The Athletic published it's list of the top 125 players in the NBA. It's a series of five articles so there is a lot of information. It's a pay site so I'll try to include enough to stimulate the conversation without giving too much of their content away. I'll link the articles in case you want more detail.
Tier 5 (Players 80-125)
Tier 4 (Players 37-79)
Tier 3 (Players 20-36)
Tier 2 (Players 8-19)
Tier 1 (Players 1-7)
- Seth Partnow wrote the articles, so it's all analytics based, but he says he got a lot of input from The Athletic staff.
- Instead of a straight up ranking, he broke it down by tiers (and sub-tiers).
- Names are not ranked within tiers
- The Tier 5 link also has the introduction explaining the whole system.
- I'll focus on where the Celtics rank and also include the top 19 overall. If that's too much I'll edit out the top 19.
Tier 5 (Players 80-125)
- Dennis Schroder
- Robert Williams (the article mentions that he was one of the last five in)
Tier 4 (Players 37-79)
- Al Horford (sub-tier B, 57-79)
- Marcus Smart (sub-tier B, 57-79)
Tier 3 (Players 20-36)
- Jaylen Brown (sub-tier C, 31-36)
Tier 2 (Players 8-19)
- Anthony Davis (sub-tier A, 8-10)
- Joel Embiid (sub-tier A, 8-10)
- Luka Doncic (sub-tier A, 8-10)
- Damian Lillard (sub-tier B, 11-14)
- Jimmy Butler (sub-tier B, 11-14)
- Paul George (sub-tier B, 11-14)
- Rudy Gobert (sub-tier B, 11-14)
- Bam Adebayo (sub-tier C, 15-19)
- Chris Paul (sub-tier C, 15-19)
- Jayson Tatum (sub-tier C, 15-19)
- Khris Middleton (sub-tier C, 15-19)
- Kyrie Irving (sub-tier C, 15-19)
Tier 1 (Players 1-7)
- Giannis Atentokounmpo (sub-tier A, 1-3)
- Kevin Durant (sub-tier A, 1-3)
- Lebron James (sub-tier A, 1-3)
- James Harden (sub-tier B, 4-7)
- Kawhi Leonard (sub-tier B, 4-7)
- Nikola Jokic (sub-tier B, 4-7)
- Steph Curry (sub-tier B, 4-7)
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