Beyond the Top 100: Six Deep-Cut NBA Players With Outsize Importance in 2024-25

Getty Images/Ringer illustration These guys couldn't crack our list of the Top 100 Players in the NBA, but they'll nonetheless play a pivotal role in the season to come The Ringer published our Top 100 Players in the NBA rankings yesterday, full of some 25,000 words of analysis, jokes, and other goodies for your perusing pleasure. Go read them all! But even on a list that goes 100 deep, not every player who will make a difference in the 2024-25 playoff and championship races can appear. Today, then, we'll survey a half dozen X factors who didn't place in our Top 100 but might nonetheless swing contenders' fortunes this season. Note that several top contenders, such as Boston, New York, Oklahoma City, and Minnesota, won't have any representation here, as all of their most important players are already in our Top 100. But the success of six other teams—and the shape of the season writ large—could hinge on whether the following players can thrive in their roles and break into the Top 100 as the season progresses. P.J. Washington, Dallas Mavericks Look away, Thunder fans; this graph might fill you with rage after your team's narrow loss to Dallas in the second round of last season's playoffs. Dallas almost certainly would not have reached the Finals if it hadn't traded for Washington at the deadline. The former lottery pick was a valuable two-way player and the Mavericks' third-leading scorer in the playoffs. But his clutch shooting against Oklahoma City was an outlier, which carries a warning sign for the future. Washington's outlook—and that of the Mavericks more broadly—is very different if he's making 3s at a significantly below-average rate, as he did over the rest of the 2023-24 campaign. Even more than his spacing, Washington's defensive potential will prove vital this season, as he'll likely be tasked with guarding the opposition's best wing every night in a starting lineup with Luka Doncic, Kyrie Irving, and this older, injury-ravaged version of Klay Thompson. Washington improved as a defender in Dallas, but he'll face a much greater solo challenge this season. More broadly, Washington is a pivotal player for Dallas because of his positional fit on this roster. The Mavericks are set in the backcourt, with Doncic and Irving, and at the center position, with Dereck Lively II and Daniel Gafford. But the wing spots between those anchors are less secure after the arrivals of Thompson and Naji Marshall and the coinciding departures of Tim Hardaway Jr., Josh Green, and Derrick Jones Jr. Amid that uncertainty, Washington (or the sneakily intriguing Marshall) needs to step up for the Mavericks to win the West again. Brandin Podziemski, Golden State Warriors Let's have some fun with selective data points. Podziemski is one of 10 rookies in the last decade to average at least five rebounds and three assists per game. The other nine were all high lottery picks, while Podziemski went 19th to Golden State. (In fact, until Podziemski did so, no rookie who was drafted outside the top 12 picks had reached those averages in more than half a century.) Sure, five rebounds and three assists per game are arbitrary benchmarks, but they emphasize Podziemski's diverse skill set. The Warriors guard and All-Rookie first-team honoree is an excellent rebounder for his size, can handle the ball and create for others, and knocks down his own shots when called upon (38.5 percent from distance as a rookie after nailing 44 percent of his 3-point attempts in his final college season). Essentially, he does a little bit of everything for a team that prizes quirky, versatile players. Since Golden State added De'Anthony Melton and Buddy Hield, Podziemski might not start this season. But Melton and Hield, while solid NBA players, are known commodities at this point; Podziemski possesses more tantalizing potential, which means he might be the best choice to pair with Steph Curry in the backcourt, either in starting or closing groups. "You need that playmaking to go along with Steph's shooting. Brandin, he's gotten really good," Steve Kerr told ESPN recently. For several years now, Golden State has struggled to straddle present and future contention, which has bumped it down the Western Conference pecking order. Podziemski and Jonathan Kuminga (no. 80 on our Top 100 list) offer the best path back to a more successful two-timelines approach. Caleb Martin, Philadelphia 76ers Our rankings suggest the 76ers are the most top-heavy team in the league. With Joel Embiid (no. 5), Paul George (no. 23), and Tyrese Maxey (no. 28), Philadelphia is the only team with three top-30 players. But the 76ers don't have any other players in the Top 100; no one else on their team even received any votes. Such is the drawback with a classic Big Three model; it's harder to build up depth when so many resources are devoted to assembling three stars. But Daryl Morey might have struck gold when he signed Martin to a cheap four-year deal after the former Miami man had rejected a four-year extension worth twice as much from the Heat. The 76ers desperately need Martin to live up to that billing. Unless Guerschon Yabusele can parlay his Olympic success into a better NBA run than he enjoyed in his early career in Boston, Martin is the current roster's only realistic option to play power forward between George and Embiid. Listed at just 6-foot-5, Martin doesn't have the typical size for the position, but he gained ample experience playing bigger in Miami. Over the last three seasons, he spent 43 percent of his time at power forward, according to an analysis of Cleaning the Glass data. Martin doesn't possess nearly as much raw basketball talent as the man he's replacing in Philadelphia, Tobias Harris; he's never averaged more than 10 points per game in a season and—despite some playoff explosions—is only an average shooter. But Martin appears better suited than Harris to do the little things Philadelphia will need. Christian Braun, Denver Nuggets Kentavious Caldwell-Pope signed with Orlando in free agency, breaking up the starting five that won Denver the 2023 title, and Bruce Brown can't step in because he left a summer earlier. But Nuggets general manager Calvin Booth said in June that he wasn't concerned about how Caldwell-Pope's departure would affect his team: "Christian Braun is one of the best net rating guys in the league, as is KCP. If is to step into the starting lineup like probably projected, I think we'll be OK if KCP doesn't return." Booth is right with his data—at least with the caveat that Braun has a great net rating when he shares the court with Nikola Jokic. In the last two seasons, the Nuggets were plus-17.1 with Braun and Jokic on the floor, versus plus-13.3 in a larger sample with KCP and Jokic, according to an analysis of CtG data. (Unsurprisingly, the Nuggets' net rating when Braun played without Jokic was terrible.) But Braun still has big shoes to fill now that Caldwell-Pope is actually gone. KCP routinely defended opposing teams' top guards, and he's a more accurate 3-point shooter on higher volume than his replacement; Braun nailed 38 percent of his 3s in the 2023-24 regular season but went just 4-for-18 (22 percent) in the playoffs as the Lakers and Timberwolves happily let him fire away. That difference matters on a team that attempted the fewest 3s in the league last season. In that same press conference, Booth offered a general assessment of roster turnover for a championship contender. "I think we're prepared to plug and play, so to speak," he said. "I think when you look at some of the teams that have been good in the past, they have to find a way to replace fourth, fifth starters, sixth men off the bench, and still keep rolling." That philosophy is both true and necessary, especially if Nuggets ownership doesn't want to spend to keep the entire core together due to second-apron concerns, thriftiness, or both. But it means the Nuggets need Julian Strawther's shooting, Peyton Watson's athleticism, and, most of all, Braun's 3-and-D potential to emerge to keep the team in top-tier contention. Keon Ellis, Sacramento Kings Five Kings players placed on our Top 100 list—the same number as the Celtics, Thunder, and Knicks. Sacramento isn't an inner-circle title contender like those other squads, of course, but that's still an impressive display for the team that employs De'Aaron Fox, Domantas Sabonis, DeMar DeRozan, Malik Monk, and Keegan Murray. But what else do all five of those players have in common? They're all offense-first contributors who range from average to terrible on the other end. The Kings will surely entertain viewers this season—but if they want to compete for a top-six seed in the West, they'll need to defend, too. That's where Ellis comes in. After originally joining the Kings on a two-way contract in 2022, the undrafted guard broke out toward the end of the 2023-24 season, supplanting Davion Mitchell (who has since been traded to Toronto) as Mike Brown's go-to guard stopper. Both the eye test and advanced stats adore Ellis's defense. Ellis complements his higher-pedigree teammates because of his defensive mentality. He also fits in Sacramento's starting lineup because, unlike Fox, DeRozan, and Sabonis, he doesn't need the ball. His 12 percent usage rate last season was the third lowest among 120 guards with at least 900 minutes played. Ellis can also hit an open 3 if needed; he sank 42 percent of his long-distance attempts last season. But with such a limited NBA sample under his belt, he still must prove he has staying power as a starting-caliber guard. His performance as a starter in Sacramento's two play-in games last season offers evidence of both his ceiling and floor: He scored 15 points and was plus-27 as the Kings beat Golden State and then went scoreless and was minus-20 as the Kings lost to New Orleans. Jonathan Isaac, Orlando Magic Last season, Isaac graded as the NBA's best defender on a per-possession basis, according to both estimated plus-minus and LEBRON. (The rest of the top 14 defenders on the latter leaderboard were all big men.) It might seem strange that the league's best defender isn't on our Top 100 list—but there's only so much credit Isaac can earn when he plays so little. As he returned from effectively three lost seasons due to injuries, Isaac averaged only 16 minutes per game in 2023-24, though his playing time rose over the course of the season, and he averaged 21 minutes in the playoffs. The first question about Isaac's 2024-25 outlook, then, is how well his body can hold up with a heavier workload. The second big question is whether Isaac can stay on the floor without excessively compromising Orlando's already-cramped spacing. Isaac, Paolo Banchero, and Franz Wagner shared the court for 365 possessions last regular season, per CtG, and they might as well have used a time machine to return to the '90s during those stretches. The Magic scored a mere 102 points per 100 possessions with that trio on the floor (second percentile leaguewide), but they allowed just 103 points per 100 possessions (99th percentile). The group fared worse in 168 possessions in the first round against Cleveland, as the defense slipped a bit while the offense got even worse (94 points per 100 possessions). Isaac's ability to not just guard all five positions but outright terrorize opponents across the positional spectrum means Magic coach Jamahl Mosley can play around with tactically fascinating lineups. Isaac as a small-ball center? A massive, impenetrable group with Isaac, Banchero, Wagner, Wendell Carter Jr., and Jalen Suggs? Experiment away! But Mosley can embrace only so much creativity if Isaac's presence exacerbates the same scoring problem that has plagued Orlando for more than a decade.

Beyond the Top 100: Six Deep-Cut NBA Players With Outsize Importance in 2024-25

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