The Best Players in the League THIS SEASON
Hey guys, I've been religiously watching the league for over 20 years and I'd consider myself pretty knowledgeable in the sport. I've done some analytics work and am generally very familiar with the basketball analytics community, and I think I have the ability to effectively break down film and incorporate what analytics tell us about what drives winning to be able to pretty accurately rank the best players in the league today.
This is a list of the top players ranked by current level of on-court impact that can help their team win a championship based on this year's play only, with no historical priors and with health concerns / games played disregarded (as long as a minimal reasonable sample of games have been played). Box score stats, while not irrelevant because they do proxy impact with some degree of accuracy, are not on their own a factor in these rankings - it is instead this impact that we're looking to measure. Essentially, we want to rank the value added to a team's championship equity (how likely is it, based solely on the current merits of this player, that a team with him on it can win a championship?).
I made this list Thinking Basketball-style with ranges listed for each player to the right of their ranking - interpret these as confidence intervals because although we are trying to estimate player impact as accurately as we can, we can never pin it down exactly with 100% certainty. The top end of the range takes a more optimistic view of that player while holding the evaluations of other players constant; the bottom end takes a more pessimistic view of that player while holding the evaluations of other players constant. Some ranges are wider than others, which speaks to my confidence in evaluating that particular player (can vary due to play style, sample size, new developments in their game, etc.)
- Nikola Jokic (1-2)
- Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (1-3)
- Giannis Antetokounmpo (2-4)
- Luka Doncic (3-7)
- Jayson Tatum (4-7)
- Victor Wembanyama (3-9)
- Anthony Davis (5-7)
- Stephen Curry (6-HM(2))
- Karl-Anthony Towns (8-HM(1))
- Darius Garland (9-HM(2))
HMs: (listed in tiers instead of using intervals)
(1) Jalen Brunson, Donovan Mitchell
(2) Jaren Jackson Jr., Evan Mobley, Franz Wagner, Anthony Edwards
(3) LeBron James, Kevin Durant
There are definitely some players right below this tier who you could make an argument for as top ~20 players - again, I'm using ranges so I wouldn't even necessarily disagree with these arguments. For example, I'd give current LeBron roughly a range from 12-22, so while I place him around 17th or 18th as my best neutral evaluation I wouldn't vehemently disagree if you view his current impact level slightly more optimistically or pessimistically than I do. I think Trae Young, Kyrie Irving, Domantas Sabonis, and Devin Booker are a couple of the players who've made excellent cases for HM(3), but there are others too.
I'm happy to expand on these rankings in the comments. I made this list carefully and it took me a lot of film study and analytics work, so I ranked the way I did for a reason.
Thoughts?
Edit: To anticipate some likely complaints - I'm happy to expand on these debates in the comments
Curry too high - No, I'm not going against my own rules and using historical prior indicators of performance. I think he has a wide range this year and while declines in speed, movement, and even in-game shooting ability are noticeable, we are still talking about one of the more impactful offensive players in the league, who improves the Warriors offense by 14 points per 100 possessions this year when he's on the court. I'd give him about a 6-15 range but settled on 8th as a placement.
Durant too low - While the scoring game is still awesome, I think everything else is declining to be completely honest. Relatively worse passing/playmaking and notably worse on defense, more sloppy turnovers, etc. Doesn't get to the rim much and finishes much worse when he does get there. Struggles more with physicality than earlier in his career. Still an excellent player but I actually think his box score overstates his impact at this point.
To clear claims of bias, I'm a Celtics fan and evaluate Tatum pretty neutrally relative to consensus, and I don't think anyone else on the team has made a compelling top 25 case this season. I'd consider myself an unbiased evaluator and love the game above any particular team/player(s). So you can chalk up any discrepancies from your own unbiased evaluations to a simple disagreement in the interpretation of the available film and data.