Men used to build houses. Now they just rank NBA players on the internet.
ESPN dropped its list of the top-100 players in the NBA this week with the 2024-2025 season right around the corner. It’s important to note that the list is based off “predicted contributions” this season. Victor Wembanyama was certainly not the No. 11 best player in the NBA last season as a rookie, but ESPN has him ranked there based off how they think he will develop this season. That’s reasonable to me. Some of these other rankings are not.
I also marked the most overrated and underrated players on ESPN’s list last year, and feel pretty good about how I performed. Oklahoma City Thunder wing Jalen Williams was certainly much better than the league’s No. 95 player last year (he’s ranked No. 44 on the new list), and Zion Williamson out-performed his No. 57 ranking after finally able to play close to a full season (70 games). I correctly identified that Klay Thompson was overrated at No. 41. My big miss was saying Jaylen Brown was overrated at No. 19. He sure shut me up on the way to winning 2024 NBA Finals MVP.
Here are the big misses on ESPN’s list this year.
Underrated: Herb Jones, F, New Orleans Pelicans
ESPN Rank: 97
Jones has a case as the best non-center defender in the NBA. The 26-year-old Pelicans wing was named First-Team All-Defense last year, and was one of five players in the league to post a steal rate of at least 2.2 percent and a block rate of at least 2.6 percent while playing more than 1,000 minutes. At 6’7 with a 7-foot wingspan, Jones is something close to being one of the NBA’s few five position defenders. The Pelicans believe in his defensive versatility so much that they reportedly plan to start him as their nominal center this season (Williamson may really be New Orleans’ five but Jones will get that matchup plenty of times). Jones also made big strides offensively last season, knocking down 41.8 percent of his three-pointers on 3.6 attempts per game. Jones is certainly a low usage offensive player and still needs to improve his three-point volume, but his energy, activity, motor, and tremendous feel defensively makes him so much more impactful than the league’s 97th best player.
Underrated: Isaiah Hartenstein, C, Oklahoma City Thunder
ESPN Rank: 88
Hartenstein has a massive impact night-to-night by bringing so much to the table without really taking anything off of it. The 26-year-old center is an awesome rim protector, a hyper-efficient scorer, an elite rebounder, and a whip-smart passer as a halfcourt hub. As he assumed the starting center spot for the Knicks last season, Hartenstein ranked No. 2 in defensive EPM, and No. 14 in total EPM. While there’s always some noise in all-in-one impact stats like EPM, the 13 players ahead of him are all legitimate stars. Using ‘true shooting percentage plus’ to measure his scoring efficiency via basketball-reference — where 100 is league average adjusted for each season — his 116 TS+ shows he scored at a hyper-efficient level. Hartenstein doesn’t shoot three-pointers and isn’t a volume scorer (he averaged under 8 points per game this season), but the Thunder thought highly enough of him to give him an $87 million contract this offseason. He’s one of the best ‘connective’ players in the NBA, and a big reason why the Thunder are the Western Conference favorites entering the season.
Underrated: Trae Young, G, Atlanta Hawks
ESPN rank: 37
Injuries limited Young to only 54 games last season, but he would have tied for No. 13 overall in scoring (25.7 points per game) and No. 2 in assists (10.8 assists per game) if he qualified for the official leaderboards. The diminutive point guard is of course a poor defender, but he showed enough improvement on that end last season that he should be out of the “worst defender in the NBA” conversation now. It’s fair to be skeptical of Young because the Hawks haven’t had much team success since he led them to Eastern Conference Finals in 2021, but his mix of scoring and playmaking at ultra-high usage is still good enough to be higher on this list.
Overrated: RJ Barrett, F, Toronto Raptors
ESPN rank: No. 53
Barrett was phenomenal to end after last season after being traded to the Toronto Raptors from the New York Knicks in the OG Anunoby deal. In 32 games with Toronto, Barrett averaged 21.8 points, 4.1 assists, and 6.4 rebounds per game while posting an impressive 61.5 percent true shooting. Those numbers were all significantly better than Barrett’s first 4.5 seasons in the league, so color me skeptical that they are sustainable. For his career, Barrett has generally been an inefficient volume scorer (career true shooting plus of 92 when 100 is average) who struggles to make plays for his teammates, regularly misses free throws (career 71 percent from the foul line), and generally sees his teams perform better when he’s on the bench. I’ve been writing about Barrett since his high school days, and I’m rooting hard for him after the tragic death of his younger brother last year. It would be so cool if Barrett really was something like a top-50 NBA player, but I just can’t buy it.
Overrated: Dejounte Murray, G, New Orleans Pelicans
ESPN rank: 43
Murray is a good player, and a change of scenery this season — he was traded from Atlanta to the Pelicans over the summer — should serve him well. It feels like his reputation is a bit inflated on both ends of the floor at this point, though. Murray was thought to be a very good on-ball defender during his early years in San Antonio, but he graded out terribly defensively (24th percentile, per EPM) last season. Offensively, he’s able to put up good numbers — he averaged 22.5 points, 64 assists, and 5.3 rebounds per game last season —but he’s always struggled with his scoring efficiency. Murray has never come close to approaching league-average scoring efficiency in any of his seven pro seasons, with his career true shooting plus being 93 (again, 100 is average). Maybe Murray’s defense will look much better this season now that he’s playing alongside Herb Jones instead of Trae Young, but 43 still feels a bit rich for me.
Overrated: Jalen Green, G, Houston Rockets
ESPN rank: 69
Jalen Green was really good to end the year last season after Alperen Sengun went down for the Rockets and suddenly the floor opened up. Green averaged 27.7 points per game in March last season on nearly 50 percent shooting from the floor and 40.8 percent shooting from three. Green is obviously super talented as the former No. 3 overall pick in the 2021 NBA Draft, but for his career he’s always been way too rough around the edges to truly impact winning. One good month when many NBA teams are checked out ahead of the playoffs shouldn’t really change that. Green was still an inefficient volume scorer last season (93 true shooting plus) who is a clear negative defensively (27th percentile, per EPM) and doesn’t make plays for his teammates. The fact that Green is ranked 10 spots higher than his teammate Fred VanVleet on this list is wild to me because VanVleet was better last season. Of course, this list is predictive, and Green has the talent to live up to or exceed this ranking. I’m just not buying it until I see more than one good month.
