Unveiled: The NBA Teams Set to Shock Fans with Stunning Overachievements and Unexpected Failures

Every NBA season serves up its share of jaw-dropping surprises and facepalm-worthy letdowns — you know, those moments that make you question everything you thought you knew about the game. As we tiptoe past the frenzy of free agency, the true drama lies ahead on the hardwood. Despite our fancy preseason power rankings blending cutting-edge metrics and analytics, the NBA has a long history of defying even the most sophisticated predictions. So, which teams will wildly outperform expectations, and which will stumble into underperformance during the 2025-26 campaign? Let’s dive into the squads kicking up dust beyond the projected standings — the shockers and the faceplants alike — before the season unfolds in front of our eyes. Because honestly, what’s the fun in getting it right all the time? LEARN MORE.

There are surprise teams and teams that disappoint every year in the NBA. Here are the most likely of each for 2025-26.

The great surprises of free agency are likely behind us. 

With the NBA offseason almost over, fans will have to wait until basketball is played for their next batch of surprises.

A few weeks ago, we revealed our preseason power rankings – which blend our in-house team and player metrics. However, even the best projections don’t get it all right. There wouldn’t be much of a point in playing the games if the projections were 100% correct.

To account for this margin for error, we look at the teams that will surprise the most when compared to our projections. Here are three teams that could overperform and three that could underperform.

NBA Teams That Will Overperform

Milwaukee Bucks

Preseason TRACR: 17th in NBA, 7th in Eastern Conference 

Why They Will Overperform: The 2025 race for Giannis Antetokounmpo received an anti-climactic ending, as, barring anything out of left field, it appears the two-time MVP will remain with the only franchise he’s ever known.

Even with the team retaining one of the best players on the planet (8th in DRIP), most folks see this as a gap year for the Bucks. But when you really dig into their roster, this team could be really good.

As we saw when Damian Lillard went down with injury toward the end of the regular season, Antetokounmpo does better as a lone star with good complementary pieces instead of an ill-fitting co-star. Right now, the Bucks boast a ton of depth around the Greek Freak.

They have firebird scorers (Cole Anthony, Bobby Portis, Kyle Kuzma and Kevin Porter Jr.), two-way wings/forwards (Ryan Rollins, Amir Coffey, Taurean Prince, Gary Trent Jr., AJ Green and Andre Jackson Jr.), a younger replacement to Brook Lopez (Myles Turner), and a backup to relieve him (Jericho Sims).

If Antetokounmpo can stay healthy, pencil this team in for a top-six spot in the East. 

Denver Nuggets

Preseason TRACR: 7th in NBA, 6th in Western Conference

Why They Will Overperform: Outside of the Indiana Pacers, no team pushed the defending-champion Oklahoma City Thunder harder than the Nuggets.

The only thing that really held back the team that touts the best player on the planet was its lack of depth. Last season, they finished 27th in points per game off the bench.

How did they respond to that dilemma this summer? Only by swapping out Michael Porter Jr. and Dario Saric (who was out of the rotation by the end of the year) for Cam Johnson, Jonas Valanciunas, Bruce Brown and Tim Hardaway Jr.

The team that finished fourth in the Western Conference with virtually no bench significantly addressed this weakness and yet it is projected to be worse? Feels like the perfect outperformer situation to me.

Dallas Mavericks

Preseason TRACR: 20th in NBA, 12th in Western Conference

Why They Will Overperform: Forget all the stupidity surrounding the front office over the last six months. Forget that Kyrie Irving (23rd in offensive DRIP or O-DRIP) could miss the entire season rehabbing from a torn ACL. This team is DEEP, particularly when it comes to wings, forwards and bigs.

Listen to this list of players: Anthony Davis, Dereck Lively II, Daniel Gafford, PJ Washington, Cooper Flagg, Naji Marshall, Max Christie, Caleb Martin and Klay Thompson. Two of those players (Davis and Lively) finished in the top 30 in defensive DRIP (D-DRIP), and Flagg (one of the best prospects of the last decade) finished fourth in college basketball last year in D-VAPR.

Sounds like a lock for a top-10 defense, right?

Well, our model currently expects them to be a bottom-10 unit (21st in D-TRACR). Even if the Mavericks crumble offensively without Irving, the defense alone should be enough to keep them from being a bottom-feeder in the Western Conference. 

NBA Teams That Will Underperform

Boston Celtics

Preseason TRACR: 8th in NBA, 2nd in Eastern Conference

Why They Will Underperform: Despite our model accounting for the team being without Jayson Tatum for all of next year, it still sees the Celtics being a strong contender in the Eastern Conference. Part of the reason for this is that the model assumes that Al Horford (89th percentile DRIP) will re-sign with the team, which, at this point, is very unlikely.

It also believes that Jaylen Brown, Derrick White and Payton Pritchard will be enough to keep Boston afloat without Tatum. But there has always been a big disconnect between the perception of Brown and his impact on winning. Brown won the 2024 NBA Finals MVP, but he wasn’t even in the top five on the team in DRIP when last season ended.

On top of that, they have very little depth. Outside of the trio we mentioned above, the only other surefire rotation players currently on the roster are Anfernee Simons and Sam Hauser. Not to mention the gaping hole this team has at the 5 spot (the Celtics don’t have a single center in the top 200 in DRIP on their roster). 

Minnesota Timberwolves

Preseason TRACR: 2nd in NBA, 2nd in Western Conference

Why They Will Underperform: The Timberwolves went to their second straight Western Conference finals in 2025, and with them set to welcome back their top eight players in DRIP, our model sees them as a strong candidate to continue their success in 2025-26.

But if we’ve learned anything over the last few years, it’s that the league is rapidly growing, and banking on continuity isn’t enough to get the job done. There’s a reason we’ve had seven straight new champions.

Losing Nickeil Alexander-Walker in free agency to the Atlanta Hawks (a great move by them, by the way) could be offset by the internal development of young players like Terrence Shannon Jr., Jaylen Clark and Rob Dillingham. But even then, this team stayed largely the same, with key figures like Rudy Gobert, Julius Randle and Mike Conley another year older, and multiple Western Conference competitors getting notably stronger (the Denver Nuggets, Houston Rockets, and Los Angeles Clippers).

Don’t be surprised if they go from West finalists to first-round exit in just the span of a year.

Sacramento Kings

Preseason TRACR: 12th in NBA, 9th in the Western Conference

Why They Will Underperform: Our supercomputer is high on the Kings because their heavy-hitters (Domantas Sabonis, DeMar DeRozan, Zach LaVine and Keegan Murray) are generally pretty available. In this instance, though, availability isn’t the best ability.

This roster makes very little sense. The Kings have way too many guards (LaVine, DeRozan, Dennis Schroder, Malik Monk, Keon Ellis and Devin Carter), no real backup center (Saric and Drew Eubanks are currently slated behind Sabonis), and very little by way of defense (which will make it tricky for them to finish outside the bottom 10 in D-TRACR like our model projects).

We love the idea of trading up to draft Nique Clifford, but outside of that, there is little about this team that suggests that it won’t be a bottom-five team in the Western Conference. 

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The post Surprise, Surprise: Which NBA Teams Will Outperform Their Projections and Which Will Underperform? appeared first on Opta Analyst.