oldest regularly successful players in the sim, bossing Western Conference MVP voting time and again while Flagg offered solid contributions, the Mavs were unstoppable.
While Flagg was not as dominant as he was in our simulations in both 2K26 with official rosters and 2K25 with fan-made draft classes, he won Rookie of the Year four times in nine healthy seasons, finishing runner up an additional three times and never failing to be a first-team All-Rookie performer.
That wraps up what NBA 2K26 has to say about the upcoming season, but what do you think? Do you also agree that Wemby can start saving a spot for his Defensive Player of the Year trophy already? What about the Mavs beating the experts? Does that sound like a good call, or has 2K turned it over repeatedly on the biggest call of any season sim?
