This will be Part 9 of a 10-part series ranking the top 100 players in the NBA for the 2024-25 season.
A few things to note before I start:
- This is a projective list of what I think will happen this upcoming NBA season.
- Does track record matter? Absolutely. Does last year matter? It matters the most. This list is based on what the players have shown they can do during the previous two or three years and how much it will carry over to this upcoming year.
- My criteria are simple: if I am building my team to win a championship, who do I want on my team? This is factoring in talent, availability, and how much I can trust you in the playoffs. It is a projective list in a vacuum, but I also tend to give a little bit of a boost to guys who have proven they can come up big in the playoffs.
- This is a ceiling-raising, not a floor-raising list. In other words, I am prioritizing players who can make a good team great, rather than a bad team good.
Click here for the rest of Driscoll’s Top 100.
Without further ado, here are the Top 20-11 players for the 2024-25 season.
20. Tyrese Haliburton
2023-24 Stats: 20.1 PPG, 10.1 APG, 1.2 SPG, 36.4 3P%, 60.5 TS%
We start our top 20 with one of the most polarizing players in the league. By no means does he have any off-the-court issues, but it feels like you either love or hate this guy’s style of play. On one hand, he is one of the best offensive engines in the league. He has great vision and is very efficient. However, many people criticized him a ton for “falling apart” in the middle of the season. There were two issues with this. First off, from October to November last year, he had a 67.2 percent True Shooting rate. That was never going to be sustainable. Also, he had a few weeks of bad basketball because he hurt his hamstring. Once he got to the playoffs, though, he was much better.
19. De’Aaron Fox
2023-24 Stats: 26.6 PPG, 5.6 APG, 2 SPG (Led the league), 36.9 3P%, 56.7 TS%
I think that Fox is one of the most underrated players in the league. Only five guys scored and assisted more than he did last year, and only two of those guys shot better from three. Not only is he great at scoring, but he is a very solid defensive player, too, leading the league in steals per game. However, despite being better from three last year, Fox was significantly worse from two. I think that the addition of DeMar DeRozan will give him a lot more space and make things easier for Fox. It will be a very clutch team, and an extremely fun team to watch.
18. Ja Morant
2023-24 Stats: 9 GP, 25.1 PPG, 8.1 APG, 0.8 SPG, 57 TS%
2022-23 Stats: 61 GP 926.2 PPG, 8.1 APG, 1.1 SPG, 55.7 TS%
There are not many more players in the league I am rooting for more than Morant this year. Yes, he had his off-the-court issues, but he has shown remorse and I love a redemption story. Morant has shown he can lead a great team in the regular season and step his game up in the playoffs. He is young, has experience, and has a lot to prove. Morant is going to have an awesome season.
17. Victor Wembanyama
2023-24 Stats: 21.4 PPG, 10.6 RPG, 3.6 BPG (best in NBA), 1.2 SPG, 56.5 TS%
Wembanyama is the future face of the league. To be honest, this feels a little low given that this is a projective list. However, that has more to do with the talent of the league than Wembanyama himself. He is already a top-five defender in the NBA and one of the best shot-blockers. In my opinion, he will not have many more years where he averages more blocks than he did last year. Am I saying he will be worse? Absolutely not; I’m saying the complete opposite. Teams will be more afraid to shoot on Wembanyama, and he will also become more disciplined as a defender, refusing to bite on fakes. This is all without him learning how to be an effective offensive player. It feels weird saying it already, but he will be an all-time great one day.
Every Victor Wembanyama Clutch Shot Attempt In His Rookie Season pic.twitter.com/gS7YeHEaXr
— Pitless (@pitlessball) October 22, 2024
16. Kawhi Leonard
2023-24 Stats: 23.7 PPG, 6.1 RPG, 1.6 SPG, 41.7 3P%, 62.6 TS%
Writing this part made me sad. People like to talk about certain “what-ifs” with Derrick Rose or Greg Oden, but 10 years from now, we might have those same conversations about Kawhi Leonard. Sure, he has two rings, two NBA Finals MVPs, a Defensive Player of the Year, and a few All-Star appearances. However, he could have been so much better. He has not finished the season in each of the last four years, plus six out of the last eight. It’s unfortunate, too, because his game translates to the playoffs. He gets to his spot, doesn’t turn the ball over a ton, and will take on any defensive task. With all of his availability issues, you would think it would be smart to not rank him at all, but if I have to win a championship in one year and the top 15 guys are not available, Leonard would be the last hope.
15. Jalen Brunson
2023-24 Stats: 28.7 PPG, 6.7 APG, 40.1 3P%, 59.2 TS%
Before the Yankees made the World Series, Brunson was the consensus king of New York sports. Brunson has made Knicks fans the happiest they have been since the 1999 NBA Finals. I have already apologized multiple times before, but Brunson proved so many people wrong after they said his initial contract was an overpay. Even this ranking is probably a little lower than where most people would put him, but this feels right for now given the talent of the players ahead of him.
14. Devin Booker
2023-24 Stats: 27.1 PPG, 6.9 APG, 36.4 3P%, 61.1 TS%
Similar to Haliburton, Booker is very quietly one of the more divisive players in the league. On one hand, he is one of the best shooting guards in the league, has a history of playing great in the playoffs, and is an underrated defender. However, the Suns underachieved severely last year and he was awful in the first three games of the playoffs. With this being said, everything went wrong for the Suns last year. I am expecting a much better year from him and the Suns as a whole.
DEVIN BOOKER IS EVERYWHERE pic.twitter.com/CgqABttdG7
— Cage (@ridiculouscage) October 24, 2024
13. Donovan Mitchell
2023-24 Stats: 26.6 PPG, 6.1 APG, 36.8 3P%, 59.5 TS%
I said for years that Mitchell was the most underrated player in the league. It might no longer be true now that he gets more credit, and it is awesome. He is an elite scorer, a great playmaker, and very good on defense for someone his size. He played awful in the playoffs in 2023 but fully redeemed himself, carrying the Cavs to beat the Magic. Mitchell’s top issue over the past couple of years has been availability. He has not played in over 70 games since 2019. With this being said, he is usually healthy come playoff time, and he was healthy for most of the end of the season until the injury against the Celtics. I am expecting him to be as productive in a (hopefully) injury-free 2024-25 NBA season.
12. Jaylen Brown
2023-24 Stats: 23 PPG, 5.5 RPG, 1.2 SPG, 58 TS%
The reigning Eastern Conference Finals MVP and NBA Finals MVP comes in at No. 12. After being called “no left hand” and the most overpaid player in the league all summer long in 2023, Brown shut up his haters with a strong regular season and playoff run. While his numbers are not as impressive as the guards on this list, he is the significantly better defender. People credit Jayson Tatum for being the guy to guard the other team’s center and point guard on screens, but that does not work if Brown can’t hold his own against everyone. The best part about this is that Brown still feels disrespected, so it will be a lot of fun watching him play hungry again this year.
Sometimes I start to feel down about certain things
Then I remember that Jayson Tatum Jaylen Brown and Al Horford are NBA Champions
That’s really cool
— Chris Driscoll NBA (@AmericanHooper) July 4, 2024
11. Anthony Edwards
2023-24 Stats: 25.9 PPG, 5.4 RPG, 5.1 APG, 57.5 TS%
Speaking of playing hungry, Anthony Edwards is the best player outside the top 10. Some people are ranking Edwards a tad too high for me, but he earned it in the playoffs this year. Being the leader of a team that made it to the Western Conference Finals while averaging 27.6 points per game, seven rebounds per game, and 6.5 assists per game on 59.8 percent True Shooting is elite. The best part about all of this is that Edwards just turned 23. By the end of this year, No. 11 might seem too low.
Conclusion
We’ve got one more. Top 10 coming up.
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