To no one’s surprise, the Sixers’ Big Three are all ranked in the top 25 of ESPN’s top 100 NBA player rankings for 2024-25.
ESPN’s 14th annual top 100 player ranking has come out for the 2024-25 season. ESPN’s expert panel were asked “which player will be better in 2024-25?” for player vs. player matchups with more than 15,000 possible pairings to determine an order.
The first half of the top 100 ranking can be found here (although no current Sixers were featured). The majority of the remaining half released Wednesday, with Tyrese Maxey and Paul George being featured among many.
ESPN ranked George 21st overall, ahead of names such as Kawhi Leonard, Damian Lillard, Paolo Banchero, Kyrie Irving, De’Aaron Fox, Zion Williamson, Jimmy Butler and Karl-Anthony Towns. HIs teammate, Tyrese Maxey, was ranked just ahead of him at 19th overall above the before-mentioned names and Ja Morant, who was sandwiched in between at the 20th ranking spot.
ESPN has yet to release the top-10 rankings, but the names featured above both Maxey and George are the following: Bam Adebayo, Donovan Mitchell, Tyrese Haliburton, Devin Booker, Jaylen Brown, Anthony Davis, Jalen Brunson and Victor Wembanyama.
It’s easy to knit pick rankings on who should or shouldn’t be above either of George or Maxey, with them being featured among such a talented group. However, it’s fun to follow trends on where players progressed or regressed. ESPN’s ranking also features where these players were ranked a year ago, with some big changes.
Maxey, for example, was ranked 42nd overall just a year ago. George’s standing hasn’t changed much from last year, going from 18th to 21st this year. It’s a heavily-anticipated season for the Sixers, so it’s possible these rankings will look vastly different in a year from now.
Joel Embiid will almost certainly be featured somewhere in the top-10, so we’ll just have to wait and see where he ends up.