NBA Trends: How Important Is a Good Regular Season Start?

The NBA season is a grind, particularly for the teams that go deep into the postseason.

Consider that the 2025-26 New York Knicks began the season on October 22, 2025 and they played their final game of that season—Game 5 against the Spurs—on June 13, 2026. That’s a 234-day season.

No doubt, the Knicks of last October were a much different team than they were in June of 2026. Most NBA champions go through ebbs and flows throughout a season. Rough patches often build character. But you definitely do need to grab some early wins.

We are currently in the infant stages of the 2026-27 NBA season and there are plenty of overreactions by fanbases.

Are the 2-0 Thunder going to challenge the 2015-16 Warriors for most wins in a season? Are the 2-0 76ers going to run roughshod over the entire Eastern Conference? Are the 0-1 Celtics, who blew a 22-lead to the Pistons on Tuesday, doomed? Are the 0-1 Warriors headed for the lottery?

Below, we’ll examine just how important a hot or cold start to a season is by looking at recent NBA champions. In this Marathon of a season, does a strong start even matter?

2025-26 Knicks
The Knicks had statement wins to open up their 2025-26 season as they beat the Cavs on opening night, 119-111, and then beat the Celtics two nights later, 105-95. Both of those wins were at Madison Square Garden.

Jalen Brunson and crew struggled, though, when they hit the road - losing to the Heat in Miami on October 26, 2025, then losing to the Bucks in Milwaukee on October 28, 2025, and finally losing to the Bulls in Chicago on Halloween night 2025.

Following that three-game losing streak, the Knicks rattled off five straight wins.

In their first 10 games of what became a championship season, Mike Brown’s crew went 7-3.

2024-25 Thunder
The Thunder jumped from 40 wins in 2022-23 to 57 wins in 2023-24. Mark Daigneault’s crew then jumped to 68 regular-season wins in their 2024-25 championship year.

This OKC squad got off to an amazing start, winning its first seven games. After beating the Celtics on January 5, 2025, the Thunder were 30-5 on the season.

2023-24 Celtics
The 2023-24 Celtics were like the Knicks in that they had been knocking on the door of a championship for several seasons before finally bringing it home.

This Celtics team was on a mission from the jump as they beat the Knicks at MSG (108-104) on opening night. Through 10 games they were 8-2 and by the New Year they were 26-6.

Other recent NBA champs
Here is a quick-hitting look at the early season results of other recent NBA title teams.