Brick by Brick: The Unlikely Road

The oldest active player on our top 100 is none other than LeBron James. Here is the rest of the list of players on the list since LeBron entered the league:

• Manu*, Wade, Bosh
• LeBron
• CP3
• Dwight
• Durant
• Westbrook
• Curry
• Harden
• Westbrook
• Davis
• Kawhi
• Paul George
• Lillard
• Butler
• Klay
• Draymond
• Giannis
• Embiid
• Jokic
• Kyrie and Gobert

There are 16 active players currently on our top 100, plus Carmelo and Dwight, who are unsigned. There are also 3 players — Bosh, Wade, and Manu*, who played their entire pyramid-worthy careers within this window as well. I’ll also throw in Kyrie and Gobert, sitting just outside our top 100. That comes to a sum total of 23 players.

• *Manu was drafted in 1999 but didn’t play in the NBA until the 02–03 season

Since the LeBron/Melo/Wade/Bosh clan entered the league in 2003, there have been 19 other NBA drafts. So that is just over 1 player per year, expected to make the list. However, do not forget that the most recent players on the list to be drafted are Embiid and Jokic in 2014. So, within a 12 year span, there are 23 players to crack the Pyramid. Just under 2 per year.

Now, how can we use this data to project for future players? The arguments swing multiple ways. On one hand, the longer a sport exists, the more great players are competing for 100 spots. Prior generations players like Chris Mullin and Vince Carter have been bumped down/off. We see this with how competitive baseball’s historic lists are, battling against 140 years of established professional competition. It’s really hard to crack that list. On the other hand, there are MVPs and championships that have to be one, and thus someone has to fill the void of ‘best player of a generation’. There can’t be a generation without great players within it.

The sample sizes are so small — with the evolution of the game, player injuries and other reasons for falling short of potential, and many other factors, it’s hard to gather much helpful knowledge from prior generations. It only takes a couple players (see the late 70s and late 90s) to skew the sample. There are plenty of old players that were talented enough to crack this list and didn’t, thus making it easier for the current generation.

We see an incredible amount of talent in the league today. *Brian Windhorst voice* — Now why is that? Is it evolving science and training? Is it evolving playstyles and spacing make it somewhat ‘easier’ to be decent to good? Is it a sheer coincidence, that the babies born from about 1985–2003 just happen to be more talented, or utilized their talent better? Is it that we are better discovering the larger talent pool in other parts of the world? It’s some combination of (maybe all of) those variables.

Now, is 23 players in 12 years a lot? Who’s to really say. It feels like a lot to me. As mentioned, it will only get harder, and so perhaps with continual talent growth, it will remain the same? OR, with more talent, comes greater parity, and the good players cannibalize each others awards, and hold each other back from being as head and shoulders above their peers. It can swing both ways. Every generation is different. There are no current players from the 2015 draft, who now have 7 (basically) full seasons under their belt. LeBron and Wade were both comfortably already on this list by the time they were 7 seasons in.

23 players divided by 12 years comes out to about 1.9 players drafted per year making this list:

• So, the past 8 drafts (2015–2022 ) X 1.9 players per year = 15 players we could reasonably expect to make this list.

Here are the most likely candidates at the moment.

• KAT
• Booker
• Tatum
• Mitchell
• Bam
• Doncic
• Young
• Zion
• Morant
• Cade
• Mobley
• Jalen Green
• Barnes
• Edwards
• Ball

That’s 15 players right there. That’s before we add the top five from this years class (Paolo, Chet, Jabari, Keegan, Ivey — who we counted in our math). Now, we intuitively know that not all of these players will fulfill the hopes their respective fanbases have for them. Some will plateau. Some will get injured. Some will never be on good enough teams. Some will bounce around teams too much. And there are only a finite amount of MVPs, All NBAs, and NBA wins to go around.

We also know that it is not strictly the best players who rise to the top — achievements are encompassed within greatness, and therefore players who gather such achievements stand out. Draymond and Klay are two obvious ones here. Manu, Bosh, and Kyrie, are also in the mix as “weaker” players who benefitted from team success.

There are plenty of other players worth mentioning to the 20 names we already have. Lavine, Simmons, Jaylen Brown, Ingram, Dejounte Murray, Jamal Murray, Siakam, MPJ, SGA, Garland, Jaren Jackson Jr., Franz, Poole, Herro, Haliburton, Ayton, and others. That’s 20 more right there. So we’re now at 40 total, with others coming to mind quickly I’m sure.

We intuitively know that not 40-ish players in a seven year span are going to crack a top 100, but it’s had to imagine that the vast majority will end up disappointing (relatively speaking) in comparison to their current projections. The benefit of hindsight makes things more clear.

If we did this exercise in 2012, would Blake Griffin, John Wall, and Kyrie Irving all not be amongst the very top betting favourites to crack the 100? Where would Beal, DeMarcus Cousins, or Tyreke Evans land? Derrick Rose? Kevin Love? Andre Drummond? They’d all be up there. You just don’t know. Conversely, how could we have predicted Giannis, Jokic, or other low draft picks? Even Embiid was a massive longshot after missing his first two seasons, and playing 31 games in his third. How long were the odds on Curry to be, hell — not even pantheon or top 30 player — but top 75 players, in 2012? What about Kawhi, Lillard, or Butler? You just don’t know.

That means that — more than likely — there are names we don’t know, or barely know at this point, that will develop into some form of a superstar. It’s just how it’s always worked. Fast forward to 2017. Siakam wouldn’t be on the list of betting favourites. Porzingis would be. KAT would feel like a mortal lock. Wiggins would be in the mix. Lonzo and Fultz would be decent bets.

Here we are, with a predictably unpredictable landscape. Perhaps this is a fruitful effort, even bothering making any sort of list of names. But that is what is fun — prediction and reflection on what you did and didn’t get right, and the road it took to get there. Durant was an early lock that stayed the course, but did anyone think it would look like this? Ditto for CP3, and in one way or another, most players.

Even LeBron, one of the all time safest bets. As consistent as his road and play has been, it’s been an unlikely one. Ever single player on this list, no matter how special coming into the league, or during their time in it, is an unlikely bet. You just don’t know. Again, that’s what makes looking at these 40 some-odd players we listed and analyzing their trajectories so entertaining.