Minnesota Sports Forum

https://www.si.com/nba/2017/09/13/top-100-nba-players-2018-kyrie-irving-john-wall-damian-lillard

50 - Wiggins
14 - Towns
11 - Butler

I take rankings with a grain of salt but the T'wolves are getting some respect!

Teague was ranked 55th and Gibson 95th. So whole expected Wolves starting five was ranked to top 100.

Surprisingly Dieng wasn't in top100 even tough it seemed that some other players that performed really well in RPM were ranked pretty high. For example Patrick Patterson was 98th, Patrick Beverley 90th, Danny Green 75th, Cody Zeller 70th, Marcin Gortat 66th, Trevor Ariza 62th and Ricky Rubio 61th.

Even tough these rankings are really subjective, they are pretty funny to read. So I looked the rankings of players in some other teams too and below are some tidbits based on rankings.

There were some other teams with five players in top100 as well. Golden State had Iguadala ranked 45th, Thompson 20th and Green, Curry and Durant in top10. Houston has even 6 players in top100: Anderson 97th, Gordon 83th, Ariza 62th, Capela 58th and both Harden and Paul in top10. San Antonio has also five in top100: Mills 92th, Green 75th, Gasol 65th, Aldridge 31th and Leonard in top10. Even tough Clippers lost CP3 and Reddick, they have still five players in top100: Lou Williams 93th, Beverley 90th, Galinari 42th, Jordan 28th and Griffin 22th. Other western conference teams won't have more than four players ranked in top100 and there was only three other teams: Denver (Chandler 84th, Harris 67th, Millsap 27th and Jokic 25th), Oklahoma (Patterson 98th, Adams 47th, George 12th and Westbrook in top10) and Utah (Hoods 87th, Favors, Rubio 61th and Gobert 15th) that had that many in top100.

Surprisingly there is three teams with five players ranked in top100 in east as well. Cleveland has Thompson 52th, Crowder 44th, Thomas 40th, Love 26th and LeBron in top10. Washington has Morris 79th, Gortat 66th, Porter 53th, Beal 32th and Wall 13th. Biggest surprise was Charlotte. They have Marvin Williams 88th, Dwight Howard 73th, Zeller 70th, Batum 48th and Walker 29th.

Just based on those rankings worst teams next year should be Brooklyn with just Russell 100th ranked to top100, Atlanta with just Schroder 76th, Sacramento with just Hill 63th, Orlando with Payton 96th and Vucevic 89th, Chicago with Lopez 85th and Wade 74th and Indiana with Oladipo 77th and Turner 68th in top100. All other teams have either three players in list or at least their best player has been ranked to top50. It wouldn't surprise me if next season 5 out of 6 worst teams would come from East.

Just checked ESPN NBARank and their list was pretty similar than SI's top100. I guess that only difference between their top30 will be that SI had Horford and Kemba Walker instead of Porzingis and Beal.

It seems that also in ESPN's NBARank Wolves had five players in top100. Dieng performs well in RPM, so they ranked him to 77th, Teague 73th, Wiggins 57th and both Towns and Butler will be in top30. Biggest differencies between player rankings were Malcolm Brogdon ranked 56th in ESPN and not ranked in top100 in SI, Marcus Smart ranked 65th in ESPN and not in top100 in SI, Beverley ranked 50th in ESPN and 90th in SI and Myles Turner ranked 36th in ESPN and 68th in SI. Gortat was ranked 66th in SI and Dwight Howard 73th in SI but neither wasn in top100 in ESPN.

ESPN had four other teams in West with at least 5 players in top100. In addition of Golden State, Houston, San Antonio and Clippers, they had Oklahoma with Roberson 85th, Patterson 76th, Adams 46th and both George and Westbrook in top30.

When did Green become a top ten player?? Hell, not even a top 30 player imo.

sjm34 wrote:When did Green become a top ten player?? Hell, not even a top 30 player imo.

There is more to basketball than scoring. He can defend nearly every position. He is an elite passer. He is smart as hell. He is easily a top 15-20 player IMO.

Q12543 wrote:

sjm34 wrote:When did Green become a top ten player?? Hell, not even a top 30 player imo.

There is more to basketball than scoring. He can defend nearly every position. He is an elite passer. He is smart as hell. He is easily a top 15-20 player IMO.

He's also number 1 in nut sack kicking!

Q12543 wrote:

sjm34 wrote:When did Green become a top ten player?? Hell, not even a top 30 player imo.

There is more to basketball than scoring. He can defend nearly every position. He is an elite passer. He is smart as hell. He is easily a top 15-20 player IMO.

He can only "defend nearly every position" because he is given more leeway in grabbing and bullying his opponents. He isn't an elite passer, he simply has more options on his team. If Green was on the wolves the last few years, you wouldn't even hear his name, other than for the T's he would be whistled for on a regular basis.

Klay Thompson is a top defender on any squad, and also shoots the lights out, but somehow he fell to the mid twenties.

If both of those guys were on the market, who would garner the better offer?

I think GS realizes this as well, and I believe they just drafted his replacement in Bell. If the rookie shows out well in the first half of the season, I expect to see Draymond on the block.

sjm34 wrote:

Q12543 wrote:

sjm34 wrote:When did Green become a top ten player?? Hell, not even a top 30 player imo.

There is more to basketball than scoring. He can defend nearly every position. He is an elite passer. He is smart as hell. He is easily a top 15-20 player IMO.

He can only "defend nearly every position" because he is given more leeway in grabbing and bullying his opponents. He isn't an elite passer, he simply has more options on his team. If Green was on the wolves the last few years, you wouldn't even hear his name, other than for the T's he would be whistled for on a regular basis.

Klay Thompson is a top defender on any squad, and also shoots the lights out, but somehow he fell to the mid twenties.

If both of those guys were on the market, who would garner the better offer?

I think GS realizes this as well, and I believe they just drafted his replacement in Bell. If the rookie shows out well in the first half of the season, I expect to see Draymond on the block.

Not that these rankings are anything but...

DPOY that alone puts you pretty far up there.

This list a significant factor was statistical and in an advanced model like CARMELO he was an MVP candidate and worth over 60 million.

I loath all the antics but the guy is still a really damn good player. Top 20? Idk but these rankings are just kinda fun to look at. Who goes back and degrades them at the end of a season to see how they did? Nobody. So just on that's i question the validity it's just a fun talker.

sjm34 wrote:

Q12543 wrote:

sjm34 wrote:When did Green become a top ten player?? Hell, not even a top 30 player imo.

There is more to basketball than scoring. He can defend nearly every position. He is an elite passer. He is smart as hell. He is easily a top 15-20 player IMO.

He can only "defend nearly every position" because he is given more leeway in grabbing and bullying his opponents. He isn't an elite passer, he simply has more options on his team. If Green was on the wolves the last few years, you wouldn't even hear his name, other than for the T's he would be whistled for on a regular basis.

Klay Thompson is a top defender on any squad, and also shoots the lights out, but somehow he fell to the mid twenties.

If both of those guys were on the market, who would garner the better offer?

I think GS realizes this as well, and I believe they just drafted his replacement in Bell. If the rookie shows out well in the first half of the season, I expect to see Draymond on the block.

I'm not a Draymond Green fan either in terms of his antics, but you are just way underrating his skill level. He is probably the most skilled player in the league at moving his feet, then walling up and contesting shots without fouling in the paint. He is just an incredible defender and the #1 reason Golden State has been one of the top defensive teams over the past three years.

As far as Klay vs. Draymond, I think a team like OKC (before their other moves this summer) would prefer Klay, because of their team needs. But a team like Minnesota (again, before any of their other moves this summer) would hands-down pick Draymond to go along with Wiggins, LaVine, and KAT.