Both ESPN.com and Sports Illustrated rolled out their annual rankings of the top 100 players in the NBA beginning on Monday. This was fortuitous timing for those who rage against such an exercise (including the NBA players themselves): you can focus your distaste into one week, and move on to some other rage snack next week.
Ranking NBA players is foolish and necessary
Good morning. We have that and more in Thursday’s NBA newsletter.
Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images
Rankings the top 25 percent or so of NBA players is a thankless, difficult job. Basketball Twitter exploded in rage over it; Carmelo Anthony and DeMar DeRozan, often underappreciated by the Basketball Internet Thought Leader Power Structure, took offense to their low ranks.
But this sort of ranking exercise also great content that sparks a lot of interesting debates! (In related news, my top 100 player ranking, written weeks ago, will hit on Monday.) Teams are ranking players like this (though in more detailed, granular fashion). Players themselves are internally ranking themselves against peers.
Also, it’s September and we’re all getting cabin fever. I mean, I wrote about Monta Ellis on Wednesday. We need a bit of hot take training camp to get ready for real training camp.
As such, I fully endorsed any and all ranking projects, provided the results align relatively closely with mine. C.J. McCollum and Jared Dudley have joked about ranking NBA writers; I endorse such a project, provided I am not ranked lower than the writing equivalent of, say, a low-end Plumlee.
Rank everything!
Check out Adam Silver on Fanatics’ Michael Rubin talk future of basketball on TV and more with Recode.
Did I mention that I wrote a requiem for Monta Ellis? I miss that guy already, though not so much for what he is now
The Heat locked up Josh Richardson to a four-year, $42 million deal. It does not appear that Miami will be free agency factors for quite a while. I hope this works.
Since Russell Westbrook is now the face of Jordan Brand, should we call it ... Russell Brand? (Sorry.) Here’s a lovely Michael Sykes breakdown of what the huge sneaker deal means for Russ and the sneaker line and maybe even the Thunder.
You will be shocked to learn that the Warriors’ jersey patch deal is a) with a tech company you probably have never heard of and b) incredibly lucrative.
How Luka Doncic and Kristaps Porzingis made a quarterfinal EuroBasket game must-see TV. By the way, we’ve hit the semifinals. Spain plays Doncic, Goran Dragic, Anthony Randolph and Slovenia today. It’s the biggest game of Doncic’s young career. Russia faces Serbia on Friday. The title game is set for Sunday.
The AfroBasket 2017 quarterfinals begin Thursday. The match-ups are: Nigeria vs. Cameroon, Morocco vs. Egypt, Tunisia vs. the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Senegal vs. Angola. Players you know in this tournament include The One And Only Ike Diogu, Gorgui Dieng, and Myck Kabongo.
The Lynx beat the Mystics real good in Game 1 of their WNBA semifinals series. Matt Ellentuck has three things Washington can do to come back in Game 2, which airs at 8 p.m. ET Thursday on ESPN2.
Candace Parker fought through an injury in Game 1 to lead the Sparks past the Mercury. Here’s Kaitlin Ray on what champions have to do to win. Game 2 of L.A. vs. Phoenix is at 10 p.m. ET Thursday on ESPN2.
Kevin O’Connor breaks down the most interesting rookie-scale extension cases.
Interesting piece by Chris Mannix on the coalition forming to fight lottery reform.
Marijuana charges against Zach Randolph were dropped. In related news, he agreed to do 150 hours of community service. Since charges were dropped, I’m not sure the NBA can really punish him. We’ll see.
The Lakers, weary of the debate over whether to retire No. 8 or No. 24 for Kobe, will raise both to the rafters. I feel like they should have retired a pair of basketball tights instead.
Kevin Durant’s new shoe is the sneaker version of “Look What You Made Me Do.”
Josh Childress, one of my favorite college players ever, leveraged his turn in the BIG3 into a non-guaranteed deal with the Nuggets. Ice Cube is making dreams happen.
LaVar Ball did something nice.
It turns out guarding LeBron is even harder than it looks on TV. And it looks really impossible on TV.
And finally: in case you thought the next year of LeBron Watch would be boring, cameras caught King James and his Queen touring a Los Angeles private high school, presumably as a potential landing spot for their hot prospect son Bronny Jr. should the James family just happen to relocate to Southern California this summer.
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