We’ve zipped past the NBA’s quarter-poll mark and are quickly approaching the first third of regular season games completed. No longer must everything be caveated with “small sample size.” The sample is growing stable and legitimate. As such, we have a decent idea of which teams are legitimately good and impressive thus far. So, the Sportscasting crew banded together to spotlight three clubs serving as pleasant surprises through six weeks.
Let’s get to it.
Houston Rockets
I spent most of the offseason skeptical of the Houston Rockets. I thought they didn’t have enough on-ball creation/spacing without Fred Vanvleet and the addition of Kevin Durant would take away from what made them so good last season more than it would help them.
And while I still have reservations about their postseason ceiling, the Rockets have proven they are a true regular season heavyweight. Their defense continues to be just as stout as last season (fourth in defensive rating, same as last season). Durant deserves credit for buying into the gritty culture Houston has established under head coach Ime Udoka. According to Defensive Estimated Plus-Minus, he is having his best defensive season since 2022-23. His steal rate (an indicator of defensive activity) is also the highest it has been since his days with the Golden State Warriors.
Where the Rockets are really surprising, though, is on the offensive side of the ball. After being barely above average last year, they now have the second-best (!!) offense in the entire league. They are doing this by doubling down on their greatest strength: offensive rebounding.
The Rockets currently have a 41 percent offensive rebounding rate, which is not only the highest mark in the NBA but the highest rate since NBA.com started tracking this statistic in 1996-97. Acquiring Clint Capela in the offseason has been key here because it doesn’t put all the pressure on Steven Adams to be out there whenever they go to their patented double-big configuration.
When you create second-chance opportunities so frequently, it doesn’t hurt as bad when your first shots aren’t the best. But it also helps they are replacing Jalen Green’s jumpers with Durant’s pull-ups (one of the greatest shooters in NBA history). The Reed Sheppard leap has also helped a ton. With the way he’s operating right now, he’s an even better shooter/scorer (61.4 percent true shooting) than VanVleet was last season (51.8 percent true shooting).
The Rockets are the most unorthodox top-five team on both sides of the ball you will find in the modern era. And when something is unconventional, it usually does end up surprising people. -Mat Issa
San Antonio Spurs
For the moment, the San Antonio Spurs are making good on their preseason hype, sitting at 15-6 and fourth in the West. Even after Victor Wembanyama’s calf injury has forced him to miss the last nine games, the Spurs are maintaining their winning ways, going 7-2 without their nascent superstar.
I questioned San Antonio’s ability to sustain its scorching start, especially without Wembanyama. But the Spurs not only have won games but also perform well according to underlying metrics, ranking 11th in net rating (plus-4.0), 10th in offensive rating and 12th in defensive rating.
Since returning from his hamstring injury, De’Aaron Fox is playing like an offensive star (and still has hardly overlapped with Wembanyama), averaging 25 points per game on a career-best plus-3.6 relative true shooting mark. Second overall pick Dylan Harper is slashing like a superstar from the jump, currently one of two players averaging at least 10 rim attempts and five assists per 75 possessions (the other is Giannis Antetokounmpo).
Beyond Wembanyama’s injury, San Antonio has also lost seven or more games from Harper, Fox, Stephon Castle, Luke Kornet and Kelly Olynyk. Resilience among a slew of unfortunate injuries and roster shakeups offers plenty of confidence in its ability to keep winning basketball games as the team inches closer to full health. -Ben Pfeifer
Toronto Raptors
Despite losing three of their past four games — the result of some poor injury luck and the schedule growing stiffer — the Toronto Raptors remain one of the league’s most pleasant surprises through six weeks. At 15-8, they’re third in the East and sit as one of just three teams with a top-eight offense and defense (Oklahoma City Thunder, Houston Rockets), according to Cleaning the Glass.
Entering 2025-26, opinions of the Raptors were scattered across the board. A roster headlined by Scottie Barnes, Brandon Ingram, RJ Barrett and Immanuel Quickley was clearly talented group but owned fit and skill-set questions to answer — namely creation and shooting, two generally presumed necessities for effective modern offense.
I found myself in the camp of tepid optimism, banking on the talent to figure it out and help Toronto battle for a postseason berth. What I didn’t anticipate was the Raptors boasting the seventh-best net rating, an eighth-ranked offense and playing such colorful, cohesive basketball while tracking toward a 50-win season.
Their offense is a joy to watch as passes pings from player to player, an attack defined by dizzying ball and man movement. They rarely stop cutting, relocating or swinging the rock around, reliant on a vast cohort of playmakers to grease the wheels offensively. Six different players rank in the 58th percentile or better in assist rate positionally: Jamal Shead (92nd), Barnes (92nd), Barrett (86th), Ingram (84th), Sandro Mamukelashvili (64th) and Jakob Poeltl (58th).
Toronto is third in cutting frequency, fifth in assist rate and tied for eighth in average speed offensively. Plenty of its possessions look something like this, straight out of a feel-good high school hoops movie when things to start click and wins pile up:
Or like this:
These sequences help illuminate how the Raptors are seventh in rim frequency with a top-eight offense, despite lacking many accomplished on-ball scorers or slashers (15th in drives per game). They’re a bunch of keen, snappy decision-makers — many of whom are big and fluid — ensuring the defense is always occupied in some fashion, even if it’s not through traditional creation means (25th in pick-and-roll ball-handler rate).
That’s been a recipe for success and surprise up north. -Jackson Frank
