Kyrie ranked 25; Hayward ranked 20

[tazzmaniac]

Putting kyrie behind kyle lowry and Mike Conley proves how worthless this thing is

Why?  Kyrie couldn't carry the Cavs when Lebron was on the court.  As the article points out the Raps were much better with Lowry on court and Derozen off court.  Conley always gets underrated and carried the Griz last year.  Unless you're taking into account age, I don't see why Kyrie would necessarily be ahead of either of them. 

Now Porzingis is ranked much too high.   

[tarheelsxxiii]

Putting kyrie behind kyle lowry and Mike Conley proves how worthless this thing is

Why?  Kyrie couldn't carry the Cavs when Lebron was on the court.  As the article points out the Raps were much better with Lowry on court and Derozen off court.  Conley always gets underrated and carried the Griz last year.  Unless you're taking into account age, I don't see why Kyrie would necessarily be ahead of either of them. 

Now Porzingis is ranked much too high.

Lowry and Conley are very good defenders, too. 

[gouki88]

These rankings are just hilariously bad. Think DeRozan was behind Crowder, which is all you really need to know. What a joke

[SHAQATTACK]

Kyrie dropped 10 spots from last season's rank because....? These rankings are questionable, at best.

Because he chose Boston......a NON media darling .

Had he chose the Bulls , Knicks or Lakers .......he is automatically a top 10 player .

Media just brown noses these teams to death.

its always snub Boston and drool over anything the Lakers  do.   .....no materr how foolish they look.

[drogbagarnett]

Kyrie dropped 10 spots from last season's rank because....? These rankings are questionable, at best.

Because he chose Boston......a NON media darling .

Had he chose the Bulls , Knicks or Lakers .......he is automatically a top 10 player .

Media just brown noses these teams to death.

its always snub Boston and drool over anything the Lakers  do.   .....no materr how foolish they look.

That's the reality!
Not sure why more voices dont shed some light into this obvious anti Celtics bias in the NBA national media....?
It's becoming so blatant!

[Tr1boy]

This is a joke right?? Lol

[Bucketgetter]

Kyrie dropped 10 spots from last season's rank because....? These rankings are questionable, at best.

Because he chose Boston......a NON media darling .

Had he chose the Bulls , Knicks or Lakers .......he is automatically a top 10 player .

Media just brown noses these teams to death.

its always snub Boston and drool over anything the Lakers  do.   .....no materr how foolish they look.

He didn’t choose anything, he was traded and not a free agent. He didn’t have a no trade clause either.

Hayward, on the other hand, did choose Boston. And he rose 14 spots.

[tarheelsxxiii]

If they more heavily weighted honoring one's contract and playing both sides of the ball (>50% of possessions), it would make a lot of sense. 

[CelticsElite]

If they more heavily weighted honoring one's contract and playing both sides of the ball (>50% of possessions), it would make a lot of sense.

yet harden will end up being top 3 or something crazy like that even though he never plays defense

[DooVoo]

Putting kyrie behind kyle lowry and Mike Conley proves how worthless this thing is

Why?  Kyrie couldn't carry the Cavs when Lebron was on the court.  As the article points out the Raps were much better with Lowry on court and Derozen off court.  Conley always gets underrated and carried the Griz last year.  Unless you're taking into account age, I don't see why Kyrie would necessarily be ahead of either of them. 

Now Porzingis is ranked much too high.

Kyrie was #15 last year and his production actually went up last season. So he is #25 this year??? These lists are arbitrary and meaningless. It is just to get fans discussing something and clicking.

There is no criteria for the rankings. They are totally subjective and pulled from the writers butts.

[mqtcelticsfan]

I bet the moment that a guy gets on our team his rating drops, such is the way of the media.

Lol at the idea of the media having an anti-Celtics bias.

[SHAQATTACK]

Kyrie dropped 10 spots from last season's rank because....? These rankings are questionable, at best.

Because he chose Boston......a NON media darling .

Had he chose the Bulls , Knicks or Lakers .......he is automatically a top 10 player .

Media just brown noses these teams to death.

its always snub Boston and drool over anything the Lakers  do.   .....no materr how foolish they look.

He didn’t choose anything, he was traded and not a free agent. He didn’t have a no trade clause either.

Hayward, on the other hand, did choose Boston. And he rose 14 spots.

agree....goofed ..i should have said landed on Celtics not choose. 

[Granath]

It's not some sort of anti-Celtics bias. That's just stupid talk and is entirely refuted by Hawyard going up in the rankings.

It's simple folks. Your ranking tends to drop when you only play on one half of the court.

Lowry put up more rebounds, assists, steals, a better shooting percentage and was far better than Irving on defense. Conley put up similar offensive statistics except for points (5ppg fewer) but is so far ahead of Irving on defense that he gets the nod and rightfully so. When you factor in that defense is half the game it's really hard to justify putting Irving ahead of either guy.

That's the bad news. The good news is that it's far more likely that Irving can improve on defense than Lowry/Conley will improve on offense. So we all hope next years' rankings reflect Irving actually trying to contribute something on the defensive end of the court.

[ABOS (A bit of Sanity)]

the rankings were bogus up and down. But by far the one I couldn't get over was Miriotic at 88 over guys like Dirk, Schroder, and Gary Harris.

[gouki88]

It's not some sort of anti-Celtics bias. That's just stupid talk and is entirely refuted by Hawyard going up in the rankings.

It's simple folks. Your ranking tends to drop when you only play on one half of the court.

Lowry put up more rebounds, assists, steals, a better shooting percentage and was far better than Irving on defense. Conley put up similar offensive statistics except for points (5ppg fewer) but is so far ahead of Irving on defense that he gets the nod and rightfully so. When you factor in that defense is half the game it's really hard to justify putting Irving ahead of either guy.

That's the bad news. The good news is that it's far more likely that Irving can improve on defense than Lowry/Conley will improve on offense. So we all hope next years' rankings reflect Irving actually trying to contribute something on the defensive end of the court.

Is that why James Harden is one of the top guys? Kyrie improved dramatically from 15/16 to 16/17, yet he was dropped 10 spots. There is no real reasonable explanation for it. Conley and Lowry didn't have breakout seasons or anything, and I doubt many league-wide would argue the case for either of those two over Kyrie.

I'm not saying it's an anti-Celtic bias (Smart was nearly ranked as highly as Melo, for some reason), but it's definitely a stupid ranking system.