Who are Alabama Basketball's Most Important Players for 2025-26? Just a Minute

Nate Oats and the Alabama basketball staff look to have finalized the roster for the 2025-26 season. Which players are the most critical to the Crimson Tide's success?

Alabama guard Labaron Philon (0) runs the ball up the court against Kentucky during the second half of a Southeastern Conference tournament quarterfinal game at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tenn., Friday, March 14, 2025. / Andrew Nelles / The Tennessean / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Welcome to BamaCentral’s "Just a Minute," a daily video series featuring BamaCentral's Alabama beat writers. Multiple times a week, the writers will group up or film solo to provide their take on a topic concerning the Crimson Tide or the landscape of college sports.

Watch the above video as BamaCentral's recruiting writer, Mason Woods, as well as beat writers Joe Gaither and Hunter De Siver discuss Alabama basketball's most important players for the 2025-26 season.

The 2025-26 Alabama men's basketball team is expected look very different from last year's squad that made a run to the Elite Eight. In all, the Crimson Tide lost eight players this offseason, four to expiring eligibility and four to the transfer portal.

Despite losing so much talent from last year's team, Nate Oats and the staff have seemingly rebuilt things very quickly, utilizing the transfer portal themselves as well as an impressive signing class.

With so many new faces on the roster, it begs the question: who will be the most important player for the Crimson Tide this season? While the obvious answer may be returning sophomore Labaron Philon, several other members of this year's team look poised to step up to the challenge.

Check out the Alabama Basketball 2024-25 Offseason Tracker to stay up to date with how this year's roster is shaping up.

The Tide returns five players from last year's team and brought in nine new faces, five by way of the transfer portal and four by way of the 2025 signing class. Of the returning talent, outside of the aforementioned Philon, Latrell Wrightsell, Jr. looks to be a strong candidate for taking over a bit of the leadership lost from last year's team.

He is the longest tenured player on the roster, having arrived as a transfer from Cal State Fullerton in 2023. Though he is coming off of an injury that sidelined him all of last season, he has been one of the Tide's top scorers when he is on the floor.

The 2025-26 season is just months away, and despite losing several key pieces from a team that went to back-to-back Elite Eights, the Crimson Tide looks to be in a strong place at this point of the offseason.

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