Most players hit the prime and have some of their best seasons in their 6th year. Here are some examples

LeBron James 2008-09. Arguably his best season, this was when LeBron became the best player in the league with his first MVP win.

Kevin Durant 2012-13. Maybe not statistically his best season, but an MVP runner up prior to his MVP season. Durant is a bit of a unique case where he was so good early on and hit his prime in like year 3.

Stephen Curry 2014-15. Curry wins his first MVP and the league begins to shift to the 3P era. Really the year where he and the Warriors started to take over the league.

Kawhi Leonard 2016-17. A 3rd MVP finish and the only time he received first place votes. Maybe not as impressive as 2016 with the DPOY, but with Curry’s unanimous MVP that season, 2017 was the year Kawhi was in the conversation for best in the world.

Giannis Antetokounmpo 2018-19. Giannis wins his first MVP. This was the start of peak Giannis and when he started to put the Bucks in title contention.

Nikola Jokic 2020-21. Jokic’s first MVP win and has not finished lower than 2nd since. This was the year Jokic took a leap from good to all time great.

Joel Embiid 2021-22. A highly contested MVP runner up and won a scoring title, you could argue this was the start of the best version of him. Embiid is a bit of a weird case because he had so many injuries early in his career, with only 31 games in his rookie season, maybe year 6 was closer to 22-23 when he won MVP and won a second scoring title with 33 PPG.

Jayson Tatum 2022-23. Statistically Tatum’s best season, averaging 30 PPG and tied for a career high 4th place MVP finish. Was his most efficient season of his career.

Donovan Mitchell 2022-23. His first year in Cleveland, his first All-NBA season and a career high in points with a 6th place MVP finish.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander 2023-24. An MVP runner up and led his team to a 1 seed. Although not as impressive as the last 2 seasons where he actually won MVP, this is when Shai showed he was that caliber of superstar.

Luka Doncic 2023-24. Sort of like Durant he was great early on, but 2023-24 still marks his highest MVP finish to date (3rd) and his first scoring title with a career high 33.9 PPG.

Jalen Brunson 2023-24. This was the year Brunson started to be put into conversations as a superstar. His first All Star season, his 5th place MVP finish, and playoff performances that showed he could put a team on his back. Posted a career high in points both regular season and playoffs.

Anthony Edwards 2025-26. Didn’t play enough games to qualify for awards, but coming off 7th place MVP finishes 2 years in a row, Ant posted a career high in points, efficiency, and likely would have been in the conversation for 1st team All NBA.

Here are some players who are going into year 6 for this upcoming season:

Cade Cunningham, Tyrese Haliburton, Scottie Barnes, Jalen Johnson, Evan Mobley, Alperen Sengun. What do the best versions of these players look like? Also, does Franz Wagner take a leap and make his first All Star game?

These are players where we should really see them elevate to another level, with only Haliburton I’d give a pass to because of the Achilles injury.

Nobody here really has MVP potential besides Cade, even if that is a long shot.

Who are you expecting to have a breakout kind of season?

iwannamarryanaussie

6 | 9 hours ago

Zion will be healthy this entire season and play at an all star level. Watch out for his 3pt shot this year. He’s making an MVP run this year. Make my words.

CarBallAlex [OP] | BOS

2 | 6 hours ago

A discussion about Zion the other day is actually what sparked me to go down this rabbit hole of star’s 6th years.

Unfortunately with the way his career has gone, I feel a more fair assessment is a Porzingis type arc. Unicorn, insane potential, All Star early on and viewed as a franchise cornerstone, but injuries just totally derailed him. It’s more fair for Zion to say he can be the 2nd option on a good team if the first option is a true number 1 (Luka, Cade, healthy Tatum) or would thrive as the 3rd guy in like that Aaron Gordon, Anunoby, Porzingis in Boston role, like if the 2nd apron hits the Thunder and they need to shed salary in a few years dumping JDub or Holmgren and getting Zion for cheap, or the Spurs where Wemby and Harper hit their prime and Zion is the 3rd option behind them.

Zion just hasn’t shown that much growth since he came into the league and his athleticism has regressed. I think the best hope for him at this point to have a positive career is be a fringe All Star type player that covers a team’s weaknesses with efficient, interior scoring to supplement 1-2 other stars that can load manage his injuries and don’t need him to go 100% every night.

That’s a tough sell when he’s making his current money, but if he is making around $30M in 2028-29, he could absolutely be a key piece for a contender.

JalenBrunsonsBurner

1 | 4 hours ago

i think by far the toughest thing for Zion is that he is undersized defensively and honestly underskilled for his position. playing like a roaming 4 that helps weakside on D will never be his strength and while his frame can help him he would need to adopt a different style of defense (and again, just be flat out better, too) to sell him as a 2nd or 3rd option with a scaled back role

EV2_Mapper | TOR

1 | 4 hours ago

!remindme 1 year Im onto you OP

weeniebells

2 | 5 hours ago

I just wanna say thanks for writing all this and not cut and pasting it from chatgpt

CarBallAlex [OP] | BOS

2 | 4 hours ago

AI is dumb and bad and gets so much wrong, especially when it comes to lists, dates and numbers. It’s more work to prompt an AI and then have to revise it all. I’m a basketball nerd that likes looking this stuff up and writing about it.

TatumBrownWhite | BOS

107 | 9 hours ago

I’m not so sure he’ll necessarily have a statistical leap, but man Scottie Barnes is really fucking good.

Barnyard_Rich | DET

46 | 9 hours ago

The big leap he needs is just more attention given to him. He should have been All NBA last year.

Soft_Hotel_5627 | MIN

7 | 8 hours ago

was Toronto on any nationally televised games last year? I watched them a few times but that’s only because I have league pass.

LetsGoLesko8 | TOR

11 | 8 hours ago

Only 4 last year total. 7 this upcoming year.

incredibleman

2 | 5 hours ago

Every Raptors game is nationally televised.

YSLAnunoby | TOR

1 | 7 hours ago

I’d actually say the big leap is his handle becoming tighter to get places more reliably and better unlock his ability to be a mismatch bully and playmake from more areas of the floor. I get that the common swing skill for a non shooting wing is to just shoot way more but I still think the handle is a bigger gamechanger for him specifically

goblin_welder

12 | 7 hours ago

He almost singlehandedly beat the Cavs. People will argue Ingram was there but he was literally paying with one ankle in the playoffs. Their starting point guard and center didn’t play and he had a bunch of rookies and g-leaguers and Barrett as support.

wistful_grace | TOR

2 | 4 hours ago

to be fair, barrett did have a pretty great postseason this year, but scottie was absolutely the best player on the court that series. his offence was really clicking, not to mention his insane-as-usual defence (snubbed from all-defensive first team)

Admirable_Dinner_349 | TOR

1 | 12 minutes ago

Just for reference for everyone:

Scottie Barnes averaged 24/6/9 on .605 TS% while being by far the best defender on either team in a series that featured Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen.

He played so remarkably well that even me as a die hard Raptors fan am not convinced it wasn’t an anomaly. But, if that’s the Scottie we get next year, he might be better than Kawhi Leonard is.

WiseguyD | TOR

1 | an hour ago

Nonzero chance that Scottie’s career arc is just getting better and better at putting up 20/9/6 with 2.5 stocks.

NetherGamingAccount

62 | 9 hours ago

I was really impressed with Scottie Barnes in the playoffs last year.

To me he’s a modern day Scottie Pippen

goblin_welder

16 | 7 hours ago

So he needs his Michael Jordan to win

Upper_Address_2778

17 | 7 hours ago

They have RJ Barrett wdym

wouldeatyourbrains

4 | 7 hours ago

I’m sure one of his teammates aspires to be this

goblin_welder

2 | 6 hours ago

We all aspire to be MJ

frozen2665 | MIA

2 | 6 hours ago

Well, he needs Michael Jordan to win 6, but for now I think the Raptors would be happy with 1. Maybe Kawhi can be 1/6th of Jordan

NetherGamingAccount

11 | 6 hours ago

Kawhi basically was Michael Jordan in 2019. Not sure he can do that again but if he can, they can win.

Misty_Blue11

1 | 4 hours ago

Kawhi Jordan

Last-Helicopter-9465 | BOS

79 | 9 hours ago

googles what year Payton Pritchard is in

pep12

74 | 9 hours ago

2026, duh

EthicalBballFan | MIA

1 | 3 hours ago

All you need to know from this post is that Hugo will be MVP in 2031.

waffle-winner | SAS

3 | 4 hours ago

Just two more years of this mediocrity to get through before wemby finally turns it around!

CarBallAlex [OP] | BOS

1 | 3 hours ago

It’s not mediocrity. It’s that Wemby can get even better, which is terrifying

jcampo13 | PHI

30 | 9 hours ago

If Cade makes another leap then he goes to legitimate MVP contender. He was already all-NBA 1st team as is. If he can really lower the turnovers more and gain some shooting efficiency, he would get there. Easier said than done of course.

grocery-gato | DET

0 | an hour ago

Cade before his injury was already an MVP contender. He had durability and high volume output that the other MVP candidates didn’t.

DovhPasty | CLE

1 | an hour ago

He doesn’t have the efficiency

Trcymcgrdy1 | LAL

31 | 9 hours ago

Tracy McGrady in his 6th season in the league with Orlando averaged 32ppg 6.5rpg 5.4apg and only 2.6tov. This was the year the him and Kobe debates hit their crescendo. Good times for 12 year old me. Both of those guys are my fav players with tmac just barely inching out Kobe for my 1a.

Parallel-Quality

3 | 9 hours ago

Just naming MVP’s and saying “this was one of their good seasons” when they had like 4-5 other similarly good seasons in their career.

CarBallAlex [OP] | BOS

8 | 8 hours ago

For the majority of them, it was their breakout season. A lot of guy’s first MVP’s or their best statistical season. Did you even read the post?

The entire point is year 6 is generally when a player enters their prime. For players going into year 6, what are the expectations if they become pretty much the best versions of themselves? There is a very small difference between Durant 2013 and 2014, Kawhi 2016 and 2017, Embiid 2022 and 2023, or SGA 2024 and 2025. A player’s prime is not a singular season.

Ok_Turn6757 | LAL

1 | 7 hours ago

Just a quick correction to make, you stated it was Luka’s lone scoring title but he just won his second this year =]

CarBallAlex [OP] | BOS

2 | 6 hours ago

Oh whoops, that’s right. I’ll correct that

cheesecake_face | DEN

4 | 8 hours ago

naw I agree with you 100%. when I saw Jokic’s name 🧐

if his 6th year was his prime (26/11/8), then what was his 10th year (30/13/10)? ultra super duper prime?

CentralMarketYall

20 | 8 hours ago

It’s Austin Reaves’ 6th season too.

PuntyMcBunty | LAL

1 | 6 hours ago

OP is a Celtics fan

CentralMarketYall

-1 | 5 hours ago

Fucking guy mentions Franz Wagner but not AR

L99_DITTO | BKN

3 | 2 hours ago

Franz Wagner is pretty good

Banner_Hammer

14 | 8 hours ago

LeBron is crazy because I think 2008-2009, 2012-2013, 2015-2016 and 2017-2018 all have arguments for his peak

lebronjamesgoat1 | SEA

1 | an hour ago

I think it’s ²⁰¹¹⁄₁₂ as far as playoff excellence and ²⁰¹²⁄₁₃ for regular season groove

armandocalvinisius | DAL

11 | 9 hours ago

Yeah, i dont believe peak prime is 27yo anymore. Rooks conditioned early from nutrition, experience, strength training, etc. And their athleticism will decline earlier because wear and tear since kid or games too physically demanding these days

Best ring windows now is when your franchise player hit their 1st extension until supermax so 23-29yo then the 2nd tier franchise player will be hired mercenary for upcoming teams if their respective teams dont think they worth supermax

CombativeTyphoon

7 | 9 hours ago

It’s hard to see Cade not taking another leap this season.

thisistheway1929

3 | 7 hours ago

If Franz stays healthy, he will be an all star. This is his first summer without international basketball to wear him down early, so he can start the season strong.

Warned_Mammal | ORL

8 | 9 hours ago

I’m obviously a little biased, but I think if Franz doesn’t get injured either of the past two seasons he’d have made at least one All Star team. That said, if his three point shooting improves, I think he’ll take another leap.

TheRealPdGaming | DAL

4 | 9 hours ago

As long as Franz still has role-player-itus, he will never be as successful as his talent level.

krpiper | MIN

2 | 8 hours ago

Hopefully LaMelo allows ant to hit that 6th gear this year. Should be a exciting one at least

nahwhatever-whynot | HOU

2 | 5 hours ago

Excited to see if Fred playing helps out Alpi now that the team they assembled last year can play its first game together

TheAnswerEK42 | ORL

2 | 3 hours ago

The only thing Franz needs to do to make All-Star is stay healthy, he was a lock each of the least two seasons and got hurt. The best version of Franz is All NBA

ihatemcconaughey | CLE

2 | 9 hours ago

Evan Mobley fans are licking our lips

ChetsBurner | OKC

1 | 4 hours ago

Aaron Wiggins is going to be a star for the Hawks

Own-Fondant2949

1 | an hour ago

Makes sense.. 6 years into any job is when you start getting really good at it. Some people get great sooner, others take more time/experience. Residency for specialty doctors is typically around 5-7 years. I was considered a SME in my role in Cybersecurity around year 6.

Sure it doesn’t apply to everyone but it makes sense and you have the stats to back it up.

pendletonskyforce | SAC

1 | 43 minutes ago

Kalif Raymond

SpiritFantastic4835 | LAL

1 | 9 hours ago

This is the year reaves establishes himself as the 5th best SG then

cheesecake_face | DEN

1 | 7 hours ago

extremely cherry picked stat, IMO.

I’m sure there are numerous counter examples..

Shaq is an obvious one.

*lol

Michael Jordan

Bill Russell

Magic Johnson

CarBallAlex [OP] | BOS

1 | 7 hours ago

All 30+ years ago, not sure how relevant that is to the league today with a totally different disbursement of talent.

It’s not an attempt to cherry pick, it’s showing a trend and coming to a conclusion there should be a level of expectations for players hitting this point in their career.

For example, De’Aaron Fox is going into his 10th season. It’s not expected he make another leap and becomes an All-NBA player again (which funny enough, his lone All-NBA season came in his 6th year now that I’m checking it). Or Trae Young going into year ⁸⁄₉ depending on who’s you view last season, it’s not like he’s going to become a top 10 player. That would be extremely abnormal progression and the level of expectations for him should be more reasonable. We know what these players are.

The point of the post is that for guys like Cade, Barnes, Jalen Johnson, this is the year they should become who they more or less are until age or injury catches up to them.

It’s a thought experiment that I found interesting because if those guys take leaps, maybe Cade does put himself in MVP conversations, maybe Atlanta is better than everyone is giving them credit for, maybe Toronto is going to have one of the best duos in the league. It’s going to impact the outlook of these teams if the players make a leap or disappoint and don’t.

Players hitting their prime in year 6