2026 MLP Power Rankings v. 1.0 – Preseason Status

It appeared there was some confusion with our UPA player power rankings that we posted earlier this week. It’s easy for us to forget that not everyone has consumed as much sports content over the years as we have, and that the concept of “power rankings” may be foreign to people. To be clear, power rankings are meant to be a current snapshot of a player or team’s ranking relative to more recent results. It is not intended to be a pure rankings list.

The first edition of these MLP Power Rankings essentially serve as a pre-season rankings list and how we see the season shaking out. However, as we update it throughout the season, the intention is for it to capture how teams are doing in that more recent time period.

When it comes to MLP itself, there is some renewed excitement this year on our end because of how much more balanced the league looks on paper. The NY Hustlers and Nashville Chefs are gone (RIP), and Challenger is merged with Premier for a 20-team single division. While there inevitably will be tiers within the league, the problem in 2025 is that there were so many teams that were so bad it made too many matches predictable and/or unwatchable. The rosters are better across the board in the league and we’re probably going to get more teams in the bottom half of the league giving teams in the top half a run for their money. 

The vast majority of teams are trying to compete. Whether that means spending 7 figures in an auction or taking a more thrifty economical approach to team building, league parity should be so much better this season compared 2025. And that’s a very positive way to start the 2026 season. 

(1) St. Louis Shock – They spent 7 figures to keep the band back together for another year and they are undoubtedly the favorites going into the 2026 season. Their entire organization has seemingly suffered from the wanting it too badly syndrome the past two years, and we’ll have to see if they can put it all together in their third season as a group. 

(2) New Jersey 5’s – Is the insertion of Jorja Johnson on this roster going to be the thing that gets the 5’s over the hump? They have been the good, but not good enough, team for the last two years. Hence, all the tinkering with the roster. Jorja has not been playing her best ball as of late, but maybe a new environment and energy will bring out the best version of Jorja.

(3) Columbus Sliders – We’ll have to see how Danni-Elle Townsend adjusts to the talent and pressure of the MLP environment. The Sliders need more juice from their #2 mixed team, but the downside of the Townsend for Jansen replacement is they no longer have their big edge of having two top end female Dreambreaker players.

(4) LA Mad Drops – Their championship hopes hinge on Max Freeman but their event-in, event-out competitiveness depends on whether we see a consistently engaged Ben Johns. We haven’t seen a consistently engaged Benny Boy in MLP since the first season of 2023 with the Seattle Pioneers. It doesn’t matter how well Max plays if we get Benny Backdraw’s broken motivator, but if Max plays well maybe that’s exactly the juice that Ben needs.

(5) Brooklyn – Reuniting Christian Alshon with his old 2023 season 2 DC teammates, Riley Newman and Jackie Kawamoto, undoubtedly boosts the stock of this Brooklyn team. We’re awfully curious whether Brooklyn’s men have defined sides. Riley is a better left side player and ditto for Alshon on the right, but running that duo together on their preferred sides is a ceiling limiting move in our view. They also brought in Chris Haworth to partially address their Dreambreaker woes from last year, but they didn’t do anything on the women’s side. This is a complete team with a couple of championship level flaws. 

(6) Dallas Flash – Jorja Johnson is out. Brooke Buckner, not Callie Smith, is in. We’re really wondering whether this #6 slot is too high for the Flash, who relied on Jorja as the heartbeat and energy of their roster. It truly has felt like JW alone was 10-15% better as an MLP player with Jorja on his team. Regardless, the Flash should be relatively formidable at every spot in their lineup, and theoretically have improved as a Dreambreaker team with Buckner in the mix. 

(7) Orlando Squeeze – #7 also feels like it could be overly optimistic for Orlando. This is a team that is probably more likely to find themselves outside the top 8 rather than pushing the top 5. We have them at #7 because they have a roster that should be a top half team, if they can remain focused. wins. Oddly, Orlando remains very invested in pro pickleball, but they have never had a coach. And this team could really benefit from having the right coach. 

(8) Palm Beach Royals – It’s hard to believe the Royals can be anything other than an above average team. They opted not to find a singles specialist to sub in for Tina Pisnik and they are running out a legacy doubles group of Tyson McGuffin and Dekel Bar. There shouldn’t be any free wins for opponents of Palm Beach, but it is difficult to see them pushing any of the better teams on a regular basis. 

(9) Utah Black Diamonds – Possibly the biggest issue that this team is going to run into is what side their men are going to play on. Tama Shimabukuro needs to be playing the left, but that’s also where Connor Garnett has to play. Utah should be in store for another year of being a frisky team that gives their opponents trouble. We would have them higher if Etta was playing better. Victoria DiMuzio should slot in to improve the singles play for one of their women, but their female situation is not ideal from a Dreambreaker standpoint. 

(10) Texas Ranchers – This is a team we easily could be underrating down at the #10 slot when they have a top 5 male team in pro pickleball in Eric Oncins and Dylan Frazier, which has recently split (not optimal for chemistry!). The problem is that nothing else about this team is elite. Eric Oncins and Lea Jansen should be good, but not great, if that is the mixed pairing the Ranchers choose to run. And we have never really been high on Layne Sleeth, who is the weakest female player of the teams ahead of the Ranchers in our power rankings, although some people clearly disagree with that. 

No Layne is crazy work.

— Jimmy Miller (@JimmyMiller_PB) May 20, 2026

(11) Atlanta Bouncers – The middle class of MLP is much improved from the 2025 season. This Atlanta roster has no obvious holes in it, having revamped their roster to surround Jaume with Jay Devilliers, Jessie Irvine and Kaitlyn Christian. This is a quality Dreambreaker team with Jessie Irvine no longer the singles liability she used to be, and Keilly Ulery showing she could step in for Irvine as well after her run in Sacramento. The team will go as far as their women take them. Unfortunately, neither Irvine nor Christian are having strong years separately or together from a doubles standpoint. 

(12) Chicago Slice – It is unclear how the pieces are going to come together for the Slice despite having some talent on the roster. Mari Humberg has been a pure left-sider, which would leave Jamie Wei to be on the right, where she has not played primarily all year. It will be a big surprise to us if Hunter and Zane are anything more than a middling men’s team. Outside of Hunter Johnson, they do not have higher end Dreambreaker players. And their upside bench players haven’t had many interesting results since they have been drafted. 

(13) SoCal Hard Eights – One of the most interesting teams heading into the 2026 season. How the season shakes out for the Hard Eights very much depends on the improvement of their less experienced core of Cailyn Campbell, Armaan Bhatia and Will MacKinnon. The concerning part of this core for SoCal is that Will MacKinnon has shown next to nothing since he was drafted to indicate there is truly elite upside despite all the early hype around him coming into 2026. They need to hit on at least two of their upside draft picks, if they want any chance to compete in future seasons. 

(14) Miami Pickleball Club – The Nico Acevedo selection is already looking like a hit, and Yuta Funemizu has been playing a quality men’s doubles. Conversely, up to this point in our power rankings, Miami is going to run out some version of the weakest female grouping. We expect this team will go with Isabella Dunlap and Estee Widdershoven as their starting women to begin the year. Despite Miami’s ability to identify individual talent, the wins will not come easily for this group.  

(15) Bay Area Breakers – There are a few teams in the bottom half of the league that will be quite fascinating to monitor, and Bay Area is another one of them. Len Yang and Pablo Tellez is a legitimate men’s doubles team that can beat just about anyone out there. Genie Erokhina is playing at a level that we would have never thought she could get to, and Mya Bui maybe sort of still has theoretical upside. This team should be in the mix for one of the 12 playoff spots.  

(16) Phoenix Flames – This is another roster that is somewhat intriguing and should have the capacity to force some Dreambreakers against better teams. We expect Judit Castillo and Daria Walczak to be their starting tandem, which isn’t going to be a free win by any stretch for a lot of teams. Jonathan Truong and Wyatt Stone will be a tough out as well. If they can get to a Dreambreaker, they can also call on Cam Chaffin to step in. 

(17) Las Vegas Night Owls – This is another roster that appears to have issues from having their roster pieces fit together properly. They just traded Brooke Buckner for Callie Smith, who will have to slot in on her less preferred right side with Zoey Wang. Their starting men, Blaine Hovenier and Roscoe Bellamy, are primarily right side guys. They shouldn’t be completely overwhelmed by opponents from a talent perspective. However, the lesser talent and sub-optimal fit concerns do not bode well for this Las Vegas squad. 

(18) California Black Bears – Opponents won’t want to find themselves in a Dreambreaker with this California team that features Kiora Kunimoto, Sahra Dennehey, Michael Loyd and (probably?) Luca Mack. Outside of their singles prowess, things will not be easy for this group on the doubles side. The best hope they have is for their women to improve rapidly. Their men are not as intriguing to us from an upside perspective. We’ll be interested to see how a singles heavy, inexperienced roster can compete and how they progress throughout the year. There might not be that much difference between the teams in the tier from SoCal to California.

(19) Florida Smash – They don’t spend any money, but at least Florida is a franchise that is trying in some capacity. They have some quality pieces, including Chris Crouch and Zoey Weil. However, the career of Travis Rettenmaier has transitioned to a place where he wouldn’t be on an MLP roster if he didn’t own a stake in the team that he’s on. We’ll see how the Smash distribute their playing time amongst their men and women as we expect all 6 of their players to receive some piece of the playing time pie. 

(20) Carolina Hogs – If you didn’t know that Tom Dundon was one of the cheapest pro sports owners out there, he has made that evident with his early handling of his new toy, the Portland Trail Blazers. 2026 has featured the Hogs trading away their only half decent draft pick of 2026, Isabella Dunlap, for cash. The league is shaping up to be much improved from a league parity standpoint, but the Hogs are not doing their part to assist in that. They are primed to be the saddest sack team to watch in MLP this year.

Agree or disagree? Let us know in the comments or email us at nmlpickleball@gmail.com! You can also follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @nmlpickleball