Thinking Basketball Top 10 players of 2025

[jdzimme3]

My interpretation of the question is how would I rank/project the players heading into next season, for just next season.

Tier 1 - jokic, giannis, sga
Tier 2 - luka, wemby, edwards
Tier 3 - curry, brunson, durant, cunningham

[BelgradeNugget]

One question about LeBron, his season and him being on this list. He had great box score numbers, we all know. But I looked deeper behind his numbers and I can say I'm shocked. Here is Lakers NETRTG for the season

Dorian Finney-Smith 11.1
Luka Dončić 8.4
Rui Hachimura 3.9
Austin Reaves 3.8
Jarred Vanderbilt 3.3
D'Angelo Russell 1.5
Gabe Vincent 1.1
Anthony Davis 0.5


LeBron James -1.3

This means all of those Lakers players had much better NETRTG without LeBron. So to make sure, I checked D'Angelo Russell, and here is sad truth

Russell on/LeBron on -4.37
Russell off/LeBron on -0.20
Russell off/LeBron off + 3.26

and check this s*it

Russell on/LeBron off + 13.68

I mean if we saw this numbers for any other player we would't list him as being top 50. So please if anyone has some explanation please elaborate.

EDIT: I just double checked it is in fact LeBron James, not Bronny James
EDIT: for the 24/25 season his NETRTG is 215th (gp>20, min>10) in the league between Scoot Henderson and Zach LaVine

https://www.nba.com/stats/players/advanced?CF=GP*GE*20:MIN*GE*10&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&dir=A&sort=NET_RATING

When I look at LeBron's 2-man combinations he's at +8.9 pp100 with DFS and then there's a big drop down to Rui at +2.1 and then Luka at +1.9.

It's no secret that if you want to get the most out of LeBron (especially late in his career when he's often lazy on D) you need to surround him with shooters who can defend. A secondary playmaker is also desirable so James doesn't have to carry the offense, but it's hard to protect 2 (or more) bad defensive players.

Whether even that's still enough is questionable, but Pelinka has not figured out how to put together a Lakers' roster which can be both top-10 in defense and top-10 in 3pt shooting.

So maybe James can still be a top-10 player under the right circumstances, but have the Lakers made the right moves for that?

I wouldn't project that after they just lost DFS and Pelinka is primarily worried about keeping cap flexibility 2 years from now.

Again

DFS/Rui + 19.46
DFS/Doncic + 13.56
DFS/Reaves + 12.15
DFS/Knecht + 9.01
DFS/Vincent + 8.28

the fact that DFS/LeBron had NetRtg of +8.59 only proves how bad he was. I mean it was the same as DFS/Vincent. If you surround DFS with anybody else and bench LeBron, Lakers are better. LeBron was closer to top 100 player than top 10.

[flranger]

Cunningham and Banchero (and maybe Jdub) have as good a chance at being Top 10 next year as these over 35 old dogs

[CIN-C-STAR]

I don’t understand how anyone who watches games could think Lebron is still top 10 lol
I’d put all those honorable mention guys ahead of him without much hesitation tbh

[tsherkin]

Statistically (box score-wise), Lebron is still hanging around the top 10.

Yeah, but he loses some in his ability to escalate on demand, and his defensive utility is QUITE variable these days, particularly while trying to maintain volume. And you can see in his impact stats that he's tailed off some compared to his younger days, which is entirely normal and expected, obviously.

He's a savvy player and a much-improved shooter compared to his youth which matters a lot. He's a low-volume driver these days, though, but he was also 13th in the league in iso possessions per game. He doesn't spam PnR like he used to when he was younger (or without Luka). He's top-10 in post-up possessions per game. Things which don't require him to move around too much.

His speed/quickness advantage is gone. He's still huge and has great reach, which still has value, but he doesn't have the same capacity to just accelerate past his defender anymore, for sure, and his lift also isn't the same anymore, visibly.

As you say, an interesting one to evaluate. And there have been stretches where he showed he can still defend, but it eats into his offense a lot more than it used to even just a couple seasons back.

[cupcakesnake]

Statistically (box score-wise), Lebron is still hanging around the top 10.

Yeah, but he loses some in his ability to escalate on demand, and his defensive utility is QUITE variable these days, particularly while trying to maintain volume. And you can see in his impact stats that he's tailed off some compared to his younger days, which is entirely normal and expected, obviously.

He's a savvy player and a much-improved shooter compared to his youth which matters a lot. He's a low-volume driver these days, though, but he was also 13th in the league in iso possessions per game. He doesn't spam PnR like he used to when he was younger (or without Luka). He's top-10 in post-up possessions per game. Things which don't require him to move around too much.

His speed/quickness advantage is gone. He's still huge and has great reach, which still has value, but he doesn't have the same capacity to just accelerate past his defender anymore, for sure, and his lift also isn't the same anymore, visibly.

As you say, an interesting one to evaluate. And there have been stretches where he showed he can still defend, but it eats into his offense a lot more than it used to even just a couple seasons back.

I think the stretches where he can still defend are more about his health. Lebron started the season slowly, looking like he took another step back on offense, and looking like a statue on defense. The end never looked nearer. Then he has this incredible 2-way stretch in the middle of the season, where he's dominantly efficient on offense, and suddenly moving around the court again on defense, being a major contributor for a top-performing defense. He's in interviews talking about how great he feels and how he's going to play 5 more years. Unbelievable stuff from a 40-year-old.

Then he injures his groin in March, and that's it for his defensive mobility for the rest of the season. The Lakers never recaptured the defensive spark they showed right after the AD trade, when they famously flummoxing Jokic for the first time ever (that Denver win felt like the highlight of the Lakers season), and beat OKC.

Lebron made a ton of incredible defensive plays in the first round, and if you just focused on that defensive playmaking, you might think Lebron was playing amazing defense in that series. What I saw, though, was the Lakers playing an unsustainably conservative scheme to accommodate too many players (Lebron especially) who couldn't move and needed to stay near the paint. The Lakers had zero shot playing that kind of defense, but it was probably their only/best option. Lebron could not close out on shooters, so they just had to pray the Wolves missed. The Lakers got good opponent shooting luck overall in that series, but the number of open 3s was simply not tenable.

The on/off numbers for Lebron were negative for the first time in his career, so that's going to show up in any impact stat that leans on that data. Sometimes a single season of bad on/off can be noise, or have a lineup-specific explanation. I don't think it's unreasonable for us to just point to age though, unless those numbers immediately bounce back this year. My current belief about Lebron is that you can't win at a high-level using him as one of your primary initiators. He's still an incredible all-around player who can help teams win, but not in the role where he's required to create advantages for himself and others.

[JonFromVA]

One question about LeBron, his season and him being on this list. He had great box score numbers, we all know. But I looked deeper behind his numbers and I can say I'm shocked. Here is Lakers NETRTG for the season

Dorian Finney-Smith 11.1
Luka Dončić 8.4
Rui Hachimura 3.9
Austin Reaves 3.8
Jarred Vanderbilt 3.3
D'Angelo Russell 1.5
Gabe Vincent 1.1
Anthony Davis 0.5


LeBron James -1.3

This means all of those Lakers players had much better NETRTG without LeBron. So to make sure, I checked D'Angelo Russell, and here is sad truth

Russell on/LeBron on -4.37
Russell off/LeBron on -0.20
Russell off/LeBron off + 3.26

and check this s*it

Russell on/LeBron off + 13.68

I mean if we saw this numbers for any other player we would't list him as being top 50. So please if anyone has some explanation please elaborate.

EDIT: I just double checked it is in fact LeBron James, not Bronny James
EDIT: for the 24/25 season his NETRTG is 215th (gp>20, min>10) in the league between Scoot Henderson and Zach LaVine

https://www.nba.com/stats/players/advanced?CF=GP*GE*20:MIN*GE*10&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&dir=A&sort=NET_RATING

When I look at LeBron's 2-man combinations he's at +8.9 pp100 with DFS and then there's a big drop down to Rui at +2.1 and then Luka at +1.9.

It's no secret that if you want to get the most out of LeBron (especially late in his career when he's often lazy on D) you need to surround him with shooters who can defend. A secondary playmaker is also desirable so James doesn't have to carry the offense, but it's hard to protect 2 (or more) bad defensive players.

Whether even that's still enough is questionable, but Pelinka has not figured out how to put together a Lakers' roster which can be both top-10 in defense and top-10 in 3pt shooting.

So maybe James can still be a top-10 player under the right circumstances, but have the Lakers made the right moves for that?

I wouldn't project that after they just lost DFS and Pelinka is primarily worried about keeping cap flexibility 2 years from now.

Again

DFS/Rui + 19.46
DFS/Doncic + 13.56
DFS/Reaves + 12.15
DFS/Knecht + 9.01
DFS/Vincent + 8.28

the fact that DFS/LeBron had NetRtg of +8.59 only proves how bad he was. I mean it was the same as DFS/Vincent. If you surround DFS with anybody else and bench LeBron, Lakers are better. LeBron was closer to top 100 player than top 10.

Nice catch, on the team page, BBR stopped listing Laker's 2 man combos with less than 651 minutes... I'll just caution that when the OnCourt numbers get up that high it's getting in to don't care territory. I mean there's literally nothing bad about a NetRtg of +8.

The question should be how can we get more minutes of that, ... but the Lakers go and lose him.

[tsherkin]

I think the stretches where he can still defend are more about his health. Lebron started the season slowly, looking like he took another step back on offense, and looking like a statue on defense. The end never looked nearer. Then he has this incredible 2-way stretch in the middle of the season, where he's dominantly efficient on offense, and suddenly moving around the court again on defense, being a major contributor for a top-performing defense. He's in interviews talking about how great he feels and how he's going to play 5 more years. Unbelievable stuff from a 40-year-old.

Unbelievable stuff, for sure, but I think age and health are linked in this way as far as capacity to manage load at either end, you know? I know he CAN do it (at least in stretches), but I think he overloaded himself, which contributed to those injuries and slowed him down.

I don't want to tear the man apart, I just think that his body's resilience (even for him) at this age can safely handle only so much workload and that it begins to break down when that load overtaxes him.