Most Insulting NBA2K25 Ratings for Every NBA Team
The annual rollout of the latest NBA 2K ratings is cause for celebration, because it means the game's release is imminent. But it also triggers outrage.
Inevitably, several players wind up with ratings—whether overall or for a specific attribute—that just don't match up with their actual values. In the recent past, we've seen several players do the equivalent of asking to speak to a manager, often going directly to social media to air grievances.
One time, Klay Thompson responded to a rating he found insulting by, well...insulting the decision-maker who gave it to him.
We'll keep things civil as we point out one rating on each team that seems too low. This'll have to do until 2K opens up a formal complaint department.
Atlanta Hawks: Bogdan Bogdanović's 80 Overall
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Sorry, did we all just forget about Bogdan Bogdanović's delightful heel turn in the Paris Olympics against Team USA? Have we wiped his defiant, gunslinging, trash-talking, Melo-celebration-stealing performance from memory?
So what if LeBron James "too-smalled" him. There aren't many players in the world with Bogdanovic's guts.
Obviously an offseason moment like that shouldn't account for a player's entire rating, but Bogdanović is worthy of better than an 80 even without that scene-stealing effort in July.
We're talking about a guy who averaged 16.9 points, 3.4 rebounds and 3.1 assists last year. He's a career 38.4 percent shooter from deep with a pair of top-10 finishes in Sixth Man of the Year voting. A player who can run the offense, fly off screen as a spacer, mix it up with anyone and produce double-digit scoring averages in each of his seven NBA seasons deserves a rating that lands him in the top 100.
Or at least one better than teammates De'Andre Hunter (80) and Onyeka Okongwu (80), neither of whom have Bogdanović's track record of production or versatility.
Boston Celtics: Sam Hauser's 87 3P Rating
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Sam Hauser is in the NBA because he has one signature skill: three-point shooting.
Since he entered the league in 2021-22, Hauser has attempted 844 threes and hit them at a scorching 42.2 percent clip. Among players who've attempted at least 800 triples in that three-year span, only two—Luke Kennard (88 3P rating) and Grayson Allen (93)—have been more accurate.
Hauser isn't out there generating threes for himself, but neither is Kennard or Allen. And his position behind those two in 3P rating is defensible. Less so is Hauser slotting in below guys like Luka Dončić (88), Garrison Mathews (88) and Mike Conley (89). In fact, it's even hard to understand how teammate Jayson Tatum has a matching 87.
Hauser has plenty of limitations, but three-point shooting isn't one of them. If he's not a 90 or better, what are we even doing here?
Brooklyn Nets: Dorian Finney-Smith's 76 Overall
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One of the best ways to suss out suspect ratings is to do comparisons within the same team. In the case of the Brooklyn Nets, that exercise reveals Dorian Finney-Smith's 76 overall rating to be a deep and grievous insult.
Because it's exactly the same number Ben Simmons got.
Simmons is obviously a unique case, as he's barely played over the last three years and was once an All-NBA performer. But if recency matters at all, and if we're going to evaluate players on what they're likely to do in the future, there's no case for Simmons and DFS earning matching 76 ratings.
Simmons hasn't averaged over 6.9 points per game since 2020-21, he refuses to shoot jumpers or go to the foul line, and there isn't a team in the league that would give up positive value to take on his expiring contract. Meanwhile, Finney-Smith hasn't averaged fewer than 8.3 points per game during that same span, is a legitimate three-and-D threat and could probably earn the Nets a first-round pick when they trade him.
It's doubly insulting to DFS that fellow teammate Ziaire Williams, who hasn't shown a thing since the second half of his rookie year, is close behind him with a 74.
Charlotte Hornets: Seth Curry's 80 3P Rating
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We're dipping back into the three-point well for a second time, and this underrating is even more egregious than Sam Hauser's with Boston.
As long as Seth Curry is on an NBA roster, he deserves to be viewed as one of the greatest three-point shooters who's ever lived. At the moment, he's under contract with the Charlotte Hornets. That means we need to launch in inquiry into his 80 three-point rating.
Actually, we can keep it short: That's ridiculous.
Apparently, Curry's 35.2 percent hit rate last season, when he bounced between the Dallas Mavericks and the Hornets, overshadows the fact that he has shot at least 40.5 percent in every other season of his career. In fact, Steph's little brother banged out four seasons of at least 45.0 percent knockdown rates over a five-year stretch. Had he not missed 2017-18 due to injury, he might have gone five out of six.
With a career mark of 43.1 percent from three, Curry ranks ninth in NBA history. Among players with at least 2,000 attempts, he's second.
An 80 grade just doesn't square with a track record like that.
Chicago Bulls: Zach LaVine's 83 Overall
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The issue preventing the Chicago Bulls from trading Zach LaVine isn't that he's a bad player. To put it in 2K terms, it's that he's not a 95 overall rating but is paid like one.
That shouldn't matter here. LaVine's 83 overall, which is only two points above that of teammate Nikola Vučević's 81 and three better than out-of-action-since-2022 Lonzo Ball's 80, seems entirely too low.
LaVine has his warts. He's not a good defender and tends to pass only as a last resort. Throw injury concerns in there, too, if you want. He missed all but 25 games with a foot issue last year. But prior to that, he appeared in at least 60 games four times in his previous five seasons (logging 58 in 2020-21) and landed on a pair of All-Star teams.
LaVine is the only player in the league to average at least 24.0 points and shoot over 38.0 percent from three across at least 250 games from 2019-20 to 2022-23.
Plus, we're thinking about him as a video-game player. What more could you want in that situation than a guy who drills threes and dunks?
LaVine is a victim of his contract here, and it seems unfair. He deserves to rate ahead of guys like CJ McCollum (84), Brandon Ingram (85) and Jalen Green (84).
Cleveland Cavaliers: Darius Garland's 82 Overall
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Last year was a rough one for Darius Garland, but I'm not sure it was "lose four full points off your overall rating" rough.
The Cleveland Cavaliers point guard, an All-Star in 2021-22 and a 20-point scorer who shot 41.0 percent from deep in 2022-23, falls from an 86 all the way to an 82 after a campaign in which he got injured (hamstring) on opening night for the second year in row and later had his jaw broken.
That second injury, which knocked him out of action from Dec. 16 to Jan. 31, required the point guard to have his jaw wired shut. Missing that much time can wreck a player's rhythm under any circumstances, but when a liquid diet also results in 12 pounds of weight loss, it makes an in-season return to form impossible.
Garland is going to make this rating look ridiculous with a bounce-back year. Expect him to pick up right where he left off after 2022-23, when he was coming off two straight All-Star-caliber seasons.
Dallas Mavericks: Naji Marshall's 64 Defending Rating
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It kind of makes sense that Naji Marshall is so badly underrated on defense, as there aren't easy categories to map onto a skill set defined by aggression and tenacity. But we should at least agree he deserves to rate ahead of teammate Luka Dončić on D.
In addition to the intangibles—Marshall is a versatile wing who generally plays harder than his opponents—we've got a good statistical case for 64 coming nowhere close to capturing what Marshall brings.
He graded out in the 91st percentile in Defensive Estimated Plus/Minus last season.
That doesn't necessarily mean Marshall is entitled to a 91 for his Defending attribute, but he certainly deserves something better than the equivalent of a "D" grade. Willie Greene, his head coach with the New Orleans Pelicans, routinely used Marshall as a sort of stand-in for Herb Jones, slotting him onto the toughest matchups at multiple positions.
Between that kind of usage and the underlying metrics, Marshall has a case to add 20 points to this rating. And finally, it's pretty clear the Dallas Mavericks believe in what he can do defensively; they currently figure to give him a large portion of the departed Derrick Jones Jr.'s difficult assignments.
Denver Nuggets: Nikola Jokić's 97 Overall
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We get it. 2K can't just throw around 99s like they're meaningless. But Nikola Jokić has three of the last four MVP awards on his mantle buried under a pile of hay in one of his stables because he forgot about them.
That much hardware, along with status as perhaps the greatest passer in the history of the sport, is enough to set Jokić apart from his peers. Yet there he is with a 97, right next to Giannis Antetokounmpo and Luka Dončić in this year's top tier of talent.
Giannis brings more on defense, and Dončić is everyone's favorite next-in-line MVP pick ahead of 2024-25. But neither has the accolades or consistent playoff success of the Denver Nuggets' superstar. Jokić is smack in the middle of his prime, has a championship and continues to be the best elevator of teammate talent around. Those other two players are indisputably great, but what else does Jokić need to do to separate himself?
Give the man a 98 and be done with it.
Detroit Pistons: Simone Fontecchio's 78 Overall
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Hot take time: Simone Fontecchio is not a worse player than teammate Tobias Harris, who's sitting pretty with an 80 overall rating.
Hotter still: Fontecchio not only deserves to slot next to Harris, but also ahead of Jaden Ivey and Paul Reed, both of whom start the season with 79s.
The Italian forward is over three years younger than Harris, outshot him on threes last year by a margin of 40.1 percent to 35.3 percent and posted an almost identical scoring rate, finishing with 18.4 points per 36 minutes to Harris' 18.3.
Moreover, Ivey was a net-negative contributor in each of his two pro seasons, according to Box Plus/Minus and Value Over Replacement Player. Reed is an advanced metrics darling and brings real value as an offensive rebounder and mobile defender. But he's almost always worked against backups and is nowhere near the scoring threat Fontecchio is.
Golden State Warriors: Gary Payton II's 76 Help Defense IQ
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It's not hard to play more than Gary Payton II, who's averaged 46 games over the last three years. But it's virtually impossible to do so while also averaging more deflections than he does.
In fact, the only player to do both—play more and out-deflect GPII per 36 minutes—in each of the last three seasons is Matisse Thybulle. It's totally fair for the Blazers wing to have 97 Pass Perception, 98 Steal and 85 Help Defense IQ ratings. But they shouldn't be so much better than Payton's 91, 86 and 76 figures.
Thybulle is the only person with an inarguable claim to deflection superiority. Everyone else among the elite at that skill, from Alex Caruso to Dennis Smith Jr., should either be on the same footing or grade out lower in those categories.
We're not advocating for GPII to climb up to some ridiculous overall number. If durability matters, he probably should be lower than his current 78. But let's acknowledge when someone has a truly elite gift, even when it's a little niche.
The details matter. If we're going to include ratings for Pass Perception and Help Defense IQ, let's get them right.
Houston Rockets: Fred VanVleet's 84 Overall
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Jalen Green apparently created some diehard fans among ratings-deciders when he averaged 27.7 points per game in March as his Houston Rockets went on a late-season surge. A belief that that version of Green is real and sustainable is the only way to explain his overall rating of 84.
Because there's simply no argument that Green deserves the same rating as teammate Fred VanVleet.
FVV has long been one of the league's most underrated players, but this is still tough to swallow. His 13.6 Estimated Wins in 2023-24 smashed Green's total of 3.9, and while the Rockets' net rating was 5.9 points per 100 possessions better with VanVleet on the floor, it was 3.9 points worse when Green was in the game.
Green is absurdly athletic, young enough at 22 to suggest improvement is a given and still has that No. 2 overall pick pedigree. But he's just not on Fred VanVleet's level...unless that incredible run last March is the new normal.
Indiana Pacers: Tyrese Haliburton's 90 Overall
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Nobody should get too bent out of shape about a 90 overall rating. Tyrese Haliburton's number marks him as a borderline elite talent alongside players like Ja Morant and ahead of more established vets Paul George and Damian Lillard.
At the same time, the Indiana Pacers point guard seems somewhat undervalued here.
A 20-point, 10-assist producer for two straight years, Hali led the league in assists per game last season, turned the Pacers into one of the most exciting offenses in the game and guided what should have been a Play-In team to the Eastern Conference Finals. The hamstring injury that changed his season in early January occurred as Haliburton was settling in as a top-five MVP candidate.
When considering individual numbers, scoring efficiency and indispensability to team success, you could reasonably conclude Kyrie Irving (92), Jaylen Brown (92) and Donovan Mitchell (92) are all roughly as valuable as Haliburton. But it's difficult to explain those three grading out two full points ahead of him.
LA Clippers: Derrick Jones Jr.'s 77 Overall
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Before we get to the comparisons that really drive the disrespect home, we need to acknowledge that 77 just isn't high enough for an excellent transition threat who can hit an open three an defend at elite levels.
Derrick Jones Jr. routinely handled the toughest opposing matchup for the Dallas Mavericks team that reached the 2024 Finals, shot 34.3 percent from deep and supercharged the offense with high-flying lob finishes and fast-break bursts.
No, he's not a superstar. No, he's never averaged double-digit points. And yes, the Boston Celtics had a lot of success daring him to shoot in the aforementioned Finals. But you can't just hand out the equivalent of a "C" grade to an impactful starter on one of the last two teams standing in 2023-24.
And circling back, you absolutely can't rate Jones below teammate Kevin Porter Jr., (78) who's done nothing but pile up inefficient points during his brief and mostly disappointing career. But that's exactly what's happened.
Los Angeles Lakers: Anthony Davis' 94 Overall
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The Los Angeles Lakers are probably the most scrutinized team in the league, and it seems like extra care went into their ratings. There just aren't any egregious misfires here.
That said, Anthony Davis probably deserves to move up a single point to join the 95 tier occupied by LeBron James, Jayson Tatum and Stephen Curry.
AD has as good of a case as anybody to be considered the most complete defensive big man in the league, he showed shocking durability last year by playing 76 games and he's the only player in the NBA to average at least 24.0 points, 12.0 rebounds and 2.0 blocks per game in each of the last two seasons.
Let's also keep in mind that Davis was the best player on the Lakers' bubble championship team. Maybe he hasn't been quite that dominant (mostly because his jumper hasn't been as accurate) since, but we're not arguing he belongs up in the 97 range with Jokić and the perennial MVP contender class.
A 95 or maybe even a 96 feels more reflective of AD's place in the league.
Memphis Grizzlies: Desmond Bane's 83 Overall
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Clearly, nobody in charge of ratings watched the Memphis Grizzlies last season.
It's hard to blame folks for checking out on the Grizz as they muddled through a gap year defined by Ja Morant's suspension, followed by injuries to almost everyone who mattered, Morant included. But at the very least, someone should have taken notice of what Desmond Bane was up to.
Prior to going down with a left ankle sprain on Jan 12, the shooting guard was averaging 24.4 points, 5.3 assists and 4.6 rebounds. He almost certainly would have deserved to make his first All-Star game if he'd stayed healthy for another couple of weeks.
That Bane was so productive while dramatically expanding his self-sufficient scoring game (by necessity, because everyone who used to set him up was hurt), only makes his half-season more impressive. His career 41.5 percent clip from long range almost feels like an afterthought. He should be at least an 85 on the strength of that figure and solid defense alone.
If Bane were 10 points better—around the Devin Booker level overall—it'd make far more sense than slotting him down in the realm of Deandre Ayton, Michael Porter Jr. and Kyle Kuzma.
This is the most inexplicably low overall rating we've seen so far.
Miami Heat: Bam Adebayo's 88 Overall
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We've had plenty of instances so far in which players have had a right to be miffed over their ratings. Annoyed. Bothered. Dissatisfied.
But Bam Adebayo's 88 is the first we've covered that qualifies as truly insulting.
Eighty-eight? Really? For a guy who's been in the top five in Defensive Player of the Year voting every season since 2019-20 while helping the Miami Heat to a pair of Finals berths, making three All-Star games and functioning as an offensive hub at the center position?
Adebayo is on the short list of the league's most versatile defenders, has averaged at least 18.0 points and 9.0 rebounds in each of the last four years and is only entering his age-27 season. There's no scenario where he deserves the same rating as Domantas Sabonis and Karl-Anthony Towns, let alone a worse one than Trae Young or Paolo Banchero.
Adebayo fits every scheme, and the Heat have been significantly better with him on the floor in five of the last six seasons. It feels like he's being penalized for slotting just below the established upper echelon of centers. But we can agree Bam falls short of Jokić, Embiid and Davis while still acknowledging he's at least worth a 90.
Milwaukee Bucks: Brook Lopez's 80 Overall
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Former Milwaukee Bucks head coach Adrian Griffin might be to blame for Brook Lopez's lagging overall rating, which is down four full points from last season.
Griffin tried to fix a Bucks defense that wasn't broken, moving Lopez, one of the league's best drop-coverage defenders, out of his preferred position in the early going. That tactical blunder threw Lopez's season, the Bucks defense and Griffin's coaching career off track. Doc Rivers replaced Griffin after just 43 games.
Lopez's rim-protection stats were still solid, despite the Bucks misusing him for much of the season. He held opponents to 55.7 percent shooting inside six feet, a top-10 figure among players who defended at least 7.0 shots per game at that range. On top of that, Lopez's 36.6 percent three-point shooting helped him remain in that tiny class of floor-stretching, shot-blocking bigs.
Defensive anchors who can also space the court on offense are rare. Lopez is fading ahead of his age-36 season, but he's still uncommonly valuable and productive on both ends. An 80 sells him short.
Minnesota Timberwolves: Mike Conley's 81 Overall
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If Mike Conley is involved, you can expect a professional operation, an organized offense and a whole bunch of wins.
Though no longer much of a volume scorer, Conley is a career 38.4 percent three-point shooter who's cracked the 40.0 percent mark in three of the last four years. The floater still falls with regularity, the turnovers are minimal and the advanced metrics always love him.
Conley has produced a higher Value Over Replacement Player (VORP) figure over the last five years than De'Aaron Fox, Jaylen Brown, Jamal Murray, Russell Westbrook, Draymond Green, Ja Morant, Zion Williamson, Bradley Beal, Khris Middleton and Brandon Ingram.
An 81 overall rating is decent enough, but Conley is so much more than a decent player. On production alone, he's a quality starter, but that's before considering all his intangibles. He needs to be above fellow 81-rated players like Nikola Vučević, Daniel Gafford and D'Angelo Russell.
New Orleans Pelicans: Herb Jones' 82 Overall
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Defense-first contributors may never get the credit they deserve because it's just easier to look at a 20-point scorer and conclude he's more valuable than someone whose contributions don't show up so conspicuously in the box score.
This probably explains why C.J. McCollum checks in a full two points above Herb Jones, who could probably justify taking legal action to correct his 82 rating.
Jones is one of the absolute best defensive wings in the game. Full stop.
Unscreenable, long, disruptive, stronger than you think and gifted with that rare ability to mirror his matchup's movements as if he's inside the player's head, the New Orleans Pelicans stopper contributes like a legitimate star.
Case in point: Zion Williamson was the only Pelicans player to top Jones in Estimated Wins last season, and opponents shot just 44.0 percent when Jones was the primary defender, just one percentage point short of NBA leader Draymond Green (among those who defended at least 11.0 shots per game).
Better still, Jones' 41.8 percent hit rate from deep and 2.6 assists per game in 2023-24 were both career highs. He can run a pick-and-roll, slash and spot up—icing on the cake for a premier shutdown defender.
New York Knicks: Donte DiVincenzo's 86 3P Rating
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Don't let anyone try to convince you Donte DiVincenzo's three-point explosion came out of nowhere.
Prior to ranking third in the league—behind only Stephen Curry and Luka Dončić— in made three-pointers last season, DiVincenzo shot 39.7 percent from deep as Steph's teammate with the Golden State Warriors.
Curry may deserve credit for giving DiVincenzo an example to follow when shooting on the move, but DiVincenzo was already an ace at a standstill. He hit 40.7 percent of his catch-and-shoot threes with the New York Knicks last season, but he canned 42.4 percent with the Warriors in 2022-23.
The differentiator last year was DiVincenzo's ability to stay accurate as a pull-up sniper. His 38.0 percent clip on those kinds of threes was a massive departure from the 22.6 percent he hit the year before.
This is all to say that DiVincenzo should now be regarded as one of the very best high-volume marksmen in the league, and that his 86 three-point rating fails to reflect the status he's earned. Nobody's advocating for something close to Steph's 99, but DiVincenzo needs to rate above the likes of Bradley Beal, KCP and end-of-bench role-players like Matt Ryan.
Oklahoma City Thunder: Isaiah Hartenstein's 52 Playmaking
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Maybe he won't have to do as much facilitation with the Oklahoma City Thunder, but Isaiah Hartenstein's skills won't just disappear. Based on his 52 rating in playmaking, that seems to be the expectation.
Most centers aren't known for setting up teammates, and it's fine if Hartenstein's rating in this area lags behind most guards and wings. But even relative to his positional peers, this is low. Though not on the same level as Domantas Sabonis (71) or Bam Adebayo (70), Hartenstein is somehow rated closer to irredeemable ball-fumbler Rudy Gobert (43) than either of those two.
The former Knick studied for part of a season under Nikola Jokić in Denver, and his passing was a quiet key to some of the 2021-22 Clippers' best offensive stretches. Last season, Hartenstein's short-roll passing was one of the only ways a battered Knicks offense could score if Jalen Brunson got bottled up.
Hartenstein doesn't pound the dribble or dominate the ball, but he's had an assist-to-usage ratio in the 90th percentile or better at his position in two of the last three years. His rating doesn't come close to reflecting that.
Orlando Magic: Kentavious Caldwell-Pope's 79 Overall
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This one's a pretty straightforward slight, as Kentavious Caldwell-Pope is somehow rated lower overall than Cole Anthony.
KCP is on board in Orlando partly because the Magic don't believe Anthony is a starting-caliber shooting guard, yet Caldwell-Pope's 78 lags behind Anthony's 79. It's possible the powers that be are pricing in some age-related regression for Caldwell-Pope, but the 31-year-old showed no signs of slippage last season when he hit 40.6 percent of his threes, averaged 10.1 points on only 7.7 shots per game and started at least 76 games for the third year in a row.
Anthony plays hard, rebounds well for his position and scores with more volume. But he's a less efficient shooter (career 34.3 percent from three) and can't even sniff KCP's yearslong tradition of impacting winning at the highest level. On the strength of his starting role on two different championship teams alone, Caldwell-Pope deserves a better mark than a 23-year-old guard who lost his starting job two years ago.
Philadelphia 76ers: Paul George's 89 Overall
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Paul George's 2023-24 season was quietly his best with the LA Clippers, if you account for durability.
Across 74 games, he posted a 3.3 VORP (his best since 2018-19), a career-high 61.3 true shooting percentage and added his ninth All-Star nod. Yet somehow, he's rated below less decorated players like Ja Morant (90) and even further behind guys you'd typically lump in with George when discussing the game's top two-way wings.
Jaylen Brown's 92 feels too far above George's 89, for example. Ditto for Kawhi Leonard and his 92, a full three points clear of George despite PG topping Leonard in 2023-24 Estimated Plus/Minus.
Maybe the argument is that George does everything on a basketball court at a "B-plus" level, which is why the 89 makes sense. But that's not really true, as George has become an elite high-volume three-point shooter and remains among the game's most versatile defenders.
You can certainly argue Brown and Leonard deserve to slot above George in overall rating. But they're not this much better than the 34-year-old star the Philadelphia 76ers just handed a four-year max deal.
Phoenix Suns: Grayson Allen's 78 Overall
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Doesn't it seem like a player who was the best in the league at anything in 2023-24 should bottom out at an 80 ahead of the upcoming year?
Sure, winning at the highest levels requires balance. The best teams tend to traffic in players who contribute in several ways and don't have a clearly exploitable weakness.
But a singular skill, especially shooting, should be enough on its own to elevate a player into the 80 tier.
Not so for Grayson Allen, who led the league with a double-take-inducing 46.1 percent knockdown rate from three-point range last season.
In the five years since he became a rotation regular in 2019-20, Allen has never shot worse than 39.1 percent from deep. He also graded out above his positional average in assist percentage in all but one of those years, is more than just a perimeter sniper and competes (often too aggressively) on the defensive end.
Teammate Mason Plumlee, a career backup without any single attribute approaching Allen's shooting, is also a 78. That just doesn't check out.
Portland Trail Blazers: Jerami Grant's 82 Overall
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Whether comparing him to players on his own team or the league at large, Jerami Grant has a right to be incensed about his overall rating of 82.
First of all, that figure is inexplicably not the highest among Portland Trail Blazers. That honor belongs to Deandre Ayton, who checks in with an 83. We can make Grant's case without bagging on Ayton, though it's tempting to point out how Grant's offensive and defensive responsibilities are so much more significant than those of the big man who refuses to block shots or dunk.
Let's leave Ayton alone and frame it this way: Only four players have logged at least 50 games, averaged over 20.0 points and shot better than 40.0 percent from deep in each of the last two seasons. The first three are Stephen Curry, Kawhi Leonard and Jalen Brunson.
Grant is the fourth.
It goes without saying he doesn't belong with those three in the 90-plus range. But Grant is pretty clearly the second best defensive player in that elite crew, and he's managed that production for a terrible Blazers team.
At the very least, we need to get Grant up to an 84 or 85.
Sacramento Kings: Keegan Murray's 80 Overall
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Thought exercise: Imagine you're the Sacramento Kings, and you're building a roster almost from scratch. The only player you currently have is Keegan Murray, and your goal is to construct the best possible team for *only* the upcoming season with no concern for the future beyond that.
Are you trading Murray for Cam Thomas, Jonas Valanciunas, Andrew Nembhard, D'Angelo Russell, Daniel Gafford or Nikola Vučević?
It's a hard "no" across the board, right? And you probably have to upgrade to an all-caps "NO!" if giving any thought to seasons beyond 2024-25.
Murray's 80 is lower than that of every player we just mentioned, a difficult fact to accept for a 23-year-old wing who's averaged 13.7 points and shot 38.4 percent from three in his two seasons—particularly one who developed into one of the better perimeter defenders in the game last year.
Murray isn't a star, and he may never become one. But he's a young two-way talent at a premium position who's already shown intriguing growth. Kings diehards would probably hold onto Murray if you started naming hypothetical trades that brought back guys in the 85-90 range. We don't need to get that extreme to argue Murray isn't properly valued at an 80.
San Antonio Spurs: Victor Wembanyama's 88 Interior Defense
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The 91 overall score and the 99 block rating certainly reflect well on Victor Wembanyama, but it's difficult to see him outside the top 10 with an 88 score for interior defense.
Granted, some of that has to do with his lack of strength. We've watched players like Alperen Şengün put him in the basket once or twice. But Wembanyama deters attempts around the rim in ways we've never really seen before—turning away offensive opponents who have him outnumbered, out of position or both.
Maybe we need a "fear-inspired" rating to account for the way Wembanyama's length and mobility suppress interior scoring. Either that, or we need to call this attribute something other than "interior defense." Wembanyama is as good as anyone at all the skills that matter in that area.
Ultimately, it's just too hard to fathom Wemby finishing below players like Nic Claxton, Joel Embiid and Bam Adebayo in this category. Those three are all great defenders, but it's not like Claxton or Adebayo are immune to getting backed down. And Embiid can't drive down opponent accuracy near the rim like Wembanyama does.
Toronto Raptors: Jakob Poeltl's 50 Playmaking
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The Toronto Raptors made an effort to run a lot of their offense through Jakob Poeltl for a reason last year, yet he winds up with an ugly 50 playmaking rating that doesn't reflect one of his top skills.
No, Poeltl won't beat many opponents off the dribble, and he's never going to be confused with Nikola Jokić, Domantas Sabonis or Bam Adebayo among big-man facilitators. But Poeltl's excellent hands, deft touch and comfort moving the ball quickly in handoff sets are part of the reason his team's offenses have been better with him on the floor in each of the last five seasons.
The last time the Raptors' center had an assist rate below the league average for his position was 2017-18. In every year since, he's been above the 60th percentile, topping out in the 90th during the 46 games with the San Antonio Spurs that made up the pre-trade portion of the 2022-23 campaign.
It's fair to say Poeltl may not be an elite playmaker. But he's certainly a whole lot better than a 50.
Utah Jazz: Lauri Markkanen's 86 Overall
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Hopefully Lauri Markkanen's new contract helps with his hurt feelings, because he's got to be stinging after netting an 86 overall that puts him in a tier of players who simply aren't on his level.
The 7-foot forward is coming off yet another stellar year with the Utah Jazz, complete with a 23.1 points-per-game average on a 48.0/39.9/89.9 shooting split. A perfect model of next-generation shot selection, the 27-year-old needed just 55 games to record 75 dunks and 175 threes last season.
And yet his 86 overall matches that of Franz Wagner, who shot 28.1 percent from three last year, and Dejounte Murray, who has never scored nearly as efficiently as Markkanen and who guided a far more talented Hawks team to just five more wins than the tanking Jazz managed in 2023-24.
Maybe this is a case of Markkanen toiling in obscurity. Maybe there's some skepticism about his production because it's come for a team that has shut things down competitively for two years running as it looks for rebuild-worthy draft capital.
Either way, 86 just isn't good enough to reflect what Markkanen, one of the top offensive threats in the entire league, brings to the table.
Washington Wizards: Malcolm Brogdon's 80 Overall
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Player A averaged 17.4 points and 4.4 assists on a 41.3/32.6/87.7 shooting split.
Player B averaged 15.7 points and 5.5 assists on a 44.0/41.2/81.9 shooting split.
Unless you're still unfamiliar with the concept of efficiency, you're taking Player B every time—and that's before considering any of the other numbers and intangibles that favor Malcolm Brogdon (Player B) over Jordan Poole (Player A).
Unfortunately for Brogdon, he has to settle for the same 80 rating Poole has heading into 2024-25.
Poole is younger, has a championship ring and was better (it would have been hard for him to be worse) in 2022-23 than he was this past season. But his complete unwillingness to defend, unconscionable inefficiency and undisciplined offensive style make him a far less reliable player–both in terms of statistical value and vibes—than Brogdon.
If you want to ding Brogdon for playing just 39 games last year, that's fair. But he's been a metronomically consistent mid-teens scorer, solid facilitator and elite three-point shooter for the entirety of his time in the NBA. Poole's career scoring average is less than 1.0 point per game higher (16.1 to 15.4), and he can't touch Brogdon's efficiency rates.
These two need to be at least three or four rating points apart, with Brogdon on top.
Stats courtesy of NBA.com, Basketball Reference and Cleaning the Glass. Salary info via Spotrac.
Grant Hughes covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter (@gt_hughes), and subscribe to the Hardwood Knocks podcast, where he appears with Bleacher Report's Dan Favale.
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