https://www.nbcsports.com/nba/news/nbcsports-coms-50-best-players-in-5-years-recap-players-25-1
My biggest takeaways are
the soon to be 40 year old LeBron at 40th place. But what’s even crazier is Marvin Bagley is one spot ahead. I think it’s a safe bet to say Bagley will be out of the league before LeBron is.
Steph at 31, KD at 29 and D’Lo at 28. Yeah that’s a big miss. All 3 of them played for the Warriors in the calendar year 2019.
Ben Simmons at 9. We all know the story by now with him. One of the biggest falloffs in NBA history.
Kawhi at 6 and Zion at 5. I don’t doubt that they’re great impact players but they’re just too injury proned to crack the top 10 imo.
They got 3 of the 4 right players in the top 4. Giannis, Luka and Jokic. Depending on who you ask those are the 3 best players entering the upcoming season.
by gridironk
42 Comments
There was once a point where most GMs picked KAT as the guy they would most like to build around. Seeing him 8th here just reminded me of his hype back in then. KAT is a good player but he has definitely disappointed relative to expectations
The insane part is they had 1 guy drafted 2022 or later and it was one of the worst prospect busts in history with Bates. No Paolo, no Chet, no Wemby.
They predicted Embiid at 11, but he worked his way into being top 5 and a perennial MVP candidate. Tough.
Im surprised the writer still has the same job after 5 years at NBC Sports. My guess is AI will have this job in 5 years and definitely in 10.
AD at 2 and SGA at 25 💀
Dude only got 3 of the top 10
Emoni 😢
The disrespect to Bron, KD and Steph is crazy.
These lists are always fun because you really see just how much the NBA changes over the course of 5 years and how hard it is to predict
Love to see who has surprised for better or for worse –
*”Gilgeous-Alexander is more traditional point guard, more game manager, not an explosive isolation specialist who* ***gets buckets”***
Ranked one spot below **John Collins**, crazy what can change in 5 years!
Am I the only one who thinks this is actually a solid list.
I can’t expect a much better one for a prediction of that magnitude.
Many of the failed ones were either super young players (Marvin just had a solid Arookie team) or injuries (Simmons).
Also, most wouldn’t have imagined Lebron being that great at almost 40.
People complain a lot about the top 50 ranking for current players. Imagine predictions of it in 5 years.
There are some obvious outliers like the ones you mentioned, but am I crazy for thinking that the list is actually pretty good?
This is why I chuckle whenever i see “this team is set up to dominate for the next decade”. Things change so quickly in the NBA. Is anyone going to be shocked if OKC doesn’t win a title and can’t afford to keep their core three together?
How about 5 best players in 50 years though?
This is a travesty.
Pat Bev was not rated in the top 5????
Man, did they undervalue the vets then.
This is like watching a bunch of people who still think players age like it’s 1996 prognosticate on the future.
Proof talking heads in sports have no idea what’s going on.
Hey at least they didn’t have Deandre Ayton anywhere on this list.
John Collins at 24 is the one that sticks out to me the most. I understand it, but I’ve kind of forgotten about him since then
Most interesting thing to me is ranking James Harden at 18. I actually really like this placement. He’s very clearly not a top 10 player anymore and that 10-15 range gets really muddy, but I definitely don’t think it’s a stretch to call him top 20. Personally, I would place him somewhere between 15-25. Still an elite playmaker who’s lost a pretty big scoring step, but is overall a very serviceable point guard.
Not quite an all star, but if he made the team (assuming health) it wouldn’t be a huge stretch considering he would probably average 20/10 on good efficiency every night, and also contribute to wins pretty heavily.
My guy Cade snuck into the top 50
Ben Simmons @ 8 😂😂
Bam had a breakout season and 2nd in MIP the season after this article came out. I’m glad it was written!
Not too bad tbh, I believe the only guy out of the 50 that is out of the league is Oladipo
I love that Jaren Jackson Jr. was compared to Chris Bosh when JJJ averaged under 5 rpg starting for team USA in FIBA as a center while Bosh had one of, if not the biggest rebounds in nba finals history. Bosh was a great all around scorer, early unicorn, good to great rebounder and decent defender while JJJ makes his name as a good to great defender with major issues of foul trouble and rebounding.
deangalo russell being like 12 spots higher than lebron is so fucking funny
>**23. Kyrie Irving (Age in 2024: 32)**
Brooklyn will help shape Irving’s legacy — he goes to a playoff team with a strong established culture through coach Kenny Atkinson, an organization with good young players already seen on this list in Jarrett Allen and Caris LeVert. In a year, once healthy, Kevin Durant will join them and form a squad that should be a title contender in the East. The questions abound: How does Irving fit in? How does his game evolve? His leadership skills? *(Kurt Helin)*
Holy shit. I remember those days. We were riding high on the waves of our underdog, immaculate vibes team. We signed Kyrie and Durant to finally push us over the edge. The future looked bright. It only took Irving and Durant two season to get coach Kenny fired, Caris and Jarrett shipped, Nash hired as the “head coach” and our future leveraged to trade for Harden.
There’s no doubt the arrangement of dudes on this list jives with their tool se and upside, but the realization of those skills and converting potential into performance…that’s where the rubber meets the road, as they say.
>Depending on who you ask those are the 3 best players entering the upcoming season.
Whoever says otherwise is wrong. Those 3 are in a separate tier of their own
> Kawhi at 6 and Zion at 5. I don’t doubt that they’re great impact players but they’re just too injury proned to crack the top 10 imo.
I think that’s a really good take, we don’t have to judge a player by his injuries
Considering where the league was in 2019 this is pretty good. Gary Harris is definitely a strange one though. Not sure where they were coming from with that one.
That was dame’s prime and they still put him that low? lol
> I think it’s a safe bet to say Bagley will be out of the league before LeBron is.
Nitpicking but I actually think this may not be true. He’s definitely not that good, but he looked good on the Wizards and probably gets real minutes this year, and if he shows out he could be a nice bench piece for a playoff team to convince themselves on for a low price. He’s still a consistent double double threat
With how Lebron keeps teasing retirement I could see Bagley getting a few more lives in the NBA as a former #2 pick unless he leaves on his own accord
Didn’t have Sabonis cracking the top 50?! Haters.
I don’t like how yall bring revisionists about Ben Simmons. He was special. Handle, speed, passing, general athleticism, and defense were all solid 8s across the board. If (if if if, I know) he shot 40% from mid range, we’d be arguing about him being top ranked and a potential face of the league.
Lauri being on here despite being not really showing anything at that point in his career ended up being a good take.
Lol Ben Simmons
Where did Gary Harris at #38 even come from? At the time this was written he was coming of a pretty down year, in both ppg and 3%, it seems like just a random guess.
Where’s Patrick Beverly? The next five years were his
Beal was ranked 17th.
Shai at 25 (4 spots below Ayton lol) is a pretty big miss. Overall not that bad, though, for five years out.
As a Kings fan, I was mildly surprised to see Fox getting his due respect and being listed in the top 15. His placement is pretty accurate imo.
But I’m actually kinda shocked Sabonis isn’t on the list at all. His first couple years were nothing special, but this article was written right before the 19-20 season where he got his first all-star selection. In 18-19 he was a MIP candidate and came 2nd in 6moty voting. His basketball pedigree is obvious. I can’t imagine people didn’t have him on their radar at all at that time especially considering there are a few players on the list who were rookies and/or not even drafted yet. Now he’s absolutely a top 20 player and, at least last year, was top 10 for All-NBA.
On the other end of the spectrum, Marvin Bagley lmfao. What an absolute fucking bum. I can see predicting him being decent after his rookie year, but if you watched the team closely you could already see issues and by year 3 it was obvious he would never be a good NBA player. (Would have probably been obvious in year 2 but he missed basically all of it.)
Where’s Ant man?! List is more interesting for who was excluded.
>I think it’s a safe bet to say Bailey will be out of the league before LeBron is.
I wouldn’t say so. Bagley can have a TT/DeAndre/Drummond career as a journeyman backup big.