Updated ESPN rankings 10/21/2014
As you may be aware by now, ESPN is running their annual NBA player rankings. It's a fun concept that asks a panel of ESPN analysts to rank the top-500 players in the league for the upcoming season. As of yesterday, the 41st through 500th players have been announced, meaning that we're getting down to the true nitty-gritty in terms of top players in the league. While checking in though, there were a few oddities that Chris and I noticed when looking over the rankings. They included "There's no way Ty Lawson is a top-50 player in the league!" and "Is Chandler Parsons really good enough to be the 43rd ranked player?".
In order to confirm our skepticism, we decided to run our own top player rankings in the league, based purely on one question that we asked ourselves: "Who is good?", then ranking players appropriately on that question (we did a little more than this, but there were no analytics involved in this analysis).
As you may be aware by now, ESPN is running their annual NBA player rankings. It's a fun concept that asks a panel of ESPN analysts to rank the top-500 players in the league for the upcoming season. As of yesterday, the 41st through 500th players have been announced, meaning that we're getting down to the true nitty-gritty in terms of top players in the league. While checking in though, there were a few oddities that Chris and I noticed when looking over the rankings. They included "There's no way Ty Lawson is a top-50 player in the league!" and "Is Chandler Parsons really good enough to be the 43rd ranked player?".
In order to confirm our skepticism, we decided to run our own top player rankings in the league, based purely on one question that we asked ourselves: "Who is good?", then ranking players appropriately on that question (we did a little more than this, but there were no analytics involved in this analysis).
After a few hours of careful thought, back-and-forth discussion, and a few death-threats over specific players, the joint list that we came up with is as follows (with the respective ESPN rankings, if they've been announced yet):
- LeBron James*
- Kevin Durant
- Chris Paul
- Kevin Love*
- Steph Curry
- Paul George (If he was not out for the year, left off ESPN)
- Russell Westbrook
- James Harden
- Anthony Davis
- Tim Duncan
- Kyrie Irving*
- Tony Parker
- Blake Griffin
- Dwight Howard
- Derrick Rose (28)
- John Wall
- Chris Bosh
- Lamarcas Aldridge
- Manu Ginobli (56)
- Kawhi Leonard
- Dirk Novitzki
- Demarcus Cousins
- Al Jefferson
- Zach Randolph (33)
- Joakim Noah
- Dwyane Wade (36)
- Serge Ibaka (25)
- Marc Gasol
- Damian Lillard
- Kyle Lowry (29)
- Goran Dragic (27)
- Eric Bledsoe (41)
- Rajon Rondo (37)
- Andre Igoudala (39)
- Al Horford (26)
- Bradley Beal (48)
- Andre Drummond (30)
- Lance Stephenson (51)
- Demar Derozan (35)
- Monta Ellis
- Rudy Gay
- Roy Hibbert (46)
- Klay Thompson (38)
- Joe Johnson
- Chandler Parsons (43)
- Gordon Hayward (47)
- Kobe Bryant
- Paul Pierce (82)
- Kemba Walker (61)
- Paul Millsap (32)
Note: * denotes current Cavs players
The following players have also been left off our list, but will place in ESPNs top 41:
- Deron Williams
- Pau Gasol
- Greg Monroe
- Luol Deng
- Nicolas Batum
- DeAndre Jordan (34)
- Mike Conley (31)
It's probably safe to say that there are some significant differences in our list vs. ESPN (I'm looking at you Manu), but overall there's a fairly consistent top-50. It'll be very interesting to see how the rest of the top-50 rounds out, as well as where the Cavs' Big-3 ends up placing in the rankings.
For those of you curious, the following Cavs players have been ranked by ESPN as well with the following placements:
- Anderson Varejao (76)
- Dion Waiters (101)
- Tristan Thompson (126)
- Shawn Marion (136)
- Mike Miller (178)
- Matthew Dellavedova (312)
- Brendan Haywood (336)
- James Jones (342)
- Joe Harris (454)
- Alex Kirk (486)
So how'd we do folks? Like it? Love it? Want to murder us for putting Kobe so low on the list? (Face it, he's never going to be the same again. YOU'RE LIVING IN A DREAM)
Let us know what you think!
Let us know what you think!