ESPN is getting down to the top of their NBA player
rankings, and I do enjoy checking this list out. I think it brings some attention to skilled
players who may not always get that notice that they deserve, like Marcin
Gortat at #57 and Ryan Anderson at #50.
It also shows how greatly other players have improved in such a short
period of time. Kenneth Faried advanced
a whopping 260 spots to be ranked #71, and there was also an 83 spot jump up to
#49 for my favorite big man, Greg Monroe.
Of course, I always expect to have some disagreements with a
list like this. Anderson Varejao got
placed at #74, and he’s probably the worst player that starts for an NBA team. There’s one thing about these rankings though
that really got to me, and that’s Kyrie Irving.
After a strong rookie season, Irving hits the rankings at
#22. I know that Kyrie will likely be a
top 20 player one day. In all honesty,
if he works hard and develops his game well enough, he could be top 5 one
day. But right now, Kyrie is just not
that good.
Sure, if I were a GM and had my choice of players to pick
from, he probably would be somewhere in the 20-30 range. When ranking the best players in the league
though, people shouldn’t be considering how many years a player has ahead of
them, or how much they could potentially grow as an athlete. I look at it this way: if we were playing a pick-up game, who would
you want to pick first?
It amazes me how many players Kyrie ranked ahead of that I
wouldn’t hesitate to pick over him in that situation. Players like Andre Iguodala, Paul Pierce,
Rudy Gay and Danny Granger. I’m not at
all a Spurs fan, but I can’t deny that I would scoop up Ginobili over Irving in
a second for a pick-up game. And how on
earth did he rank above James Harden?
Harden’s the 3rd best two-guard in the league,
behind Wade and Kobe. He’s coming off of
a year that saw him winning a gold medal and playing a key part in a team’s run
to the NBA finals. What did Kyrie
do? He led his team to a 0.318 winning
percentage, landing a full 14 games out of a playoff spot. Obviously, Kyrie didn’t have much help out
there, but the Cavs only slightly improved on their record from the season
prior to Kyrie joining the team.
If you put all of the earlier mentioned guys on the court
with Kyrie right now, he’d definitely be the weak link out there. Fans were upset last year when Blake Griffin
cracked the top 10, but I truly think he earned that spot.
Blake could hold his own with anybody on the court. He put up 22.5 points and 12 rebounds his
debut season. Some might argue that he
had a “red shirt,” rookie season of sorts, since an injured knee sidelined him
for his entire first year. Regardless of
any of that, 20+ and 10+ is superstar numbers.
He also takes some flack for being weak at the power forward position. The fact of the matter is he just doesn’t
play the position traditionally. He may
not be able to post up or power through defenders like other big men, but he’s
more athletic than most big men, and it truly pays off for him.
Let me get back to the topic of Kyrie Irving though. He’s got a big future ahead of him. I look forward to watching him become an
elite scorer. Of course as a Pistons
fan, I have to look forward to cheering against a division rival’s superstar as
well. The fact of the matter though, is
that he hasn’t hit that superstar status yet.
To the experts that voted on these player rankings, I say that potential
is something that doesn’t always get fulfilled.
And if you don’t take my word for it, just ask Darko Milicic and Adam
Morrison.
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