Predicting the NBA's Next Wildly Underrated and Overrated Players
Who are the NBA’s next wildly underrated and overrated players? For that matter, what does it even mean to say “wildly” overrated or underrated?
There’s something I like to call the “Paul Millsap factor.” There was what seemed like a three-year run where you couldn’t see an “underrated” list Millsap wasn’t on. He got to be so thought of as underrated, he became overrated.
Similarly, it’s gotten to the point with Blake Griffin that you can’t say his name without someone ranting about how overrated he is and how he only dunks.
In the process, we lost sight of the fact that he was the best dunker in the league, that he’s one of the best from the most efficient area of the court, that only Dwight Howard has grabbed more boards since Griffin came into the league, and that he’s one of the best passing bigs in the game.
Griffin got so “overrated” he became underrated.
They aren’t alone. Jimmy Butler of the Chicago Bulls and Jeff Green of the Boston Celtics have recently taken the “underrated-to-overrated” trek, and Rajon Rondo is another example of someone who took the path from “overrated” to “underrated.”
That’s not to say those players never were overrated or underrated, or that those on the following list aren’t currently one or the other. But the pendulum swung too far. That’s what I mean by “wildly.”
Here are players in danger of making the same journey.
They are ranked in order of the degree to which the attention they are about to receive—positive or negative—exceeds that which they will deserve. Since these are predictive in nature, they are entirely subjective, but the reasoning is outlined in each slide.
All stats in this article were obtained from Basketball-Reference or NBA.com/Stats and are current as of November 22.
4. DeMar DeRozan, Toronto Raptors, Underrated to Overrated
1 of 8
DeMar DeRozan has all the classic earmarks of a player destined to go from underrated to overrated faster than you can say volume scorer.
NBA fans love a player who can put up huge numbers in a game, regardless of how many shots he takes to get there, and DeRozan fits that bill to a T. He’s the Toronto Raptors’ leading scorer at present, notching 21.2 points per game. That’s better than Rudy Gay, the player who was supposed to spark the team to a postseason run.
On the other hand, of the players in the league who are averaging at least 20 points, only Klay Thompson also has fewer rebounds and fewer assists, and Thompson is shooting over 50 percent from the field compared to DeRozan’s 41.9 percent.
Out of players who average 40 touches per contest, only four are averaging fewer than .60 passes per touch and .40 points per touch, according to the new tracking stats at NBA.com. That points to a level of “ball hoggery” that is alarming.
DeRozan is also a marginal defender, finishing 20th among the 47 eligible shooting guards in last season’s defensive rankings.
In short, DeRozan is a scorer who can really take over a game, but is little else. His scoring will generate him buzz as underrated, but the huge flaws in his game will be overlooked.
4. Avery Bradley, Boston Celtics, Overrated to Underrated
2 of 8
Avery Bradley of the Boston Celtics stepped into the starting point guard role after Rajon Rondo went down, and there were many who put lofty expectations on him, expecting him to use the opportunity to break out.
To say he disappointed would be an understatement. He is currently running the offense with remarkable imprecision. He’s attempted more shots than any player on the Celtics with the kind of efficiency that would make Ricky Davis laugh and/or cry. Meanwhile, he’s just sixth on the team with 1.4 assists per game.
When there are five players on your team averaging more dimes than your starting point guard, there just might be a problem.
But, it’s worth keeping in mind that Bradley was never supposed to be the playmaker on his team, and it’s not in his comfort zone to do so. He’s an elite defender and a respectable shooter when he’s not hurling up shots at an insane rate.
When Rondo comes back and Bradley can go back to being a three-and-D player, Bradley will play less badly. Until then, look for him to keep getting so much “overrated” talk that he becomes underrated.
3. Andre Drummond, Detroit Pistons, Underrated to Overrated
3 of 8
Right now, Andre Drummond is both an underrated and underutilized player. Right now.
Having said that, it’s not hard to imagine a scenario where he quickly goes from underrated to overrated. Drummond—in a limited spectrum—scores really well. Inside three feet, he’s fantastic, hitting on 66 of his 90 attempts.
Factor in inefficient shooters Brandon Jennings and Josh Smith hurling up bad shots with reckless abandon, and it’s understandable that the Drummond bandwagon is going to grow. Fans are going to ask why Drummond isn’t getting more looks.
The problem is that he has all the range of a 1970s corded telephone with a kinked-up cable. He’s only 5-of-17 outside of three feet. That’s not so good.
While the Detroit Pistons do need to recognize his talents and run more plays for Drummond, he doesn’t currently have the offensive versatility to have a whole offense run through him.
3. Josh Smith, Detroit Pistons, Overrated to Underrated
4 of 8
The Detroit Pistons were in a bad situation this offseason. It was a perfect storm for the worst possible outcome. First, they finally had some cap space open up, and they needed to spend it to prevent a fan revolt. They had been losing for a few years and were finally getting rid of some bad contracts.
Second, they are (and I mean no offense by this) in Detroit, and Detroit is a long way from the most desirable cities in the country to live in right now. So that was a strike against them. They have no young superstar to attract the best free agents to come play for them either. That was another strike against them.
So, when you have a desperate need to pay someone, and the only thing to offer someone is pay, the result is that you can only get someone who is just going to go to the highest bidder. That excludes virtually anyone who someone else would pay a max deal.
Enter Josh Smith, a player who arguably has All-Star talent but has never been to an All-Star Game. He was simply the best free agent that Detroit could get, and it got him, even though he’s a horrible fit for the Pistons.
Smith is a brilliant scorer in the post, but he’s an awful shooter. He was the third-most efficient scorer inside three feet and the most inefficient outside three feet last season.
So, bringing him into a team that already had two outstanding low-post scorers in Andre Drummond and Greg Monroe didn’t make sense from a basketball perspective. Now, he’s just prone—even encouraged—to chuck the ball with abandon and miss it.
He’s averaging a career-high 5.2 threes per game and making only 29 percent of them. He’s turned into an almost-exclusive jump-shooter. In fact, he’s attempted more threes above the break than he has shots inside the restricted area.
Smith is getting hounded for his shot selection, but Pistons general manager Joe Dumars should have seen this coming. Smith has been put in a position to fail. Amid all the criticism of his shot selection, people are going to forget that he does everything else so well. In a lot of ways, this is blaming the square peg for not fitting in the round hole.
2. Eric Bledsoe, Phoenix Suns, Underrated to Overrated
5 of 8
You couldn’t have scripted a better launch to Eric Bledsoe’s career in Phoenix. He’s been lighting it up. He’s averaging 20.4 points, 6.8 assists and 4.6 boards per contest, while shooting over 50 percent from the field.
The only other player in the league doing that is a guy named LeBron James. So yeah, that’s pretty impressive. It has been accomplished 26 times previously by a total of 14 players, and 10 of them are in the Hall of Fame. Two of them, Chris Paul and LeBron James, aren’t eligible yet. So again, if Bledsoe can keep this up, it’s really impressive.
And while there was a measure of hype surrounding Bledsoe coming into the season, it’s fair to say he’s blowing away even lofty expectations, making him an easy player to identify as underrated. In fact, he’s playing so well that it’s not hard to envision him getting “slighted” talk if he misses the All-Star Game.
And that’s where he might start getting into “overrated” territory.
There are a number of elite guards in the Western Conference. Certainly Chris Paul, Tony Parker, James Harden and Russell Westbrook are assured spots. Stephen Curry and Damian Lillard are making strong cases to join them.
That leaves Klay Thompson, Ricky Rubio and Ty Lawson to compete with Bledsoe for the final guard spot, and that's if they take on seven guards, which is unlikely.
Even if Bledsoe maintains his pace until February, it’s hard to call him an All-Star just yet, even if it’s easy to foresee the outrage when he’s not one.
2. Roy Hibbert, Indiana Pacers, Overrated to Underrated
6 of 8
Roy Hibbert, at first, was the beneficiary of his over-touted postseason success, but he is now quickly becoming victimized by it because of no weirder reason than his offense is about where it’s always been. His career averages are 11.3 points, 6.8 rebounds and 47.3 percent shooting from the field. His current season averages are 10.9 points, 8.8 boards and 47.7 percent.
His rebounding is a bit up, and the rest of his numbers are consistent. So, why is more expected than that?
A strange thing happened to Hibbert in the playoffs last year. He averaged 17.0 points and 10 boards a contest. That included the conference finals series against the Miami Heat where he scored 22.1 points on 55.4 percent shooting and grabbed 10.4 boards.
In the first two series, he averaged just a shade over 14 points on 47.3 percent from the field, more in line with his career numbers.
The media overreacted to the series and beefed up expectations about how Hibbert was going to have a breakout season, rather than consider the more realistic probability that the rest of his career was the norm and the one series was the anomaly. He was just benefiting from a mismatch against Chris Andersen, and the media blew it out of proportion.
Strictly speaking, it’s more accurate to say the media overrated Hibbert than Hibbert is overrated (though that might sound like semantics, it places the blame where it belongs).
So now, there’s a bit of a reaction to suggest that Hibbert is “overrated” and having a disappointing season. The problem is that the projections were never realistic. He wasn’t going to suddenly double his career scoring average at 26. It was silly of the media to suggest he would.
What’s getting lost amid all the “overrated” chatter that has ensued as a result is that Hibbert has actually stepped it up even more on defense, averaging 4.2 blocks a contest and absolutely dominating the rim, allowing a 35 percent field-goal percentage there.
In the early going, Hibbert is having one of the most dominant defensive seasons in recent memory, but all some people can talk about is that he’s disappointing on offense because he’s not suddenly doubling his career numbers.
1. Lance Stephenson, Indiana Pacers, Underrated to Overrated
7 of 8
There are two types of “underrated” players. There are those who don’t get enough attention (like Ty Lawson, who sadly will remain underrated for yet another season), and there are those who don’t get any attention.
Among the latter, at the moment, no player is more underrated than the Indiana Pacers’ Lance Stephenson, who is the team’s second-leading scorer while leading the team in assists as well. He’s also second-best on the team in win shares with 1.5.
Defensively, Stephenson is the primary reason the Pacers are giving up the lowest efficiency to opposing shooting guards. He is undefeated in his head-to-head matchups, as measured by efficiency.
And, oh yeah, he leads the NBA in triple-doubles. In spite of all that, he’s hardly even mentioned.
That’s all about to change for a couple of reasons.
First, the Pacers are kicking butt and taking names. Second, because of the horrendous start of New York City’s two teams and because of the injury to Derrick Rose, it looks more and more like the East is a two-team race between Indiana and the Miami Heat. That means the Pacers are going to be in the news a lot.
Then, when you factor in Roy Hibbert's disappointing output, it stands to reason that the second-leading scorer is going to garner more attention, especially when it’s one who exemplifies the kind of “hard-work-and-perseverance-will-pay-off” personality the Pacers have.
Miami might be “Hollywood,” but Indiana is Midwestern work ethic all the way.
It’s easy to see the media pushing him too hard, though, and making him out to be more than he is, a 13.0-point-per-game scorer with a solid all-around game, in an effort to drum up marketing. The best thing about Stephenson is that there’s nothing he does badly. The problem with him is that there’s nothing he does great.
1. Kyrie Irving, Cleveland Cavaliers, Overrated to Underrated
8 of 8
If there’s a “Blake Griffin” waiting to happen this year, it’s Kyrie Irving. With the players who do some things brilliantly, it’s easy to take for granted certain players who constantly do unbelievable things, and Kyrie Irving is that type of player.
Just like watching a 6’10”, 251-pound Griffin jump over a car and dunk a ball can make you grow immune to how amazing he is, so can Irving’s incredible ball-handling maneuvers mixed with a normally remarkable efficiency make you start nitpicking the most minor of flaws.
A career low in his field-goal percentage (41.0 percent), a failure to improve his defense and the overall catastrophe of a team atmosphere have people questioning both Irving’s star status and his leadership. The cries of “overrated” are already starting to come.
The problem is that sometimes we identify superstars by what they aren’t rather than what they are.
Early superstardom sometimes leads us to forget how young players are. Irving is just eight months removed from being old enough to legally purchase alcohol. Only two players on his team are younger than he is, and they’re both rookies.
Leadership and defense aren’t things that most players—even the likes of LeBron James—start really perfecting until they hit their mid-20s. It’s premature to judge Irving on those things, but that won’t stop people from continuing to do it.
