Milwaukee Bucks vs. Denver Nuggets

Milwaukee Bucks vs. Denver Nuggets

In the summer of 2019, when we weren’t heading to the movies to see “Avengers: Endgame” or staying home to watch the final season of “The Good Place,” the NBC Sports basketball team decided to answer a simple question:

Who would be the best players of summer 2024?

It may be a simple question, but there was no easy answer. Looking back, we had many successes, but also three huge failures. The group of us at the time – myself, Dan Feldman, Tom Haberstroh And Rob Dauster — we agreed on some points, disagreed on others, and finally settled on this list.

Top 10 projected players in 2024:

1. Giannis Antetokounmpo
2. Anthony Davis
3. Luka Doncic
4 Nikola Jokic
5. Zion Williamson
6. Kawhi Leonard
7. Karl-Anthony Towns
8. Donovan Mitchell
9. Ben Simmons
10. Trae Young

Let’s start with the mistakes, the three big misses on this list, and all for mostly the same reason: we thought age would hit them harder.

LeBron James. We thought his skills and fitness would degrade much more than they did, which is why he was ranked 40th (just before the season he turned 40). We thought he might be retired by now, we didn’t predict another ring, another Finals MVP award, and five more All-NBA seasons still awaiting him in 2019. LeBron proved us wrong, and that longevity of high-level play is a big part of his GOAT case.

Kevin Durant. He was demoted to No. 29 because “Durant is on the wrong side of 30 and has a torn Achilles tendon.” We underestimated his recovery. Durant has rebounded better than we would have thought at the time, but in hindsight, ranking him one spot below D’Angelo Russell (No. 28) seems foolish. (Plus, ranking Russell No. 28 was one of our biggest mistakes.)

Stephen Curry. He was ranked 31st, though Tom Haberstroh, who wrote about him for this project, said, “I feel like the greatest shooter of all time deserves a higher spot on this list.” He argued that, and Tom was ultimately right. Most of us thought his skills would fade more quickly over time, we didn’t see a 2022 championship where he was named Finals MVP.

• Ugliest pick in the top 10? Ben Simmons, No. 9. That shows how high he was projected just five years ago. When we made this list, he was coming off his first All-Star season and had won Rookie of the Year the season before. The 2019-20 season after this list was published was Simmons’ best, with an All-NBA selection, an All-Defense first team, and an All-Star. When things fell apart for Simmons, they fell apart fast. In June 2021, he let a dunk slip in the playoffs and we all know what happened next. We didn’t see it coming.

• The top four are pretty good, and while second place is a bit high for Anthony Davis, he belongs in the top 10.

• Zion Williamson and Kawhi Leonard, at 5/6, could have been right if they had stayed – or could have stayed – healthy. Alas, that was not the case.

• Towns, Mitchell and Young certainly aren’t top-10 players, but they don’t appear to be flops.

Projected remainder of the top 25:

11. Joel Embiid
12. Jayson Tatum
13. Devin Booker
14. De’Aaron Fox
15. Jamal Murray
16. Jaren Jackson Jr.
17. Bradley Beal
18. James Harden
19. Kristaps Porzingis
20. Pascal Siakam
21. Deandre Ayton
22. Yes Morant
23. Kyrie Irving
24. John Collins
25. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander

• The fact that Shai Gilgeous-Alexander finished 25th shows how much he has exceeded expectations: everyone knew he would be good (Doc Rivers will be happy to tell you about it), but not at MVP level. Credit to him for the work he put in and his progression.

• Joel Embiid has also exceeded expectations, as he would be a top-5 (probably top-3) pick if we were to rank the best players today. He has remained mostly healthy over the past two seasons and has been a dominant force.

• Jayson Tatum also exceeded expectations; don’t tell Steve Kerr.

• One of the most difficult parts of this operation was trying to project high school and college players. For example, we didn’t have Anthony Edwards on the roster — he was preparing to start his lone season at Georgia and wasn’t on our radar, at least not to become the player he became. Victor Wembanyama It was more of a whisper, a rumor about a great kid in France with skills, we had no idea at the time what he was going to become.

The only high school student to make the top 50, the one we expected to stand out from the crowd? Emoni Bates.

• The expectation was that Harden and Beal would lose some of his power with age, but that decline with Beal could be more pronounced than expected. It will be interesting to see how he rebounds and meshes with Durant and Booker this season in Phoenix.

• We were more optimistic about John Collins than we should have been.

Jaren Jackson Jr. He’s higher on our list than he is on a list of the game’s best players, but he won Defensive Player of the Year just a few years ago. He’s poised for a nice bounce-back season, as is Ja Morant, who should be higher on this list if healthy.

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