We Simulated the 2026-27 Season 100 Times on NBA 2K27. Here Are the Results.

What happens if you simulate the upcoming NBA season on ‘NBA 2K’ 100 times? We decided to find out for ourselves.

The Knicks won more championships than all but two teams in our simulations. | NBA 2K

I’ve always found the NBA 2K games to be quite fun. It’s not a perfect NBA simulator, but it’s pretty darn close—as close as you can reasonably expect. The ratings for each player are largely fair and how well each team performs is usually in line with real-world expectations. Most importantly, it remains thrilling to take control of Steph Curry to rain down threes from half court or posterize the daylights out of an opposing center with Anthony Edwards.

Normally those are reasons enough to look forward to the annual release of NBA 2K every year, but this year had a special draw. A roller coaster of an NBA offseason saw multiple stars change teams and rosters shuffle across the league. All those moves serve as a foundation for what will be the most interesting season in recent NBA memory. There are questions abound—can LeBron mesh with the 76ers? Will Giannis and Bam work together? Can anyone really threaten Victor Wembanyama for an MVP trophy?—that can only be answered by watching how the games play out on the court.

But with NBA 2K27 releasing on Friday, the thought occurred to the Sports Illustrated NBA team: What if we could get some answers to those questions by asking the video game’s computer?

Thus, I downloaded the new 2K game, fired up my PlayStation and simulated the 2026–27 season. Not once. Not twice. But 100 times.

I wanted to see what the most advanced basketball simulator on the market thought of the new-look Celtics and Timberwolves, how an exciting Rookie of the Year race will play out, and which of the new loaded rosters in the East wind up out of the playoff picture. Above all, I was curious to learn which team would be left standing amid a fairly unpredictable championship landscape. Based on all the quantified skills of every roster in the league, who will raise the Larry O’Brien trophy next June?

Here are the results of those 100 simulations. Some may shock you. Particularly if you are a 76ers fan. I doubt the Philly fan base will be too happy with their new team’s performances.

Jump to a result:

1. How we set it up
2. NBA championships
3. Runner-ups
4. MVP
5. Sixth Man of the Year
6. Rookie of the Year
7. Defensive Player of the Year
8. Interesting trends, including the 76ers’ consistent failure

How we set it up

First, for the sake of clarity, let’s break down the settings used for the 100 simulated seasons.

The game mode is MyNBA (effectively franchise mode), which allowed for a full season’s simulation plus a playoff run. The “standard” preset setting was used, which strikes the middle ground balance between uber-realism and video game-y results. Each team was controlled by a computer, so every season all 30 franchises were free to make trades and lineup adjustments and any other moves. And at the end of every Finals, we restarted the whole thing.

It is important to note, in addition to those settings, that NBA 2K rosters are finalized in mid-July. Which means, for example, that Kawhi Leonard remains on the Clippers for our 100 simulations. It also means that any player who retired after July 15 is still in the game. You’ll understand why that’s important later.

Now let’s get to the fun stuff.

NBA championships

Cade Cunningham and the Pistons were frequent flyers in the NBA Finals during our 2K experiment. | NBA 2K

The two teams that won the most championships over our 100 simulations represent our first, and arguably most surprising, data point.

The Spurs and the Magic finished the simulations tied at 19 championships won apiece. That’s right: the Magic. 2K is apparently extremely high on Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner’s potential with new head coach Sean Sweeney in the mix; Orlando regularly finished with a top-three seed in the Eastern Conference with consistent Finals appearances.

San Antonio is ... less of a surprise, you might say. Led by ascending superstar and NBA 2K27 cover athlete Victor Wembanyama, the Spurs never finished below the No. 3 seed in our 100 simulations and were a regular sight in the Finals. As far as the computer believes, Wemby and his young teammates are set to avenge their heart-breaking series defeat to the Knicks in June.

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Speaking of, New York tied for the second-most titles in our simulations, with 18 championship runs. Going back-to-back is one of the toughest feats in sports but the Knicks have the video game gods on their side. The other team to win 18 times out of 100? The Timberwolves. The new Anthony Edwards-LaMelo Ball pairing is not only set to entertain but put up literal video game numbers, according to the video game itself. Lastly, two teams were able to slide in with exactly one title: the Cavaliers and Mavericks (a Cooper Flagg Finals MVP in his second season would be quite a sight!).

Team	Championships
San Antonio Spurs	19
Orlando Magic	19
New York Knicks	18
Minnesota Timberwolves	18
Detroit Pistons	14
Oklahoma City Thunder	7
Portland Trail Blazers	3
Cleveland Cavaliers	1
Dallas Mavericks	1

Runner-ups

The Wolves’ new pairing of Anthony Edwards and LaMelo Ball should be a lot of fun—in ‘NBA 2K’ and in real life. | NBA 2K

Of course, we had to track the runner-ups if we were tracking the champions. According to NBA 2K, which fan base should prepare itself for disappointment?

The answer: the Pistons. Despite winning 14 titles out of 100 above, Detroit wound up losing two more than it won, recording 16 Finals losses. That’s tied with the Knicks for the most out of our 100 simulations. The Timberwolves, Magic and Spurs also suffered plenty of championship defeats, which is no surprise given how many wins they racked up above.

The most interesting result of this section is the Trail Blazers finishing with eight Finals losses; combined with their above championships, that means Portland made 11 runs through the Western Conference playoff bracket out of 100 tries. The Blazers’ roster is obviously talented with Damian Lillard and Ja Morant in the backcourt but it’s far from a clean fit. NBA 2K disagrees, however. The team regularly finished with a top-six record in the West and, as you can see, got the job done on a few occasions.

There are also three teams who made it to the Finals exactly once and lost—the Suns, Warriors and Nuggets.

Team	Finals losses
Detroit Pistons	16
New York Knicks	16
Minnesota Timberwolves	15
Orlando Magic	14
San Antonio Spurs	12
Oklahoma City Thunder	11
Portland Trail Blazers	8
Dallas Mavericks	3
Cleveland Cavaliers	2
Golden State Warriors	1
Denver Nuggets	1
Phoenix Suns	1

If you read these first two sections closely, you’ll notice a distinct lack of 76ers mentions. We’ll touch on that more later, but know that it’s not a typo. The Sixers did not make a single NBA Finals appearance throughout our 100 simulations. They didn’t even get close.

MVP

Victor Wembanyama is the cover athlete of this year’s ‘NBA 2K’ game. | NBA 2K

With the overall results out of the way, we now move towards the individual awards handed out at the end of each regular season. First up? The MVP award.

It shouldn’t come as a big surprise to learn that NBA 2K has Wembanyama as next season’s MVP favorite. He took home the vast majority of the MVP awards during our simulations, finishing with 66% of the MVPs handed out. When he didn’t win for one reason or another it was usually Nikola Jokić winning his fourth MVP trophy. Cade Cunningham brought home double-digit MVPs as well.

The most fun result: Karl-Anthony Towns winning two out of 100 possible MVP awards by averaging 22 points and 10 rebounds for a pair of 70-win Knicks teams. Wemby failing to meet the minimum games played requirement in those two seasons helped.

Player	MVPs
Victor Wembanyama	66
Nikola Jokić	20
Cade Cunningham	11
Karl-Anthony Towns	2
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander	1

Sixth Man of the Year

This is the one that got a little weird.

As noted above, the rosters for this year’s game were finalized in mid-July. But Russell Westbrook announced his retirement in August, so he is not actually retired in video game land. Instead Westbrook is the top free agent available on the market to start every season. Which means he gets signed immediately and, in our simulations, winds up shining off the bench—Westbrook won 25 of our 100 possible 6MOY awards for 10 different teams.

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Otherwise, though, it was an interesting set of data points for an award race that doesn’t really have a favorite entering the season. Scoot Henderson brought home the most 6MOY awards with 28 (further hammering home the computer’s inclination towards Portland), while last year’s breakout Thunder star Ajay Mitchell and exciting young Pelicans rookie Jeremiah Fears took home 15 apiece. The most random result: Naji Marshall, who won two 6MOY awards for the Mavericks.

Player	Sixth Man of the Year wins
Scoot Henderson	28
Russell Westbrook	25
Ajay Mitchell	15
Jeremiah Fears	15
Jalen Green	14
Naji Marshall	2
Dylan Harper	1

Rookie of the Year

Darius Acuff Jr. stole a few ROY awards from Cameron Boozer during our 100-simulation experiment. | NBA 2K

Cameron Boozer largely dominated ROY voting in our 100 NBA 2K simulations. The Grizzlies rookie is well-positioned to rack up solid counting numbers as a top option on a bad team, which is usually a ripe environment for Rookie of the Year candidates to thrive. The other winners—Darius Acuff Jr., Darryn Peterson and Caleb Wilson—weren’t shocking to see, either.

What was a tad shocking was the complete lack of AJ Dybantsa. The heralded Wizards rookie was the top pick of the ‘26 draft above all those guys but didn’t take home a single ROY award in any of the 100 seasons simulated in NBA 2K.

Player	Rookie of the Year wins
Cameron Boozer	75
Caleb Wilson	12
Daris Acuff Jr.	7
Darryn Peterson	6

Defensive Player of the Year

If you feel strongly this is Wembanyama’s award to lose, 2K couldn’t agree with you more. Wemby took home a whopping 93 DPOY awards out of 100 possible opportunities. Not much else to say; the reigning winner is a force of nature as a defender the likes of which we’ve never really seen.

That win percentage makes it all the more impressive that the Pistons’ Ausar Thompson (four) and the Thunder’s Chet Holmgren (three) took any off Wemby.

Player	Defensive Player of the Year wins
Victor Wembanyama	93
Ausar Thompson	4
Chet Holmgren	3

Interesting trends, including the 76ers’ consistent failure

The Lakers did not fare very well across 100 simulated seasons of ‘NBA 2K’ | NBA 2K

Over the course of 100 simulated versions of the upcoming season, it’s inevitable for trends to emerge. There’s a degree of randomness involved, to be sure, but at a basic level this is a math equation executed by the 2K computer. No two seasons are exactly the same but many ended up with shared traits when it was all said and done—trends, in fewer words.

One of those trends? The consistent failure of the 76ers, who added LeBron James and Jaylen Brown to the Tyrese Maxey-Joel Embiid core this offseason. According to NBA 2K, the great Philadelphia experiment will not work. Out of 100 simulations, the Sixers made the playoffs in only three seasons. Three out of 100! And of those three appearances, only one came as a top-six seed; the other two came by way of the play-in tournament, where Philly finished in the 7-10 seed range in the East. They qualified for the play-in six additional times but lost before making it to the final bracket.

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Thus, the final numbers on the NBA 2K version of the 76ers: 92 losing seasons, six play-in losses, and three playoff series losses. They failed to make it past the first round at any point. Fortunately, Philadelphia can take solace in the fact that basketball is not played on a computer but instead out on the court.

Other teams the simulation was down on: the Nuggets, Lakers and Heat. Despite the presence of international superstars and historic producers in Jokić, Luka Dončić and Giannis Antetokounmpo, the trio’s respective teams rarely qualified for the playoff bracket as a top-six seed. Denver wound up making one run but Los Angeles never got past the West semis, and Miami was unable to record a single Finals appearance.

Nikola Jokić and the Nuggets only made the NBA Finals once in our 2K experiment. | NBA 2K

In terms of awards we didn’t track specifically, the game loves Zaccarie Risacher’s chances of getting a change-of-scenery bump in Dallas. The former No. 1 pick got traded to the Mavericks from the Hawks this offseason and won many Most Improved Player awards in our simulations.

Here are a few more tidbits from 100 seasons of NBA action that I found interesting:

• Max Strus was constantly bought out by the Clippers and ended up signing with a contender on Feb. 28. If that proves prescient he could be the most impactful buyout player ever. So we’re rooting for that from a general interest standpoint.
• I was fully anticipating a handful of super wacky results in the form of bad teams making unexpectedly deep playoff runs, but that was largely limited. Simulation tech has come a long way. But the two that popped up: the Nets making the ECF as an eight seed, and the Kings pushing the Spurs to seven games in the first round after two play-in wins.
• The Suns were regularly a middle seed and made one truly epic Finals run—that ended in a brutal four-game sweep by the Knicks.

It was a fun experiment. Now we all look forward to the real games.

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