By Zach Kram, 2026-08-19 19:00:00
未来的NBA球迷会如何记住2025-26赛季？
去年，我分析了那些在发生多年甚至数十年后仍被人们铭记的过往篮球赛季瞬间——从1954-55赛季24秒进攻时限的发明，到1991-92赛季“梦之队”彻底改变国际篮球格局，再到2024-25赛季达拉斯独行侠队交易卢卡·东契奇 (Luka Doncic)，以及期间发生的一切。
在此过程中，我归纳出了留存在集体记忆中的五大类事件。让我们将2025-26赛季的那些高光瞬间归入这些类别，来解答开篇提出的那个问题。
1. 难以置信的成就
我咨询了几位篮球界业内人士——包括媒体同行和球队管理层人员，整理出了一份2025-26赛季（在此指从去年10月的揭幕战到今年夏天）最令人难忘的瞬间清单。他们每一个人都将纽约尼克斯队夺冠排在首位。
更具体地说，他们列举了尼克斯夺冠过程中诸多令人难忘的侧面，包括：OG·阿奴诺比 (OG Anunoby) 完成总决赛历史上最伟大逆转的补篮、对球队长达53年冠军荒的痛快终结、球队在季后赛多轮系列赛中展现出的绝对统治力、纽约全市观赛派对的盛况，以及总统唐纳德·特朗普 (Donald Trump)亲临现场观看尼克斯对阵圣安东尼奥马刺队唯一输掉的那场总决赛。
因此，我们今天的探讨从一个显而易见的大热门开始。还有其他候选瞬间能动摇它作为2025-26赛季定义性瞬间的地位吗？
一个在未来可能具有迷人历史传承的瞬间是巴姆·阿德巴约 (Bam Adebayo) 单场砍下83分的比赛。毕竟，我此前将1961-62赛季定义为威尔特·张伯伦 (Wilt Chamberlain) 砍下100分的一年，将2005-06赛季定义为科比·布莱恩特 (Kobe Bryant) 砍下81分的一年，因此，阿德巴约的这一成就理应同样具有持久的生命力。
然而，在我咨询的人中，只有一个人在清单中提到了阿德巴约的单场83分，而且排名并不靠前。我怀疑阿德巴约的这次得分爆发不会具有同等的历史分量，原因有二。
首先，张伯伦和布莱恩特都是NBA历史上仅有的八位“3万分俱乐部”成员，也是仅有的五位单赛季场均得分至少达到35分的合规球员之一；在单场比赛中狂砍高分，符合这两位传奇球星惊人得分能力的宏大叙事。相反，阿德巴约虽然是全明星球员，但并非名人堂的核心第一梯队成员，83分对他职业生涯的整体轨迹而言是一个令人震惊的偏离，而不是一种印证。
其次，阿德巴约砍下83分是在对阵华盛顿奇才队的比赛中完成的，而当时奇才队正致力于在积分榜垫底。阿德巴约这场表现中显而易见的刻意成分，意味着它在当时并没有激发同等程度的敬畏感，这可能会导致未来的球迷对它的记忆度降低。
今年还有相当多其他的个人成就。谢伊·吉尔杰斯-亚历山大 (Shai Gilgeous-Alexander) 打破了张伯伦连续单场得分20+的纪录，尼古拉·约基奇 (Nikola Jokic) 场均篮板和助攻均领跑全联盟，而孔·克内佩尔 (Kon Knueppel) 作为一名新秀，三分球命中数领跑全联盟。但这些成就感觉更像是冷门的数据奇观，而不是显而易见、令人难忘的瞬间。
2. 难忘球队或明星球员征程中的关键时刻
在我为本项目咨询的少数业内人士中，2025-26赛季被提及第二多的选项是维克托·文班亚马 (Victor Wembanyama) 崛起为超级巨星。在他的第三个赛季，文班亚马闯入了总决赛，全票斩获年度最佳防守球员，并让自己彻底进入了“世界最佳球员”的讨论范围。
这一假设只能在多年后回头看时才能得到解答——但如果文班亚马继续沿着目前的轨迹发展，成为NBA历史上最具统治力、荣誉最多的球员之一，那么2025-26赛季将被铭记为他破茧成蝶的一年。
3. 新时代的开启，或旧时代的落幕
这一类别包括一个潜在的竞争者、一匹黑马候选以及一个后期加入的竞争者。按顺序来看：
2025-26赛季可能会被铭记为NBA摆烂风潮的最低谷，有八支球队至少输掉了56场比赛。联盟为此创建了新的乐透抽签机制作为回应。虽然该系统计划仅运行三年便会重新评估，但如果这次遏制故意输球的最新努力确实取得成功，那么刚刚过去的这个赛季可能会因催生了这一变革而被载入史册。
未来的球迷也有可能将2025-26赛季视为NBA赛事观看方式变革的重要第一步。当联盟新的电视转播合同在上赛季生效时，它首次将专属的全国直播版权包带到了流媒体渠道，而不是传统的公共电视网或有线电视。
想象一个遥远的未来，每一场 NBA比赛都通过这种方式观看，这似乎并非天方夜谭。如果是这样，2025-26赛季的这一局部改变将具有更重大的历史意义。
最后——就在我整理这份清单的过程中——ESPN的拉蒙娜·谢尔本 (Ramona Shelburne) 爆出了惊人消息：洛杉矶湖人队老板马克·沃尔特 (Mark Walter) 在从巴斯家族手中买下球队仅一年多后，就要出售球队。目前来看，这次转售似乎是由于沃尔特的个人情况而做出的个别决定。但如果其他人效仿沃尔特的做法，使我们进入一个NBA老板像炒房客一样对待球队的时代，那么这次湖人队的出售将成为一个关键的起点。
4. 偏离常态的意外事件
这一类别通常指由于停摆或全球流行病等原因导致赛程发生重大变化。幸运的是，在2025-26赛季没有发生此类干扰。
5. 悲情与争议
尽管过去一年的NBA篮球带给人们许多积极的感受，但也有几起争议事件强行挤入了讨论的视野。
洛杉矶快船队在整个2025-26赛季都笼罩在NBA对其涉嫌规避工资帽的调查阴影之下——这一阴影至今仍未散去，因为随着调查的继续，快船与多伦多猛龙之间关于科怀·伦纳德 (Kawhi Leonard) 的拟议交易仍处于搁置状态。许多消息源都将这起丑闻列为本赛季最令人难忘的候选事件之一。
在其他丑闻消息中，昌西·比卢普斯 (Chauncey Billups) 仅为波特兰开拓者队执教了一场比赛，随后他与前迈阿密热火队球员特里·罗齐尔 (Terry Rozier) 就在两起与赌博相关的联邦调查中双双被捕。
从历史的角度来看，我认为在2024年被NBA终身禁赛的琼泰·波特 (Jontay Porter) 可能会成为这个博彩争议时代的首要代表，因为他的案子发生得最早。但比卢普斯和罗齐尔是比波特更著名的NBA人物，因此他们可能会取代波特，获得那种历史象征性的恶名。
另外，在凯尔特人篮球运营总裁布拉德·史蒂文斯 (Brad Stevens) 荣膺NBA年度最佳总经理仅几个月后，凯尔特人交易杰伦·布朗 (Jaylen Brown) 的举动，是候选名单中的另一个后期加入者。2024-25赛季是东契奇被交易的一年，因此接下来的这个赛季完全有可能是另一个令人难忘的交易之年。
但布朗与东契奇并非同一级别的球星，而他的交易虽然仍具争议，但远没有东契奇那次深夜重磅交易来得令人震惊。这是一个强有力的选项，但并非压倒性的。
结论
在审视了所有提名的候选事件后，第一个答案最终似乎才是正确的。目前在尼克斯夺冠历程中脱颖而出的所有 个人瞬间，不太可能全部经受住时间的考验——但至少有一些显然会。
例如，尼克斯在第四场历史性的逆转，并在阿奴诺比的补篮中达到高潮，这应该在未来任何一场一方大比分落后的总决赛中被提及。而这支凯旋的尼克斯队，由于纽约作为NBA首要市场的地位，引起了更强烈的共鸣。
其他选项，如布朗的交易、这项运动流媒体时代的开启以及文班亚马的首个统治级赛季，也可能在未来几十年成为关键的NBA记忆。但纽约期待已久的季后赛之旅是永恒的。2025-26赛季，就是尼克斯夺冠的那一年。
由生成式 AI 翻译，译文内容可能不准确或不完整，以原文为准。
查看原文：Picking the NBA moment that defined the 2025-26 season
Picking the NBA moment that defined the 2025-26 season
What will future generations of NBA fans learn about the 2025-26 season?
Last year, I analyzed the moments from previous basketball seasons that are still remembered years – if not decades – after they occurred, from the invention of the shot clock in 1954-55 to the Dream Team revolutionizing international basketball in 1991-92 to the Dallas Mavericks trading Luka Doncic in 2024-25, and everything in between.
In the process, I identified five broad categories of events that linger in the collective memory. Let’s fit the top moments from the 2025-26 season into those categories to answer that opening question.
1. Incredible achievement
I consulted with a handful of other basketball minds – including media members and front office employees – to generate a list of the most memorable moments from the 2025-26 season (which, for these purposes, spans from opening night last October through this summer). Every one of them listed the New York Knicks’ title first.
More specifically, they listed a great number of memorable facets of the Knicks’ title, including: OG Anunoby’s tip-in to complete the greatest Finals comeback ever, the emphatic sating of the franchise’s 53-year title drought, the team’s sheer playoff dominance across multiple rounds, the spectacle of watch parties throughout New York City and the presence of President Donald Trump at the only Finals game the Knicks lost against the San Antonio Spurs.
So we start today’s exercise with a clear early favorite. Can any other candidate unseat it as the defining moment of the 2025-26 season?
One moment with a potentially fascinating future legacy is Bam Adebayo’s 83-point game. After all, I previously identified 1961-62 as the year that Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points and 2005-06 as the year that Kobe Bryant scored 81, so it should follow that Adebayo’s achievement would be equally durable.
Yet only one of the folks I consulted even mentioned Adebayo’s 83-point game on his list, and it wasn’t near the top. I suspect Adebayo’s scoring outburst won’t carry the same historical weight, for two reasons.
First, both Chamberlain and Bryant are two of just eight 30,000-point scorers in NBA history, and they’re two of just five qualified players to average at least 35 points per game in a season; racking up lots of points in a single night fits within a broader narrative about the two legends’ phenomenal scoring ability. Adebayo, conversely, is an All-Star but not an inner-circle Hall of Famer, and 83 points represented a shocking deviation from the narrative of his career, rather than an affirmation of it.
Second, Adebayo scored 83 points against a Washington Wizards team in the midst of an effort to finish at the bottom of the standings. The seeming artifice of Adebayo’s performance means it didn’t inspire the same level of awe in the moment, which could translate to less memorability for future generations.
There were a fair number of other individual achievements this year, as well. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander broke Chamberlain’s record for consecutive 20-point games, Nikola Jokic led the league in both rebounds and assists per game, and Kon Knueppel led the league in 3-pointers as a rookie. But those accomplishments feel more like deep-cut statistical curios than self-evidently memorable moments.
2. Key moment in the journey of a memorable team or star player
Among my handful of consultants for this project, the second-most-mentioned option for 2025-26 was Victor Wembanyama’s rise to superstardom. In his third season, Wembanyama reached the Finals, won Defensive Player of the Year in a unanimous vote and generally inserted himself into the “best player in the world” discussion.
This hypothetical can only be answered in retrospect, years down the line – but if Wembanyama continues on his current trajectory and becomes one of the most dominant and decorated players in NBA history, then the 2025-26 season will be remembered as the year he broke out.
3. The start of a new era, or the end of an old one
This category includes one possible contender, one dark horse candidate and one late entrant. Taking them in order:
The 2025-26 season could be remembered as the nadir of the NBA’s tanking epidemic, with eight teams losing at least 56 games. The league created a new lottery structure in response. While that system is slated to last only three years before it’s revisited, if this latest effort to curb intentional losing actually succeeds, then this past season could be remembered for inspiring that change.
It’s also possible that future generations could look back on the 2025-26 season as an important first step in a change to how NBA games are consumed. When the league’s new TV contract kicked in last season, it brought dedicated national broadcast packages to streaming channels – rather than network or cable television – for the first time.
It doesn’t seem too far-fetched to imagine a distant future in which every NBA game is viewed this way, in which case this partial change in 2025-26 will take on greater historical import.
And finally – as I was in the process of completing this list – ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne broke the stunning news that Los Angeles Lakers owner Mark Walter was selling the team just a year and change after he bought it from the Buss family. For now, it seems as if this resale is a one-off decision brought on by Walter’s individual circumstances. But if others follow Walter’s lead and we enter an era of NBA owners who treat their franchises like house-flippers, then this Lakers sale will be a crucial starting point.
4. Unexpected deviations from the norm
This category generally refers to major changes in the schedule due to such causes as a lockout or worldwide pandemic. Fortunately, there were no such interruptions in 2025-26.
5. Pathos and controversy
For all the positive feelings engendered by the last year of NBA basketball, a couple of controversies also elbowed their way into the conversation.
The LA Clippers played through their 2025-26 schedule under the shadow of the NBA’s investigation into potential salary cap circumvention – which still lingers, as a proposed Kawhi Leonard trade between the Clippers and Toronto Raptors remains in limbo while the investigation continues. Numerous sources mentioned this scandal as one of the most memorable candidates from this season.
In other scandalous news, Chauncey Billups coached just one game for the Portland Trail Blazers before he and former Miami Heat player Terry Rozier were both arrested as part of a pair of gambling-related federal investigations.
From a historical perspective, I think that Jontay Porter – whom the NBA banned for life in 2024 – might stand as the primary representative of this era of betting-related controversies, because his case came first. But Billups and Rozier are more notable NBA figures than Porter, so they could gain that historical symbolic notoriety instead.
Separately, the Celtics’ trade of Jaylen Brown – mere months after Celtics president of basketball operations Brad Stevens won NBA Executive of the Year – is another late entrant to the candidate pool. The 2024-25 season stands as the year that Doncic was traded, so it’s possible that the next season could be the year of another memorable trade.
But Brown isn’t the same level of star as Doncic, and his trade – while still controversial – wasn’t nearly as surprising as the late-night Doncic stunner. It’s a strong option, but not overwhelmingly so.
The verdict
After reviewing all of the proposed candidates, the first answer ultimately seems like the right one. It’s unlikely that all of the individual moments that currently stand out from the Knicks’ title run will withstand the test of time – but at least some seem like they certainly will.
For instance, the Knicks’ historic Game 4 comeback, which climaxed with Anunoby’s tip-in, should be referenced in every future Finals game in which one team is blowing out its opponent. And this triumphant Knicks squad resonates even more because of New York’s primacy as an NBA market.
Other options, such as the Brown trade, the start of the sport’s streaming era and Wembanyama’s first dominant season, could also become crucial NBA memories for decades to come. But New York’s long-awaited playoff run is eternal. The 2025-26 season is the year that the Knicks won the championship.
By Zach Kram, via ESPN