We’re nearing the end of awards season, which means we’ve come upon the annual selection of the All-NBA Teams. As a reminder, these teams are now position-less, with the top five vote-getters earning First-Team honors, the next five getting Second Team and the final five making the Third Team. As with several other prominent NBA awards, All-NBA teams are subject to the 65-game minimum for eligibility.
With that in mind, here are the 2025-26 All-NBA teams.
All-NBA First Team
All-NBA Second Team
All-NBA Third Team
While All-NBA has significant historical ramifications, its more practical purpose within the Collective Bargaining Agreement is determining which players are eligible for higher max contracts through either the Derrick Rose rule or the designated veteran rule. The Derrick Rose rule allows players with between to receive 30% of the cap at the beginning of their next deal rather than the standard 25%, while the designated veteran or “supermax” rule applies a similar bump for players with between 7-9 years of experience from 30% to 35% of the cap.
In order to become eligible for these bigger max contracts, a player must meet one of the following criteria:
- Selected for All-NBA in two of the previous three seasons, or the most recent season.
- Selected as the Defensive Player of the Year in two of the previous three seasons, or the most recent season.
- Won the MVP award in any of the last three seasons.
So, who does this actually affect? Let’s go through some of the notable cases.
No contract impact
We’ll start with the players who are, for now, unaffected:
- While Victor Wembanyama was both an All-NBA selection and the Defensive Player of the Year this year, he technically has not earned Rose Rule eligibility yet. To earn eligiblity on your rookie extension, you need to do so in both your second or third season, or, separately, your fourth season. That means Wembanyama will almost certainly sign a max rookie extension that bumps him up to 30% if he is indeed an All-NBA selection next season as we expect. The same principle applies to everyone else from the 2023 draft class. Nobody clinched Rose Rule eligibility, but they could make themselves eligible depending on their performance next season.
- No player from the 2024 draft class was chosen for All-NBA either last year or this year, which means none can clinch eligibility next season. Anyone from that class hoping to earn Rose Rule eligibility will need to earn it in their fourth season, the 2027-28 campaign.
- Players from the 2021 draft class who signed five-year rookie extensions, like Cunningham and Johnson, are too far away from extension-eligibility for their All-NBA status in 2026 to matter. They’ll have to make it in 2027 and 2028 to secure eligibility in 2028, or do so in subsequent years to get it later.
- Players with 10 or more years of experience, either at this moment (like Jokić) or upon the expiration of their existing contracts (like Mitchell or Dončić) are unaffected by these choices financially. They are already eligible for 35% of the cap in their next deals through experience alone.
So those are the players whose status didn’t ultimately hinge on their All-NBA status this season. Below are a few whose did.
Duren is eligible for big money… will the Pistons pony up?
When a player is eligible for a Rose Rule bump, he almost always gets it. Evan Mobley and Cade Cunningham made it two-for-two last season. Anthony Edwards and Tyrese Haliburton both got their 30% a year earlier. The chance to have an All-NBA player after his fourth season is typically such a strong value proposition, even at 30% of the cap, that teams eagerly pay up.
But in all four of those cases, the players in question signed rookie-scale extensions with Rose Rule language built in. They were already viewed as max-level players, it was just a case of which max they were getting. That wasn’t the case for Pistons big man Jalen Duren. He didn’t sign a rookie extension of any sort last offseason. As his breakout fourth season progressed, it appeared as though he’d benefit from waiting. By the end of the regular season, he looked like a max player.
Well, we saw what happened in the playoffs. Duren cratered. His fit with Ausar Thompson is now in question. And on top of that, Duren is now an All-NBA player. That means he is eligible for 30% of the cap. We don’t know what Duren will ask for, and we don’t know how far the Pistons are willing to go to re-sign him, but typically, the bigger the gap between what a player can make and what a team is willing to pay him, the harder it is to get a deal done.
Only the Pistons can give him 30% of the cap. Other teams are limited to 25%, and can only give him four years while Detroit can offer five. Besides, Detroit can match any offer sheet. If the Pistons want to keep Duren, it is entirely within their power to do so. But this All-NBA selection just added another wrinkle to a complicated upcoming restricted free agency. Duren’s camp will probably pitch him as a proven All-NBA talent. The Pistons will probably counter with the reality that he didn’t play at that level when it counted. And if that creates any friction in their relationship, it only increases the likelihood that someone comes in with either an offer sheet or a sign-and-trade offer to try to swipe him away.
Anthony Edwards (and Tyrese Haliburton) have to wait
Obviously, we knew coming into the season that Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton would not be named to an All-NBA Team. He was recovering from a torn Achilles and wasn’t going to play. Timberwolves guard Anthony Edwards did play most of the season, but just barely missed the 65-game threshold because of a late-season injury. Despite the differences in their circumstances, both land in the same boat.
Both Edwards and Haliburton were drafted in 2020. Both signed max rookie extensions in 2023 that became Rose Rule maxes when they made All-NBA teams in 2024. Both would technically become extension-eligible on the three-year anniversary of their last deal, but it made sense for both to wait until 2027. Why? Because by making an All-NBA team in 2025, they could guarantee supermax eligibility in 2027 with another All-NBA selection in 2026.
Now, both of them can still become eligible by making All-NBA next year, but with the 65-game rule in place, all it takes is one injury to throw a wrench into those plans. Indiana should feel relatively confident in its ability to extend Haliburton either way. The Pacers have made the NBA Finals, and because of Haliburton’s injury history, he’s likely to be fairly risk-averse in managing his contracts. Edwards is a trickier case. He’s never made the Finals and he’s on a roster, at least relative to the Western Conference superpowers in Oklahoma City and San Antonio, that is trending down. The supermax was Minnesota’s best weapon in keeping him long term. Without it, if he starts to get antsy about Minnesota’s title hopes, things start to get dicey.
We’re still three years away from either Edwards or Haliburton becoming free agents, so there’s plenty of time to sort all of this out. Still, when we’re talking about players of this caliber, teams typically extend first, ask questions later. You want your true superstars locked up as early and as long as possible. Minnesota, especially, loses out by Edwards missing the 65-game threshold.
Tyrese Maxey starts his path to a supermax
Speaking of players from the 2020 draft class, we have Tyrese Maxey, the lone player from that year to ultimately make All-NBA this season. His circumstances weren’t quite identical to Edwards’ and Haliburton’s. He didn’t sign a rookie extension at all, instead getting a new deal in restricted free agency that did not include a Rose Rule bump because he was not eligible.
However, his All-NBA selection here starts him on the track to jumping up to the supermax in his next deal. Now he’s in the same boat as Edwards and Haliburton: a 2027 All-NBA selection away from supermax eligibility with three total years left on his existing contract.
Now, if Maxey continues on his current trajectory, Philadelphia will almost certainly give him that supermax extension. However, it should be noted that Philadelphia’s last two 35% max contracts went to Joel Embiid and Paul George. Neither have aged well. On top of this, a new Maxey deal aligns with VJ Edgecombe‘s possible rookie extension kicking in. Right as Philadelphia is getting off of the Embiid and George contracts, it could be staring down 60% of the cap going to its two guards, so the capped-out 76ers don’t exactly have financial relief coming in the near future.
