Thinking Basketball's Top 10 Players of 2024

[wafflzgod]

Thinking Basketball's Top 10 Players of the 2024 season

At full health:
1) Jokic
2) Embiid
3) Giannis
4) Luka
5) SGA
6) Kawhi
7) AD
8) Steph
9) Tatum
10) LeBron

Adjusted for health/availability:
1) Jokic
2) Luka
3) SGA
4) AD
5) Steph
6) Tatum
7) LeBron
8) Edwards
9/10) Embiid/Brunson/KD

Thoughts?

[jalengreen]

Steph being too high stands out the most, wouldn’t take him over LeBron on either list

At full health I’m definitely putting Embiid #1

[Jaqua92]

Steph being too high stands out the most, wouldn’t take him over LeBron on either list

At full health I’m definitely putting Embiid #1

XD XD

[1993Playoffs]

Its pretty wild that a year 22?! LeBron is still probably a better offensive player than Tatum who is in the absolute prime of his career

Tatum is a better defender at this point buts it’s crazy it’s this close

[AEnigma]

Steph being too high stands out the most, wouldn’t take him over LeBron on either list

Appreciated Cody not just glossing over that.

[blueberrysticky]

Healthy or not (lets be real a gimped luka just went to the finals it's time other injury excuse players show up...)

1) Jokic
2) Luka
3) Giannis
4) SGA
5) Embiid
6) Tatum
7) Brunson
8) Ant
9) AD
10) Lebron/Steph

[LukaTheGOAT]

Pretty solid list even if I my switch a few things round. Only questionable thing is falling for the Embiid gimmick in 2024. Top 4 at full-health, but he's not Luka or Giannis. And then implying he has a case over Jokic...yeah. Sour way to end an otherwise incredible pod. Still enjoyed it a lot.

[Peregrine01]

I'm probably in the minority in thinking that a player's injury-proneness is as much of a feature of that player as his height, strength or quickness. So I don't think it makes any sense to rank Kawhi in a top 10.

[homecourtloss]

Steph being too high stands out the most, wouldn’t take him over LeBron on either list

At full health I’m definitely putting Embiid #1

Ben’s Curry fetish. He wasn’t that Curry this year.

[sp6r=underrated]

I'm probably in the minority in thinking that a player's injury-proneness is as much of a feature of that player as his height, strength or quickness. .

Complete agreement here. They're is a big difference between durable players suffering a one off-injury such as 2009 KG or 1986 Jordan rather than a player who chronically breaks down such as Kawhi or Manu.

I don't consider the former a product of injury proneness nor does scare me that much unless it alters a career ala Penny.

But the later does and I consider those players (Kawhi or Embiid as example) season as is to be real Kawhi.

So I don't think it makes any sense to rank Kawhi in a top 10.

I'm not a hardcore only the playoffs count, unlike Kawhi Leonard, so I could see a case for placing Kawhi in the top 10. But Kawhi's durability issues are severe.

Everyone knows about Manu's durability issues. He entered the NBA at 25. From 25 to 37, Manu played 23,135 minutes. Kawhi entered the NBA at 20. From age 20 to 32, he played 22,103 minutes. Manu played in 187 of his team's 193 playoff games. Kawhi played in 139 of his teams' 163 playoff games.

Kawhi is less durable than Manu. And Manu's durability is heavily held against him.

[lessthanjake]

I didn’t listen to that episode and they probably elaborated on this, but just looking at the rankings it feels low on Brunson to me. At this point, I don’t think I’d put any of AD, Steph, Tatum, or LeBron above him even at full health. I voted Tatum above Brunson in POY voting, but that was expressly because of his part in the Celtics’ achievements and dominance, rather than a reflection of thinking he played better than Brunson. Kawhi is a close call, but I’d still probably lean Brunson, not to mention that I kind of just reject the hypo when it comes to an “at full health” Kawhi. Similarly, adjusting for health, I don’t put AD, Steph, Tatum, LeBron, or Edwards above Brunson. And I really don’t think Durant is there at this point, nor do I think it makes sense to put Embiid on the level with Brunson when adjusting for health/availability, given that he he missed most of the season and was not full health in the playoffs.

So yeah, I think I’d have Brunson at 6th in the “at full health” rankings and 4th in the “adjusted for health/availability” rankings—which is a pretty big difference from what it looks like their ranking of him was. He had a really good year! I was super impressed with him whenever I watched him.

[Statlanta]

Steph being too high stands out the most, wouldn’t take him over LeBron on either list

At full health I’m definitely putting Embiid #1

Ben’s Curry fetish. He wasn’t that Curry this year.

But if he wasn't that guy than WHO was good on the Warriors? Much has been made of the demise of both Thompson and Wiggins. Draymond was suspended a quarter of the season. Chris Paul missed his yearly 20 games.

The difference between the Warriors being out of the playoffs and the Lakers being in the playoffs is 1 game.

I don't believe the Lakers supporting cast is so bad that the Lakers can have two guys on the top 10 and be a play-in team.


Is Looney, Trayce Jackson-Davis, Podziemski, Kuminga that much better than Vincent, Vanderbilt, Prince, Russell, Reaves?

[Peregrine01]

Steph being too high stands out the most, wouldn’t take him over LeBron on either list

At full health I’m definitely putting Embiid #1

Ben’s Curry fetish. He wasn’t that Curry this year.

But if he wasn't that guy than WHO was good on the Warriors? Much has been made of the demise of both Thompson and Wiggins. Draymond was suspended a quarter of the season. Chris Paul missed his yearly 20 games.

The difference between the Warriors being out of the playoffs and the Lakers being in the playoffs is 1 game.

I don't believe the Lakers supporting cast is so bad that the Lakers can have two guys on the top 10 and be a play-in team.


Is Looney, Trayce Jackson-Davis, Podziemski, Kuminga that much better than Vincent, Vanderbilt, Prince, Russell, Reaves?

IMO, Lakers were better than their record indicated (just like last year). Could’ve easily seen them beat OKC had the Nuggets not lost game 82 to the Spurs. Minny match-up may have been a toss-up too.

[MyUniBroDavis]

Steph being too high stands out the most, wouldn’t take him over LeBron on either list

At full health I’m definitely putting Embiid #1

Ben’s Curry fetish. He wasn’t that Curry this year.

But if he wasn't that guy than WHO was good on the Warriors? Much has been made of the demise of both Thompson and Wiggins. Draymond was suspended a quarter of the season. Chris Paul missed his yearly 20 games.

The difference between the Warriors being out of the playoffs and the Lakers being in the playoffs is 1 game.

I don't believe the Lakers supporting cast is so bad that the Lakers can have two guys on the top 10 and be a play-in team.


Is Looney, Trayce Jackson-Davis, Podziemski, Kuminga that much better than Vincent, Vanderbilt, Prince, Russell, Reaves?

2 of those players played a combined 30 games, 3 of those players don’t know how to defend except Reaves magically post all star break, and our head coach got shot in the head lol

Lakers supporting cast was unserious till the last quarter of the year where it was solid, but then Dlo forgot how to play basketball in the playoffs again

[AEnigma]

Steph being too high stands out the most, wouldn’t take him over LeBron on either list

At full health I’m definitely putting Embiid #1

Ben’s Curry fetish. He wasn’t that Curry this year.

But if he wasn't that guy than WHO was good on the Warriors? Much has been made of the demise of both Thompson and Wiggins. Draymond was suspended a quarter of the season. Chris Paul missed his yearly 20 games.

The difference between the Warriors being out of the playoffs and the Lakers being in the playoffs is 1 game.

I don't believe the Lakers supporting cast is so bad that the Lakers can have two guys on the top 10 and be a play-in team.

Is Looney, Trayce Jackson-Davis, Podziemski, Kuminga that much better than Vincent, Vanderbilt, Prince, Russell, Reaves?

Mixed on this.

On the one hand, during the regular season at least, yeah, the Warriors were working with more — even though the names do not seem like they would be. And perhaps the reason why the names do not seem like they would be is we know what the collective Lakers look like in games that actually matter, but just speaking for the regular season, there is nothing really indicating that the Warriors were worse off outside of Steph.

On the other hand, this is a Lebron-specific criticism/comparison, because in isolation I think Steph at #8 is a fair and principled rank. I joked about it, and then that joke was unexpectedly proved correct: people are down on Curry mostly just because he had Chris Paul as his backup. Put Curry in Brunson’s place and he would have been top five in MVP voting. Brunson is a more controlled passer than Curry, and this year at least he offered more defensive resistance than Curry did, but he is still an overall worse scorer and playmaker who like most mediocre guard defenders would look a lot worse defensively if he had not been playing with one of the deepest wing rotations in the league.

While some of the stagnation has made me roll my eyes — never forget how Ben put Durant fourth last year — in general I support Ben’s willingness to stay honest about which players he would trust as the foundation of a title team rather than just rank players off some all-in-one aggregation.

[tsherkin]

Steph being too high stands out the most, wouldn’t take him over LeBron on either list

At full health I’m definitely putting Embiid #1

Ben’s Curry fetish. He wasn’t that Curry this year.

But if he wasn't that guy than WHO was good on the Warriors? Much has been made of the demise of both Thompson and Wiggins. Draymond was suspended a quarter of the season. Chris Paul missed his yearly 20 games.

The difference between the Warriors being out of the playoffs and the Lakers being in the playoffs is 1 game.

I don't believe the Lakers supporting cast is so bad that the Lakers can have two guys on the top 10 and be a play-in team.


Is Looney, Trayce Jackson-Davis, Podziemski, Kuminga that much better than Vincent, Vanderbilt, Prince, Russell, Reaves?

Steph wasnt 2015-18 Steph but he was definitely still nasty this year. The D had fallen apart, but they were still a top 8 offense.

[jalengreen]

Steph post-ASB (24 games) put up 23/5/5 on 57% TS% - definitely did not look his normal self. But the team managed to go 16-8 in that span, with Wiggins playing better (closed the season being decent after being horrendous prior) and Draymond back (still a high impact player; theres a reason all the negative discourse about him is regarding his antics and not his on-court play like Klay). Ultimately I don’t think his cast was all that bad, especially with the great picks of Podz and TJD. Not a championship roster though.

He’s had slumps before so not a huge deal, but I’d understand some concern given his age. It’s already impressive how good he is currently at 36. I don’t expect that to last much longer tbh

In any case, I don’t mind giving players like Steph the benefit of the doubt. It’s probably the best approach, in fact. What’s hard for me to understand is when people do that for Steph but leave LeBron lower when he was … better? But I didn’t listen to the segment fwiw, just reacting to the ranking

[PistolPeteJR]

Steph post-ASB (24 games) put up 23/5/5 on 57% TS% - definitely did not look his normal self. But the team managed to go 16-8 in that span, with Wiggins playing better (closed the season being decent after being horrendous prior) and Draymond back (still a high impact player; theres a reason all the negative discourse about him is regarding his antics and not his on-court play like Klay). Ultimately I don’t think his cast was all that bad, especially with the great picks of Podz and TJD. Not a championship roster though.

He’s had slumps before so not a huge deal, but I’d understand some concern given his age. It’s already impressive how good he is currently at 36. I don’t expect that to last much longer tbh

In any case, I don’t mind giving players like Steph the benefit of the doubt. It’s probably the best approach, in fact. What’s hard for me to understand is when people do that for Steph but leave LeBron lower when he was … better? But I didn’t listen to the segment fwiw, just reacting to the ranking

Is that really hard to understand?

[Lou Fan]

Love seeing AD get some credit he always gets overlooked nowadays even though he's probably the best American basketball player in the league right now

[PistolPeteJR]

Love seeing AD get some credit he always gets overlooked nowadays even though he's probably the best American basketball player in the league right now

For the last two years people have been saying healthy AD has a greater impact than LeBron. Problem is his lack of availability the last few years, and then this year he stayed on the court very well.