This placement will wind up selling him short if he works a league-average-ish three-pointer into his repertoire—he chucked triples at Disney—or the Blazers defense creeps into the top 15 riding the coattails of his drop coverage and heightened ability to stay in front of opposing 5s who put the ball on the deck. Defense may dictate Michael Porter Jr.'s opportunities in his sophomore campaign. He’s currently 12 th and 14 th in RPG (10.2) and BPG (1.5) respectively, but he ranks outside the Top 50 in … 2020 NBA Players. It is also dramatized. Haven't made the list yet. They mortgaged their future to the moon and back for a player capable of entering the race for Defensive Player of the Year and MVP in the same season, and who assures a level of championship viability just by stepping on the floor. Yet where anecdotes may have once fueled his place within these exercises, they're now more like sweeteners. He is both hefty and handy: light on his feet, heavy with his shoulders. And out of 117 players who finished with at least 50 such attempts, OG Anunoby (!) Yawn. He's good, but he is at least 5-10 spots too high. Leveraging catch-and-shoot touch alongside ultra-deep off-the-dribble jumpers, a rock-solid floater and open-floor passing will only expand Young's impact. Jan 9, 2021. The Pistons will presumably give him the opportunity to create for himself, perhaps even for others. Not only does he have two postseason series-winners under his belt, but when the Portland Trail Blazers needed an 11th-hour push to make the playoffs last year, amid unprecedented circumstances and after four-plus months offs, he went volcanic inside the Disney bubble. Even as Davis at times outshined him during the Disney restart, the Lakers' title hopes always came back to LeBron. By Benjamin Zweiman and Ameer Tyree Updated Dec 19, 2020, 2:20pm PST Trying to figure out how the next phase of Kevin Durant's career will begin is a task that invites a maddening mix of indecision and self-loathing. Looping Kyrie Irving outside the league's overall top 25, let alone the top 15 guards, is awfully debatable and overwhelmingly awkward. George hasn't exactly done himself many favors. Peak George melds the line of a No. Age and an undefined opportunity with the rebuilding Oklahoma City Thunder could mean the regression continues. Chiqui Esteban. And yet, that attempt at flattery has inadvertently become a pigeonhole. It seems like Aaron Gordon is used differently, and inexpertly, on offense every single year. How much wiggle room VanVleet has from here is questionable. There is no good comparison for his situation because he's a player beyond analogy: essentially a wing with the size of a center and the handles of a guard. So, too, does Doncic's finishing. It also endures. Err on the side of "hell no" here. Gilgeous-Alexander averaged 19 points per game last season on more self-sustaining usage. One down year changes a lot. The unconventional point guard from Philly opens the final quarter of our Top 100 NBA players as the 25 th ranked player this season. Reaching the rim—and improving his free-throw-attempt rate—is almost entirely a matter of maintaining his dribble rather than settling for contested baby jumpers and turnarounds. Striking some semblance of offensive continuity is all that separates Turner from the titanic leap Indiana has spent years waiting on. He makes threes of all stripes: from standstill positions, off motion, outside 27 feet, even within ultra-tight spaces. That's an unrealistic workload, which should hopefully be reduced by the improved health of Sabonis and Victor Oladipo as well as the expected emphasis on connecting one action to the next with free-flowing, egalitarian ball and player movement. Antetokounmpo alone is the top-five player who opts against choosing his spots. That he canned 46.6 percent of his pull-up jumpers inside the arc after the turn of calendar is encouraging but not everything. Turner remains a shot-blocking, floor-spacing 5 even if he doesn't change. If not for injuries that figure to limit their availability or cost them the entire season, each of these players would've received top-100 consideration: Apologies to the NBA rookies for giving them the boot. He ended 2019-20 as a meme. It speaks to the bar set for George that last season, playoffs collapse aside, is considered a disappointment. A ridiculous 43 percent of his shot attempts last season came at the basket, and only 12 players averaged more drives per game. Opportunity is part of the evaluation process, and his is not assured. At 35, he's entering his 15th season and coming off right shoulder surgery that prevented him from joining San Antonio inside the Disney bubble. However, until proven otherwise by Oladipo's sloppy handle, Brogdon is still the most reliable primary ball-handler on a team lacking in elite perimeter playmaking, which means he needs to be able to hit off-the-dribbles threes with improved accuracy to thin out traffic at the nail and avoid being prioritized as a driver, especially now that teams have written the book on forcing him to his weak-hand.". He buried 50 percent of his pull-up treys (11-of-22) through five playoff appearances. He is a visionary in transition. His 1.24 points per possession as the roll man last season placed in the 76th percentile, and he has ranked lower than the 75h percentile just once since 2015-16 (2017-18). But Jokic's pull over the offense isn't situational. Less explainable is his role, however prominent or accessory, in bungled star partnerships with Dwight Howard, Chris Paul and, most recently, Russell Westbrook. He was barely on that plane in the first place, and the devastating left leg and ankle injuries he suffered in 2017, along with all the other issues he's dealt with since, have inherently lowered his bar. Giving him complete control, even amid pristine spacing, still invites wild-card moments. Holiday will get his reps; he might even get more now that the Bucks rotation no longer stretches roughly 80 playable bodies. In the playoffs, the only player who finished with a higher time of possession than Brogdon in the first round was offensive maestro Luka Doncic, and in the absence of Domantas Sabonis, only Denver's Nikola Jokic's bested him in passes per game. The 43 percent clip he's posted from downtown since 2016-17 leads all players who have launched at least 1,300 long-range attempts. Robert Covington is a finishing touch actualized, the player teams pine for when they plan to be really good, because he only ever nudges them further in that direction. If that includes having Leonard match or exceed his pick-and-roll volume from last season, or expecting him to hit a higher percentage of his off-the-bounce threes (34.2 percent), then fine. Put another way: his best moments weren't lightning in a bottle, and not much has to change for him to make a big jump other than better availability. It's likewise possible he picks up where he left off from beyond the arc with the Heat (44.5 percent clip).