NBCSports.com’s 5 best players in 5 years

[Johnny Firpo]

Giannis and AD, I agree with.
Joker, okay, I ca give you that.
Luka, not there yet.

Zion? please. Give him at least one season before anointing him a top 5 player.

No one is anointing anyone, this is a guess for 5 years into the future. If Luka or Zion ever become top 5 players, chances are they are going to be there in 5 years. That's pretty much the start of his peak for Luka, and Zion would be one year away.

It's just dumb to blindly put him there before a game, even if it's just a projection. Luka on the other hand has shown every bit of talent to be an MVP caliber player in the future and a realistic top 5 player. He has one of the most complete/mature rookie skillsets we have ever seen and his IQ is off the charts. Nothing about Zion is proven yet. He's an all time ATHLETE who dominates inferior athletes. Let's see how he does in the NBA when he can no longer outrun, out-jump and push people around in the paint. He doesn't have the IQ/handles/playmaking ability that made people so sure about Lebron.

Again it actually isn't even a sure thing that he ends up being better than prime Blake Griffin.

I agree that on Zion's part it isn't necessarily an educated guess, I mean, how could it be? But at the same time, if they feel he is an amazing prospect, they kind of have to put him in there somewhere, right?

[OkcSinceSGA]

No one is anointing anyone, this is a guess for 5 years into the future. If Luka or Zion ever become top 5 players, chances are they are going to be there in 5 years. That's pretty much the start of his peak for Luka, and Zion would be one year away.

It's just dumb to blindly put him there before a game, even if it's just a projection. Luka on the other hand has shown every bit of talent to be an MVP caliber player in the future and a realistic top 5 player. He has one of the most complete/mature rookie skillsets we have ever seen and his IQ is off the charts. Nothing about Zion is proven yet. He's an all time ATHLETE who dominates inferior athletes. Let's see how he does in the NBA when he can no longer outrun, out-jump and push people around in the paint. He doesn't have the IQ/handles/playmaking ability that made people so sure about Lebron.

Again it actually isn't even a sure thing that he ends up being better than prime Blake Griffin.

I agree that on Zion's part it isn't necessarily an educated guess, I mean, how could it be? But at the same time, if they feel he is an amazing prospect, they kind of have to put him in there somewhere, right?

I predict he will be a perennial all star and top 10 ish player. This HOF level prospect/MVP caliber guy talk is way too much for me. I've watched the film on him. I see a guy who was a man playing among boys. I see him as a really good all around player, not an MVP level guy. I haven't seen enough in his offense to think he can generate his own offense reliably at the NBA level and be a go to player. He may be more of a jack of all trades, LaMarcus Aldridge caliber big. Not same style of play but multi time all star, elite 2nd option type who does a bit of everything.

[Buzzard]

i found some similar lists from 2012 andd 2013 respectively, let's see how they hold up

bleacher report's sam cooper in november 2012
20. greg monroe
19. brandon jennings
18. andrew bynum
17. lamarcus aldridge
16. carmelo anthony
15. deron williams
14. james harden
13. anthony davis
12. rajon rondo
11. damian lillard
10. demarcus cousins
9. blake griffin
8. derrick rose
7. russell westbrook
6. kyrie irving
5. chris paul
4. kevin love
3. dwight howard
2. lebron james
1. kevin durant

drew corrigan on uproxx's 15 best in 5 years, from 2013:
15. russell westbrook
14. damian lillard
13. marcus smart
12. julius randle
11. andre drummond
10. blake griffin
9. jabari parker
8. james harden
7. kevin love
6. andrew wiggins
5. kyrie irving
4. paul george
3. anthony davis
2. lebron james
1. kevin durant

Classic to have Marcus Smart and Jennings there.

Dwight Howard, Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving in the top five are the biggest misses to me. They are not misses because of major injuries, they are misses because they just don't belong there.

[GeorgeMarcus]

Zion may never be a top 10 player in the league. His overrating by media and fans alike is staggering to me. This guy projects out somewhere between Julius Randle and Blake Griffin IMO. Sure he may be a more all around player, but I also think offensively he could be more challenged than these two guys even in 5 years due to his size/length. I will be stunned if he's a top 5 player at any point.

You are underrating Zion, friend. His projected defensive impact is far greater than Griffin or Randle. If those guys were elite defenders they would be MVP candidates.

You didn't read my post. He is a better all around player, but likely a worse offensive player. I do not seeing him at peak Blake Griffin level offensively where he's a 25/10/5 type player who is elite in post scoring efficiency, really good with the mid and now 3 point range. Griffin also has amazing handles and court vision for his size. This is proven against the best in the NBA, not small college players he can manhandle at will.

He will be a better defender, but at the NBA level his defense won't be as good IMO due to his lack of length. We've seen it for decades, short armed bigs have trouble defending at the NBA level. If you put him at SF... he's not going to be able to utilize that physicality anyway and could be prone to fouling out often on much longer guys like Kawhi/PG/Giannis/Lebron etc. If you put him in the paint he's not blocking many shots or defending the rim with his size/length.

We disagree on his offensive potential. When you say perennial All-Star/top 10 guy though, that is HoF material. Sure he might not take that to the next level and establish himself as an MVP level player, but he doesn’t need to get there to validate the hype imo.

[lakerz12]

Kinda weird they are confident enough in AD’s health to put him #2, but use injuries to drop Embiid out of the rankings. Counting playoff games Embiid played more games than AD the last 2 years, despite the B2B rest days and freak orbital fracture.

So we're just going to pretend that AD and the Pelicans didn't agree to have him sit 15-20 games last year even though he could have played. And also pretend that AD wouldn't have amounted more Playoff games the past 2 years if he played in the East.

Seems like some biased calculations you did there.

[GeorgeMarcus]

Kinda weird they are confident enough in AD’s health to put him #2, but use injuries to drop Embiid out of the rankings. Counting playoff games Embiid played more games than AD the last 2 years, despite the B2B rest days and freak orbital fracture.

So we're just going to pretend that AD and the Pelicans didn't agree to have him sit 15-20 games last year even though he could have played. And also pretend that AD wouldn't have amounted more Playoff games the past 2 years if he played in the East.

Seems like some biased calculations you did there.

AD requested to be traded a month after his injury. Most of the games he sat out wasn’t because of the Pelicans.

[OkcSinceSGA]

You are underrating Zion, friend. His projected defensive impact is far greater than Griffin or Randle. If those guys were elite defenders they would be MVP candidates.

You didn't read my post. He is a better all around player, but likely a worse offensive player. I do not seeing him at peak Blake Griffin level offensively where he's a 25/10/5 type player who is elite in post scoring efficiency, really good with the mid and now 3 point range. Griffin also has amazing handles and court vision for his size. This is proven against the best in the NBA, not small college players he can manhandle at will.

He will be a better defender, but at the NBA level his defense won't be as good IMO due to his lack of length. We've seen it for decades, short armed bigs have trouble defending at the NBA level. If you put him at SF... he's not going to be able to utilize that physicality anyway and could be prone to fouling out often on much longer guys like Kawhi/PG/Giannis/Lebron etc. If you put him in the paint he's not blocking many shots or defending the rim with his size/length.

We disagree on his offensive potential. When you say perennial All-Star/top 10 guy though, that is HoF material. Sure he might take that to the next level and establish himself as an MVP level player, but he doesn’t need to get there to validate the hype imo.

Let me reiterate. He's not a 1st ballot kinda guy. He could get into the HOF in general possibly on a 2nd or 3rd ballot maybe.

[GeorgeMarcus]

You didn't read my post. He is a better all around player, but likely a worse offensive player. I do not seeing him at peak Blake Griffin level offensively where he's a 25/10/5 type player who is elite in post scoring efficiency, really good with the mid and now 3 point range. Griffin also has amazing handles and court vision for his size. This is proven against the best in the NBA, not small college players he can manhandle at will.

He will be a better defender, but at the NBA level his defense won't be as good IMO due to his lack of length. We've seen it for decades, short armed bigs have trouble defending at the NBA level. If you put him at SF... he's not going to be able to utilize that physicality anyway and could be prone to fouling out often on much longer guys like Kawhi/PG/Giannis/Lebron etc. If you put him in the paint he's not blocking many shots or defending the rim with his size/length.

We disagree on his offensive potential. When you say perennial All-Star/top 10 guy though, that is HoF material. Sure he might take that to the next level and establish himself as an MVP level player, but he doesn’t need to get there to validate the hype imo.

Let me reiterate. He's not a 1st ballot kinda guy. He could get into the HOF in general possibly on a 2nd or 3rd ballot maybe.

Fair enough, I wouldn’t scoff at that projection but also don’t consider it his ceiling. He put up 22.6ppg on 70.2 TS% and 12.8 OBPM in the toughest conference in college basketball. Randle put up 15ppg on 56.7 TS% and 4.2 OBPM. I’d say Barkley is a better comparison for what Zion can become offensively.

[lakerz12]

Kinda weird they are confident enough in AD’s health to put him #2, but use injuries to drop Embiid out of the rankings. Counting playoff games Embiid played more games than AD the last 2 years, despite the B2B rest days and freak orbital fracture.

So we're just going to pretend that AD and the Pelicans didn't agree to have him sit 15-20 games last year even though he could have played. And also pretend that AD wouldn't have amounted more Playoff games the past 2 years if he played in the East.

Seems like some biased calculations you did there.

AD requested to be traded a month after his injury. Most of the games he sat out wasn’t because of the Pelicans.

The 12 missed games from February 23rd and on were certainly related to the trade talks. He would have definitely played as many (64 instead of 56) regular season games as Embiid if not for all of the trade hoopla.

The trade request was announced on Jan. 28th.

There's no need to drag AD into discussions about Embiid's health.

[kuclas]

If embiid is still upright and playing 65 plus games in 5 years. He will be number 1 on the list. He’s the big outlier here and probably why they put him at 11. Cause they want to put him at 1.

I think he’s the best player in the league as soon as this year or he maybe out of the league in 3 years. That’s why he’s so perplexing to gauge due to injury history.

But Anthony Davis has been injury prone himself as well. 5 of his 7 seasons. He’s basically played around 65-67 games himself. So last year was not an abnormality. He’s injury prone as well.

[GeorgeMarcus]

So we're just going to pretend that AD and the Pelicans didn't agree to have him sit 15-20 games last year even though he could have played. And also pretend that AD wouldn't have amounted more Playoff games the past 2 years if he played in the East.

Seems like some biased calculations you did there.

AD requested to be traded a month after his injury. Most of the games he sat out wasn’t because of the Pelicans.

The 12 missed games from February 23rd and on were certainly related to the trade talks. He would have definitely played as many (64 instead of 56) regular season games as Embiid if not for all of the trade hoopla.

There's no need to drag AD into discussions about Embiid's health.

I’d think the reasons for doing so are fairly obvious. You can dismiss reasons for AD just like I can dismiss the orbital fracture and FO precautions for Embiid. Projecting injuries on a currently healthy player doesn’t make much sense to me.

[BoogieTime]

Wow, pretty offensive as a Kings fan. Fox at 14 and Bagley in the late 30s?

[TheRealKaboom]

Giannis and AD, I agree with.
Joker, okay, I ca give you that.
Luka, not there yet.

Zion? please. Give him at least one season before anointing him a top 5 player.

No one is anointing anyone, this is a guess for 5 years into the future. If Luka or Zion ever become top 5 players, chances are they are going to be there in 5 years. That's pretty much the start of his peak for Luka, and Zion would be one year away.

It's just dumb to blindly put him there before a game, even if it's just a projection. Luka on the other hand has shown every bit of talent to be an MVP caliber player in the future and a realistic top 5 player. He has one of the most complete/mature rookie skillsets we have ever seen and his IQ is off the charts. Nothing about Zion is proven yet. He's an all time ATHLETE who dominates inferior athletes. Let's see how he does in the NBA when he can no longer outrun, out-jump and push people around in the paint. He doesn't have the IQ/handles/playmaking ability that made people so sure about Lebron.

Again it actually isn't even a sure thing that he ends up being better than prime Blake Griffin.

Luka Doncic is horribly inefficient and has nonexistent defensive stats. Even as a fantasy player he's undraftable for those reasons. Top 5 players don't have those problems.

Sent from my SM-G973U using RealGM mobile app

[Swish1906]

Luka Doncic is horribly inefficient and has nonexistent defensive stats. Even as a fantasy player he's undraftable for those reasons. Top 5 players don't have those problems.

Sent from my SM-G973U using RealGM mobile app

lol feel free to guess who on the following list is James, Durant, Kawhi, George and Luka

RPG / SPG / BPG
6.4 / 0.7 / 1.1
8.5 / 1.3 / 0.6
7.8 / 1.1 / 0.3
7.3 / 1.8 / 0.4
8.2 / 2.2 / 0.4

[BNM]

Wow, pretty offensive as a Kings fan. Fox at 14 and Bagley in the late 30s?

I wouldn't feel too bad about it. This list is horribly constructed. Jusuf Nurkic, who was 10th in the entire league in PIPM at 24 years old and is one of the top 2-way big men in the league didn't even crack the top 50.

The list is full of high school players and rookies who haven't played a minute of NBA basketball, yet a guy who was already one of the more impactful 2-way players in the league at 24 is nowhere to be seen.

Yeah, he broke his leg. Big deal, so did Paul George and he's still in the top 30 at 34 years old, and all of Klay, Durant, Porzingis are coming back from worse injuries. Klay and KD are also much older, yet no Nurk. What a load of crap. I'm not saying he should/will be above those guys, but he should have at least made the top 50.

[YogurtProducer]

i found some similar lists from 2012 andd 2013 respectively, let's see how they hold up

bleacher report's sam cooper in november 2012
20. greg monroe
19. brandon jennings
18. andrew bynum
17. lamarcus aldridge
16. carmelo anthony
15. deron williams
14. james harden
13. anthony davis
12. rajon rondo
11. damian lillard
10. demarcus cousins
9. blake griffin
8. derrick rose
7. russell westbrook
6. kyrie irving
5. chris paul
4. kevin love
3. dwight howard
2. lebron james
1. kevin durant

drew corrigan on uproxx's 15 best in 5 years, from 2013:
15. russell westbrook
14. damian lillard
13. marcus smart
12. julius randle
11. andre drummond
10. blake griffin
9. jabari parker
8. james harden
7. kevin love
6. andrew wiggins
5. kyrie irving
4. paul george
3. anthony davis
2. lebron james
1. kevin durant

These lists prove why you cannot take these seriously.

Odds are 2 of the top 5 in 5 years aren’t in anyone’s top 10 right now; just like Harden, Curry, Kawhi, and Giannis being on noones list 5 years ago.

[YogurtProducer]

Luka Doncic is horribly inefficient and has nonexistent defensive stats. Even as a fantasy player he's undraftable for those reasons. Top 5 players don't have those problems.

Sent from my SM-G973U using RealGM mobile app

lol feel free to guess who on the following list is James, Durant, Kawhi, George and Luka

RPG / SPG / BPG
6.4 / 0.7 / 1.1
8.5 / 1.3 / 0.6
7.8 / 1.1 / 0.3
7.3 / 1.8 / 0.4
8.2 / 2.2 / 0.4

are the trying to make a point in favour of Luka? Because he has the worst stocks in that list and rebounding isn’t really a defensive stat.

[dorkestra]

1. Simmons








2. Embiid
3. Giannis
4. Fultz
5. Siakam

[Crives]

Luka is going to be great, at least multiple all star appearances.... but I think he is getting way to hyped. 26.4% 3pt % post all star break..

[TheRealKaboom]

1. Simmons








2. Embiid
3. Giannis
4. Fultz
5. Siakam

Fultz.