NBA anonymous player poll 2026: Where will Giannis play next season? Most passionate fans?

Everyone knows the NBA is a player’s league, so it only made sense to save this group of anonymous poll questions for last.

How might the superstar saga with Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo end? Which arenas have the most passionate — and the most obnoxious — fans? Which team would be on the top of each player’s hypothetical “no-trade” list? And how do the smartest organizations spend their money, beyond player paychecks?

We were digging deep on the player experience for this last batch of fascinating insights.

It has been a fun ride (and hopefully read) over the course of these last four weeks, but this will be the final edition of The Athletic’s 2026 Anonymous NBA Player Poll. The Athletic has already released the rest of the results: players’ opinions on MVP, the eventual title winner, the White House question, the overrated/underrated player debate (along with best and worst coaches/best defensive player discussion), and the league’s many battles this season with competitive integrity.

From late February to early April, our writers fanned out across North America, asking players a wide array of questions, ranging from individual awards to player movement to league issues. Our writers surveyed 161 players, a record high for this project, which is approximately one-third of the league’s workforce.

As always, we granted the players anonymity to give them the freedom to answer honestly, without fear of reprisals from opponents, teammates or fans. For transparency and context, we’ll tell you how many people responded to each topic.

What team will Giannis be on to begin the 2026-27 season?

Players are in tune with the rumor mill too, you know? So while it’s no secret that the media and fans have been fixated on Antetokounmpo’s uncertain future for quite some time now, it was interesting to learn that almost half of the players who answered this one (69 of 151) see him staying put in Milwaukee.

It’s worth noting that these answers were procured before the latest escalation. Bucks owner Jimmy Haslam, who has vowed to trade Antetokounmpo if he doesn’t commit to the long-term extension he is eligible for on Oct. 1, said last week that he expects clarity on Antetokounmpo’s situation before the June 23 draft.

So, might he wind up with the Miami Heat, as 35 of the players predicted? That is one of the many possibilities here. As 81-year-old team president Pat Riley made clear in his recent news conference, there is great urgency for the Heat to make a major upgrade this summer.

“We’re not good enough, and we’re not happy with it,” said Riley, whose team is known to have made a push for an Antetokounmpo trade at the February trade deadline. “This is the first time in three years we can do something about it. I believe players want to play in Miami — some don’t. I think we’re a destination play. You never know until you get into the market and start having those discussions.”

It’s no surprise that New York came in third-place here, as Antetokounmpo showed interest in playing for the Knicks last summer. Yet this current iteration is doing just fine without him lately, as they swept the Sixers on May 10 for a second consecutive Eastern Conference Finals berth.

Which arena has the most passionate fans?

If there were a direct correlation between organizational success and fan passion, then it would come as no surprise that the Celtics, who have an NBA-best 18 titles in their storied history, topped this list with their TD Garden experience.

But consider this much as a counter to that logic: The Lakers, their longtime rivals who are second in league history with 17 titles and also boast a massive, worldwide fanbase, received just two votes out of 161 for Crypto.com Arena. That speaks volumes about the vast divide in the player experience when they compete in those two buildings.

There’s something different about the Celtics faithful, just as there is when it comes to the Knicks crazies who spent so much of the Eastern Conference semifinals taking over the Philadelphia 76ers’ Xfinity Mobile Arena. As our New York-based national reporter, Fred Katz, described the scene during the deciding Game 4 on Sunday, when the Knicks finished the sweep to earn a berth to their second consecutive East Finals, the road team’s crowd was “louder for the Knicks than (Madison Square Garden) is.”

Anyone who has been to big games at MSG knows that’s saying something, too. For all of the Knicks’ struggles in these past few decades, there has been no shortage of passion from the team’s supporters — inside the arena and out.

As the players have clearly noticed, Thunder fans at the Paycom Center are among the loudest of them all as well. That’s especially true these days, with the defending champions looking fully capable of becoming the first back-to-back champions since 2018 when the Golden State Warriors defended their title.

Which arena has the most obnoxious fans?

There’s a fine line between fans being deemed passionate vs. obnoxious, and the Celtics’ loyalists are apparently walking it quite well. The former race wasn’t nearly as close as the latter, though, with the TD Garden crowd winning this one going away.

As for the Philly fans being pegged as the over-the-top type, it’s hard to blame them for taking out all these decades of frustration on visiting teams. The Sixers haven’t won a title since 1983, and haven’t been to a Finals since the Allen Iverson-led 2000-01 team fell in five games to the Shaq-Kobe Lakers. That was their last conference finals appearance, too. More recently, they’ve now lost in the second round in six of the past nine seasons.

As if all of that hasn’t been painful enough to endure, they’re now facing the existential question of whether they truly qualify as a sports town anymore. At least that’s how Josh Hart sees it. After the Knicks’ sweep, the veteran guard who won a national title in 2016 at Villanova trolled the Philly masses during his victory lap.

“I used to think Philly was a sports town,” Hart said after the closeout game at Xfinity Mobile Arena. “I don’t know if it is anymore.”

Mark your calendars for the next time Hart and the Knicks play the Sixers next season. It’s safe to assume we’ll be reminded why their fans made this list.

What’s the first team on your no-trade list?

So … it turns out LeBron James’ opinion wasn’t an outlier after all.

Right around the time our group of reporters was wrapping up its interviews, the Lakers star made headlines when he shared his not-so-flattering view of Memphis on a podcast. And while he had unflattering things to say about Milwaukee and Cleveland (which is near his hometown of Akron, Ohio, of course) as well, it was James’ choice to suggest that the Grizzlies move to Nashville, Tenn. that really riled up the Memphians. And understandably so.

The proof is in the polling, though.

When players were asked which team would be at the top of their “no-trade” list, Memphis received more than three times as many votes as the second-place Washington Wizards.

“I’ll play anywhere, honestly,” one player explained. “But I would have to say Memphis is a place I don’t want to live. So that would be the reason why I wouldn’t want to play there.”

Said another player: “It has nothing to do with the team. It’s the location of the team.”

This feedback would seem to run counter to the perspective shared by commissioner Adam Silver in a late April podcast appearance, when he indicated that he had “never heard that issue of players not wanting to be in Memphis” while also saying “there’s no reason why the Memphis Grizzlies can’t be successful.” Silver also said that he would like it if the Grizzlies played “a few games a year in Nashville and sort of be Tennessee’s team to the extent that they can.”

So long as the Grizzlies don’t have a new arena lease agreement at FedEx Forum, where their current deal expires after the 2028-29 season, there will be questions about whether a move might be on the horizon. Those negotiations between the organization and the city have lasted far longer than was expected and remain unresolved.

The Wizards finishing second here is not a surprise. The team has not won 50 games in a season or reached the Eastern Conference finals since 1978-79. Its 17-65 record as it tanked this season likely perpetuated the losing-franchise narrative.

Washington’s current front office has attempted to change perceptions over the last three years, investing heavily in basketball-operations staffing and franchise infrastructure and overseeing a long-overdue renovation of Capital One Arena, beginning with the home and visitors’ locker rooms.

Anthony Davis, who was traded to the Wizards in February, said during a news conference last month that outside views of the franchise are inaccurate.

“I can personally say now it’s not what people think or what people make it seem,” Davis said. “Yes, the losing is part of it, so people kind of tie that with the organization. But the organization within itself is totally different from what people think they’re seeing.”

What do the smartest teams spend money on, beyond player contracts?

If new Portland Trail Blazers owner Tom Dundon is confused as to why he was recently widely ridiculed for taking such a frugal approach to his early days at the helm, these results should serve as quite the explanation. This is — as we’ve mentioned — a player’s league. And when players were asked to give their opinion on where the smartest teams spend money outside of player contracts, it’s quite telling that 85.9 percent of the answers focused on investments that made their lives easier.

High-end practice facilities. Well-paid staff members who are experts in their respective fields. Chefs who are available at all hours to feed their every nutritional need.

These are the kinds of perks that, owners hope, aid their players’ performance and protect their investment.

“It’s the support staff: the meals, the travel, all those little things,” one player said. “The budget in food. Retaining people that have been there for a while. That’s really important. The good organizations do that.”

This is the norm in today’s NBA, for the most part. All 30 teams are already spending an amazing amount of money to pay these players, and these extra efforts are aimed at helping them stay on the court for the entirety of the 82-game (plus playoffs) campaign.

“(It’s) the whole recovery process from the food to taking care of your body, making sure we have massage techs, making sure guys are well taken care of,” one player said. “The amount of staffing you have on the team to make sure guys have all their needs (is important).”

Said another: “Health. Eighty-two games. It’s a long season. The best teams take care of their players better than other teams.”

And another: “The quality of your support staff, from trainers, strength coaches, nutritionists, chefs, the everyday people that we see every day that other people don’t see.”

While there was a significant amount of repetition in these answers, some players focused more on the need for nice planes and luxury hotels as a part of the recovery process. One player made a specific request for more people who not only understood analytics in today’s game but who possessed the communication skills to convey the value in them to coaches and players alike.

“I feel like we have so much data at this point and it tells us the ideal way to play, but then we don’t have people that can make that clear as an organization,” the player said. “I think the best teams get that data and then have people that can explain that data to coaches and the coaches can then explain that to players and as a team, you know exactly what you’re trying to do from top to bottom.”

Along those lines, consider this wild tidbit: Only one of the 149 players who answered this question mentioned the specific need to invest heavily in a head coach, and the staff of assistants, as a means to enjoying shared success.

“After the (players), the coaching is the most important thing,” the player said.

There were some players who highlighted the importance of players’ families being treated well, too.

“I think a lot of the teams that I’ve been on, that we enjoyed being around, they take the time to take care of families as well,” one player said. “Good family rooms, taking care of the wives, and kids, everything like that.

“Good food, decent seating (at games for family members), a TV so you can watch the game back there if you get tired of sitting in (the) bleachers. My wife sits in a lot of bleachers.”