From Wemby to Reaves: Debating four early-season NBA storylines - ESPN

Two of the prospective contenders in the East are flailing, while two in the West are scorching hot. Meanwhile, an important awards race has already turned upside-down.

The 2025-26 NBA season is a mere two weeks old, but that's a perfect time to start diving into the most important numbers and narratives surrounding these early surprises.

ESPN national analysts Zach Kram and Kevin Pelton debate the biggest early-season questions about Victor Wembanyama, Paolo Banchero, Trae Young, Austin Reaves, Cooper Flagg and more.

Pelton: The Spurs appear to be the young team that is taking the leap. Starting with an opening-night drubbing of the Dallas Mavericks, San Antonio started 5-0 for the first time in franchise history, and Victor Wembanyama rates as the league's second-best player on a per-possession basis in my wins above replacement player metric.

The caveat here is the schedule. Thursday's showdown with the fast-starting Miami Heat was the Spurs' first matchup against a 2025 playoff team, and they won't face an opponent who won more than a single playoff game last spring until their NBA Cup group opener against the Houston Rockets next Friday. Do you buy San Antonio's start, Zach, or do you need to see them beat somebody their own size? (Which might not be anybody, in Wemby's case.)

Kram: The simplest answer is that as long as Wembanyama continues to play like an MVP candidate, the Spurs' ceiling is as tall as he is. His PER through six games is 30.7. Before this season, there were 35 instances in NBA history in which a player posted a player efficiency rating above 30, and on average, their teams won 53.5 games.

But the NBA's talent pool is so deep now that one transcendent star isn't always sufficient to propel a team