No one in the NBA has had a better 2026 than Jalen Brunson.The New York Knicks star won an NBA title, was the NBA Finals MVP and became the king of New York (and New Jersey and probably half of Connecticut). The Knicks hadn’t won a title in 53 years before Brunson helped bring them one. He slayed a giant in San Antonio Spurs star Victor Wembanyama and helped orchestrate one of the greatest comebacks in league history.If there were a checklist of seemingly impossible achievements, Brunson might have checked them all. He got to ride on a float down the Canyon of Heroes in lower Manhattan and give a speech at City Hall. But did he do enough to earn a place in immortality in Springfield, Mass.?Welcome to the 2026 edition of The Athletic’s Basketball Hall of Fame tiers, in which we try to assess who in the NBA is headed to the Hall, that mystical, magical, mysterious (and completely free from transparency) shrine to basketball history. It’s tough to say definitively what is enough to send someone to Springfield. Hall voters operate with a Justice Potter Stewart approach: They know a Hall of Famer when they see one. Michael Cooper, Hall of Famer; Shawn Marion, keep waiting.The Athletic, however, takes a rigorous, empirical approach to reading their tea leaves. We zealously comb through Basketball Reference pages and gauge someone’s Hall worthiness using our proprietary four-metric formula: PETE — the Peterson Enshrinement Totems Extrapolated — as an homage to the OG of this exercise. If an NBA player has won an MVP, a finals MVP, a scoring title or is in the top 50 all-time in scoring, then it’s very likely they will be headed to the Hall.This year, the Knicks’ title run catapulted two of their best players into the conversation. Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns were on the Hall of Fame track before the 2025-26 season. When it ended, their resumes got stronger. Is that enough to get them over the line?After Knicks title, are Brunson and KAT now HOF locks?Mike Vorkunov and Jeshua KiddBrunson has a stronger case, both in terms of metrics and reputation. While he spent his first four years in the NBA as a backup with the Dallas Mavericks, he has blossomed into one of the league’s best players in New York. He has made three All-NBA Second Teams, finished fifth in MVP voting and won the Clutch Player of the Year award (value of that TBD), in addition to his title and finals MVP. If Brunson were to keep this up next season, he may put together the greatest five-year run by a lefty in New York since Babe Ruth.In comparison to those already in Springfield, the case for Brunson seems nearly ironclad. Only one Hall-eligible player has ever won finals MVP and not made the Hall (Cedric Maxwell). Chauncey Billups, who seemed like a fringe case, was inducted in 2024 after a career in which he made three All-NBA teams (but only one second team) but he never had the same regard league-wide.Brunson is unquestionably one of the best players in the league right now, and it’s rare that players that good don’t get in. The Hall has allowed in worse players, without Brunson’s multi-year peak. He has averaged 26.3 points per game with the Knicks. According to Basketball Reference, only six eligible players have missed the Hall while averaging at least 25 points per game over a 284-game span (that’s how many games Brunson has played in New York and a rough stand-in for four seasons): Mark Aguirre, Gilbert Arenas, DeMarcus Cousins, Dale Ellis, World B. Free and Kiki Vandeweghe.Longevity will help make Brunson’s case as well, but even if his career were to end today, he should get in. He has had more All-NBA seasons than supernovas like Derrick Rose — who won the MVP award but might still miss the Hall — and he has winning on his side, which should count for a lot.As of now, Basketball Reference’s Hall of Fame Probability Index (BBRHOFP) gives him a 13.1 percent chance at induction, 29th-highest for an active player, but that has its glitches. Several players have gotten in with lower probability scores, including Bill Walton, who had three great seasons with the Portland Trail Blazers, including a title and regular-season MVP award, before injuries robbed him of several years on the court and a longer prime.Brunson’s resume is also strengthened by his college career. It is the Basketball Hall of Fame, after all, not the NBA Hall of Fame. Brunson won two national championships at Villanova and was the consensus college player of the year in 2018. That should be more than enough to get Brunson in.The case for Towns is more complicated in some ways and easier in others. The BBRHOFP gives him an 86.9 percent chance to get in, which is 92nd all-time, and only one top-100 eligible player hasn’t gotten in. (Apologies to Fort Wayne Pistons legend Larry Foust.)But Towns has only made three All-NBA teams, and none above third team. He has never garnered an MVP vote. The only award he has won is the Rookie of the Year in 2016. He is unquestionably one of the top shooting bigs ever (39.7 percent from 3 for his career) and has averaged 22.8 points and 11.1 rebounds over 11 seasons.Therein lies the conundrum with Towns: The stats are great, but the supporting credentials are a little lacking. Still, a title should help him. Winning always helps. Spoiler: He’ll go into the In the Mix tier, but he’s somewhere between that and Near Locks — the 3.5-star Yelp review of Hall of Fame tiers.That may be nitpicking. The list of players to have averaged 22 and 10 over their careers is short. Only 15 players have done it in NBA history. Five of them are still active, and of the other 10, only one* is not in the Hall of Fame. (*Can you guess who? The answer is at the end.)So congratulations to the 2026 Knicks, a team that will be remember for generations and has ensured that at least two of its stars will likely have a home in Springfield when they retire, in addition to all the drinks and meals they’ll never have to pay for in New York.Now that we have settled the debate with Brunson and Towns, we need to look at which other current and retired NBA players are headed for the Basketball Hall of Fame or have a case to get there. Let’s break it down by using PETE, Basketball Reference’s excellent Hall of Fame Probability metric and a smidge of subjective reasoning. (Some analysis may sound familiar if you’ve followed this project in years past.)Active: Locks• James, Curry and Durant are no doubt Hall of Famers. There’s nothing to discuss. They are among the 20 best players of all time and have so many trophies they’ve probably lost count. They will stand the test of time as some of the truly best players the league has ever seen. The only remaining question for this group is which jersey Durant is associated with in Springfield and if James' 76ers era warrants a rewrite of his Hall resume.• Antetokounmpo is not quite in that pantheon but is trending there. He has won two MVP awards, a finals MVP, Defensive Player of the Year and a Most Improved Player trophy to boot. He has seven consecutive top-four finishes in MVP voting, with just as many first-team All-NBA placements in that time. All that’s left to see is how high he can climb over the rest of his career. Still just 31, he might have another title or MVP left in him as he moves to Miami.