NBArank reveals their top 10 players for the upcoming 2024 season.

[dankok8]

You can rate him based on whatever criteria you want. My assessment comes from what I value, which is comfortability and consistency in big games/series.

Giannis had a very uneven playoff run before that Phoenix series. If they build the wall it’s entirely possible his legacy is completely different. This is not some absurd hypothetical that if Phoenix could break all the rules of the game and summon the Heavens, THEN theyd have stopped him. “Building the Wall” had been a proven way to disrupt G from playing his optimal game. Other teams had success doing it. They just didnt do it. Im not saying it shuts him down, Im saying it stops him from belligerently dominating them the way he did. And the proof is in the fact he didnt have a series like that vs anyone else. Other top guys dont really have a strategic kryptonite like that.

It’s just… what it is. It’s nothing personal. I dont dislike Giannis by any means. I just think context matters. His awards and championship are great but a favorable situation plays a part in that. If you take situational variables out of it and compare him to similar peers on a similar level, he doesnt rank as highly IMO.

An uneven playoff run where before the Finals he averaged 28.2/12.7/5.2 on 57.3 %TS while probably being the best defender in the league as well. The only thing you can hold against him is missing two games against the Hawks. 2021 Giannis is one of the highest peaks in NBA history by any objective measure.

I would have ranked Jokic #1 but Giannis ahead of him is not a travesty. Dood is that good.

[aj1987]

Curry at #5 is just insane. Too high.

[FultzNationRISE]

An uneven playoff run where before the Finals he averaged 28.2/12.7/5.2 on 57.3 %TS while probably being the best defender in the league as well. The only thing you can hold against him is missing two games against the Hawks. 2021 Giannis is one of the highest peaks in NBA history by any objective measure.

I would have ranked Jokic #1 but Giannis ahead of him is not a travesty. Dood is that good.

It WAS uneven if you watched it tho, which I remember doing. Thats why they needed 7 games vs Nets with no Kyrie and a gimpy Harden, and won the series by a KD toe. The Hawks also took em to six, and the Hawks havent done shit before of since. The games they lost Giannis was turning the ball over, being clumsy in big moments, and generally looking unreliable.

He’s a dominant athlete the way the game is called today but he’s very limited in basketball skill/instinct. I count this is a drawback when comparing him against the other elites. If the refs happen to be calling a tight game on a given night you cannot be sure he’s gonna find a way to win a game anyway.

[Kblaze8855]

You can rate him based on whatever criteria you want. My assessment comes from what I value, which is comfortability and consistency in big games/series.

Giannis had a very uneven playoff run before that Phoenix series. If they build the wall it’s entirely possible his legacy is completely different. This is not some absurd hypothetical that if Phoenix could break all the rules of the game and summon the Heavens, THEN theyd have stopped him. “Building the Wall” had been a proven way to disrupt G from playing his optimal game. Other teams had success doing it. They just didnt do it. Im not saying it shuts him down, Im saying it stops him from belligerently dominating them the way he did. And the proof is in the fact he didnt have a series like that vs anyone else. Other top guys dont really have a strategic kryptonite like that.

It’s just… what it is. It’s nothing personal. I dont dislike Giannis by any means. I just think context matters. His awards and championship are great but a favorable situation plays a part in that. If you take situational variables out of it and compare him to similar peers on a similar level, he doesnt rank as highly IMO.

Got it. Requiring 4 defenders(on the ball plus the “wall”) is suggestive of a negative not being unstoppable. Every other player who has ever necessitated a gimmick defense to keep them from running wild it was because they were great. Not this time though. “Just stick 4 guys on him god….he’s not good with 4 people on him!”. Excellent point.

And having lost before you won, and after you won, doesn’t prove there is some magic trick to besting the greatest players of all time. Jokić didn’t win until he won, and he’s going to not win a lot from here on. That’s how it goes. But once you prove it, it’s proven, and it can’t be taken away no matter what anybody thinks.

The whole “It’s been proven….” Thing is completely flipped on its head because once you win, it’s proven what you do can win, and the rest is just talk.

[FultzNationRISE]

Got it. Requiring 4 defenders(on the ball plus the “wall”) is suggestive of a negative not being unstoppable. Every other player who has ever necessitated a gimmick defense to keep them from running wild it was because they were great. Not this time though. “Just stick 4 guys on him god….he’s not good with 4 people on him!”. Excellent point.

Except theyre not guarding him. Theyre standing under the basket, and that basically forces him to either give the ball up or make everyone in the arena buckle up for a roller coaster ride as he attempts to hit basic jump shots.

Other all time greats just dont come with that kind of uncertainty.

[Kblaze8855]

And yet not a single one of them accomplished a single thing of note that he didn’t already. It’s great that you think somebody who has scored like 30 a game for five years can be simply made ineffective by the constant vigilance of four people, but if it were a valid tactic that wouldnt be adjusted to he wouldn’t be a 30 ppg scorer in the first place.

Teams do enough of it and his team would get so good playing 4 or 5 out they’d be bombing you like shooting drills.

The problem with the idea that because they have lost other times you simply replicate that and they lose forever shouldn’t even need explaining. Everyone loses most times. Great enough players break through eventually…sometimes. All you can do is be good enough to break through when the chances there. He obviously was and that’s all there is to it.

People have been thinking stopping all-time greats is simple because of some gimmick when they didn’t win for 100 years. No tactic is that effective. Yea just stand 3 guys in the paint vs teams with centers who shoot threes. Now add Dame who has 40 foot range. And consider the guy on the ball isn’t Kwahi Leonard and the “Wall” isn’t a DPOY and DPOY runner up.

See how that goes. There’s a reason all the simplistic tactics used against GOATs aren’t used all the time. Everything has an obvious flaw that depends on an nba team not exploiting it.

No different than Hack a Shaq. Easy stop. Stopped him all the way to 4 titles. Hell they tried that too and Giannis started hitting free throws like Mark Price and dropped 50.

If all this were simple they’d just Google solutions and not hire coaches. None of these fan tactics are as sound or as simple as they believe. Video scouts aren’t working 16 hour days in the playoffs for coaches to build a game plan without someone having the bright idea of putting the whole team in the paint to slow one guy on a team full of shooters.

That person was probably just called a moron because those things are personnel dependent and they could also pull up 38 examples of the opponent already having figured out what to do about it.

[FultzNationRISE]

Hey listen, it aint my fault Lebron set the bar so high. I have no control over that. If we were comparing Giannis to the standard set by MJ, then there might be a case. But I need more than that. I cant have a guy who has clear weaknesses being called a top 2-3 player. Top 5 is the highest I can go. Again, if you got a problem with that, put it on Lebron. Cuz he lifted the bar that high. He set the expectation for being elite in both statistics AND eye test. The eye test tells me G isnt quite there. It is what it is. Deal with it.

[Akeem34TheDream]

The obsession with lists is extremely gay.

I agree 100%. But its the same for me with all time rankings too.

[dankok8]

Kblaze dropping knowledge as usual.

While I can agree that peak Giannis is quite not a GOAT level player, he is probably a lot closer than people want to admit. The numbers that he's been putting up on top of the kind of defense he plays is a very rare occurrence in NBA history.

[Wally450]

Good top 5, I'd put Jokic at 1 and Giannis at 2 though.

[Jasper]

I do not like Tatum even being in the top 10.
horrible.

Joker deserves number #1 because he won it all last year.

Giannis and Joel are right there though.
Amazing we all thought bigs would not impact the league top three say differently.