ESPN NBA top 100 for 2022

[michaelm]

Curry's probably 2 because of the title and I also can't see them having the top 4 players in the league all be foreign/international. A lot of casuals/dumb talking heads would go nuts even though that is where we're eventually headed anyway. As Curry/KD/Lebron's careers wind down the talking heads and ESPN are putting all their hopes in Tatum, Morant, Booker, and Zion.

Yes, it is totally ridiculous for the FMVP to be considered one of the best players in the NBA.

[michaelm]

The CBS Sports one came out today and is much, much better.

I thought the EXACT same thing. I was quite impressed with that CBS Sports list!

Uhh, CBS list has Curry *and* Durant each ahead of Jokic, Doncic, and Embiid. That's not "impressive". It's dumb. This isn't 5 years ago.

Curry’s team beat Jokic’s team, Doncic’s team and the team which won the Eastern Conference where Embiid plays with Curry as their best player and no other player ranked in the top 30 by ESPN or CBS, and the ranking of the player ranked 31 by ESPN is being disputed on this thread.

[mdonnelly1989]

I thought the EXACT same thing. I was quite impressed with that CBS Sports list!

Uhh, CBS list has Curry *and* Durant each ahead of Jokic, Doncic, and Embiid. That's not "impressive". It's dumb. This isn't 5 years ago.[/quote]

Curry’s team beat Jokic’s team, Doncic’s team and the team which won the Eastern Conference where Embiid plays with Curry as their best player and no other player ranked in the top 30 by ESPN, and the ranking of the player ranked 31 is being disputed on this thread.

Can someone help me remember when I said that this list is perfect? I said impressive not perfect.

Also Curry just won MVP and Finals MVP so he is ahead of at a very minimum Doncic and Embiid. KD is hard to say given that he played with a team in shambles but KD is at minimum still borderline top 5.

[WarriorGM]

Will the ESPN list have Curry at number one or will they try to skate around the Steph era by imagining Steph was never the best player in the years of the Warriors dynasty?

[michaelm]

Uhh, CBS list has Curry *and* Durant each ahead of Jokic, Doncic, and Embiid. That's not "impressive". It's dumb. This isn't 5 years ago.[/quote]

Curry’s team beat Jokic’s team, Doncic’s team and the team which won the Eastern Conference where Embiid plays with Curry as their best player and no other player ranked in the top 30 by ESPN, and the ranking of the player ranked 31 is being disputed on this thread.

Can someone help me remember when I said that this list is perfect? I said impressive not perfect.

Also Curry just won MVP and Finals MVP so he is ahead of at a very minimum Doncic and Embiid. KD is hard to say given that he played with a team in shambles but KD is at minimum still borderline top 5.

Not sure if you had a problem with my post which was in reply to maxwellcu’s post.

[Crazy-Canuck]

Minnesota with 3 top 25 players, is ESPN making the wolves the early favorites?

3/top 25 players is impressive.

[shoresy69]

Wow, the CBS top 10 is player-for-player the exact order that I'd have:

1. Giannis
2. Curry
3. Durant
4. Jokic
5. Doncic
6. Embiid
7. LeBron
8. Kawhi
9. Tatum
10. Butler

[MoneyTalks41890]

I love how the ESPN list is basically designed to make everyone mad. No one will be happy with this lol

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[jokeboy86]

Curry's probably 2 because of the title and I also can't see them having the top 4 players in the league all be foreign/international. A lot of casuals/dumb talking heads would go nuts even though that is where we're eventually headed anyway. As Curry/KD/Lebron's careers wind down the talking heads and ESPN are putting all their hopes in Tatum, Morant, Booker, and Zion.

Yes, it is totally ridiculous for the FMVP to be considered one of the best players in the NBA.

No one's taking away his FMVP and title but you would have to agree that those other 4 players were either hurt(Embiid) or missing teammates(Giannis, Jokic) or literally by themselves(Luka) in the playoffs. Who were the players that Curry was missing that are equal to Murray/MPJ or Middleton? Is it so wrong to consider things in context? I personally don't think this version of Curry is better than any of those 4 players right now and if you look at the rankings that came out today it looks like the majority of experts at ESPN agree.

[mpoo_sin]

I love how the ESPN list is basically designed to make everyone mad. No one will be happy with this lol

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Well the top5 is actually fine imho.
Antetokounmpo, Jokic and Doncic are the three best players. We ll see who will eventually be no 1 at the end of the season.
Maybe i would switch Embiid and Curry.

[WarriorGM]

People here continuing to show that they can be slapped in the face with greatness and still be oblivious to it.

[Peregrine01]

I love how the ESPN list is basically designed to make everyone mad. No one will be happy with this lol

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The top 5 is pretty reasonable, IMO. I think there'd be less argument about this than usual, ignoring the usual forced First Take nonsense.

[Franco]

That should honestly be a somewhat consensus top 5, everyone else is at least half a step below them.

[mpoo_sin]

People here continuing to show that they can be slapped in the face with greatness and still be oblivious to it.

I know you are a big Curry advocat - rightfully so - and if we are talking about legacy he very well is ahead of all the other guys in the top5 with Antetokounmpo being a clear number two. But while he very well might have been the best player 4 or 5 seasons ago i just don’t think he is ahead of the top3 now.

[michaelm]

Curry's probably 2 because of the title and I also can't see them having the top 4 players in the league all be foreign/international. A lot of casuals/dumb talking heads would go nuts even though that is where we're eventually headed anyway. As Curry/KD/Lebron's careers wind down the talking heads and ESPN are putting all their hopes in Tatum, Morant, Booker, and Zion.

Yes, it is totally ridiculous for the FMVP to be considered one of the best players in the NBA.

No one's taking away his FMVP and title but you would have to agree that those other 4 players were either hurt(Embiid) or missing teammates(Giannis, Jokic) or literally by themselves(Luka) in the playoffs. Who were the players that Curry was missing that are equal to Murray/MPJ or Middleton? Is it so wrong to consider things in context? I personally don't think this version of Curry is better than any of those 4 players right now and if you look at the rankings that came out today it looks like the majority of experts at ESPN agree.

He won the title with Andrew Wiggins as the second best player on his team. Wiggins actually played very well, which he hadn’t done overly before getting next to Curry. Klay Thompson was working back from two and a half years away from the game having sustained two of the worst injuries in basketball in successive years. Green missed a third of the season with a back injury. Game 1 of the play-offs was the first time all three played together since the 2019 finals, with Curry off he bench at that after his own injury problems. Any team in the NBA could have had GPII on their roster and he was injured for half the play-offs in any case.

What more do you want from Curry ?. I rate Giannis, but the other 3 players you mention have not delivered in the play-offs, to the contrary in Embiid’s case, and I am not yet convinced the games of the other two will ever translate either, great though Jokic has been in successive regular seasons. Curry has not only delivered historically but obviously also just did.so again. And last time I looked GSW were second in the betting for the 2023 title. Do you think this could be vaguely related to having Curry on the team ?.

If I found myself in agreement with ESPN I would be looking to re-examine my positions rather than feeling any vindication.

[dhsilv2]

I love how the ESPN list is basically designed to make everyone mad. No one will be happy with this lol

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If that's the top 5 and in that order. I can't see too many people being upset. It might not be my list but that's perfectly reasonable.

[CobraCommander]

I love how the ESPN list is basically designed to make everyone mad. No one will be happy with this lol

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I agree with you that this is fairly controversial while I think REALGM agrees with this...

First reason for why this is controversial-
Jokic just won back to back MVPs...how could he not be number 1 coming into a year where he is still coming into his prime and the number 1 player (Giannis) didn’t win a ring. I could see if Giannis won a ring that they would say...Giannis being second in MVP plus a ring = being number 1 player but that didn’t happen....

Second reason Embiid finished ahead of Luka in mvp voting last year and it wasn’t really close. Luka was 5th...and Embiid could have won the mvp flat out...so how does Luka end up being BETTER this year than Embiid when Embiid is also still coming into his prime? The controversial point is....Embiid was better than Luka last year so why does ESPN think Luka is going to leap frog Embiid?

Third reason...Curry had his worse shooting year ever and won a ring. He beat Luka and Jokic on the way to the ring and a mvp finals on his worse shooting ever and he isn’t old...no reason to think he WONT shoot better this year...plus it’s controversial to have anyone ahead of the golden child and Champ Steph...I think some people think he is 3rd at worse

4th reason....Lebron and KD aren’t in top 5 when they are the top 2 most talked about (add Curry) the most important players financially for the league. Lebron and KD move the needle (with Curry) more than any of these other guys and it’s not even close....and both put up good numbers last year. The casual fan doesn’t think Luka or Embiid or even Jokic are better than Curry, KD and Lebron - Hell the casual that shows up for the late playoffs and Christmas games may not even know Luka, Embiid or Jokic lol....


I think the order is ok...might swap Luka, Curry and Embiid around with Curry at 3, Embiid at 4 and Luka at 5 but it isn’t the worse list ever

[CobraCommander]

People here continuing to show that they can be slapped in the face with greatness and still be oblivious to it.

They play to win the game and he won the last game of the year...can’t see him being 5th -

[Prez]

I have an incredible amount of respect for Curry but Giannis/Jokic are clearly the two best players in the league right now IMO. I would have Curry 3rd, but that top two is pretty set for me personally.

[Peregrine01]

I have an incredible amount of respect for Curry but Giannis/Jokic are clearly the two best players in the league right now IMO. I would have Curry 3rd, but that top two is pretty set for me personally.

Yeah, I think so too. Curry, while still having immense impact every time he steps on the floor, is no longer the singular force that guys like Giannis and Jokic are now. I still have some doubts about how effective Luka-ball can really get and Embiid still has durability and motor question marks. To me, the top 5 are quite reasonable.