NBA 2K26 predicts the season: LeBron’s retirement tour, SGA’s historic

NBA tipoff may still be more than a month away, but hoops fans are already hitting the (virtual) hardwood thanks to the just-released NBA 2K26. For the second year in a row, Yahoo Sports is simulating an entire season and seeing if the premier basketball video game franchise can accurately predict how The Association will play out in 2025-26.

Last year’s simulation was a bit rough — in its defense, could anyone have predicted the league-altering Luka Dončić trade? So there’s really nowhere else to go but up. The parameters of the simulation were the same as last time around: CPU-User trade offers were turned off, default MyEra settings were used, all G-League, prospect scouting and rotational decisions were automated and the random team we used to facilitate the simulation was the Milwaukee Bucks.

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The other wrinkle that there’s no way to account for: the news that broke Wednesday morning regarding the allegations made against the Clippers and Kawhi Leonard. If any severe punishment is dished out by the league after its investigation, the simulation will whiff on one of its biggest predictions. More on this later.

LeBron’s retirement tour

Before I could even begin simulating the actual games, 2K prompted me with a message that LeBron James was planning to retire after the season and asked if I would permit him to go on a retirement tour. We ran into this same situation in last year’s simulation with Chris Paul (who is very much NOT retired), but since we were simming through everything, why not let the greatest player of this generation take his well-deserved victory lap.

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As far as James’ age-41 season played out, he averaged 21.8 points, 4.7 rebounds and 6.5 assists while starting all 82 games. James’ points and rebounds totals would mark the lowest of his career, but he still managed to help lead the Lakers to a 45-37…