 What's the word y'all? I know the timing of this video being out is probably terrible, y'all used to these videos being out in the morning, but I gotta do what I gotta do. Cause I just figured that the people that watch this channel are watching basketball, so don't drop a video during basketball. Are you really gonna click off watching your favorite team to watch this video? You said yes to that question, I appreciate you, leave a like. No, but for real, this morning I got hit up a bunch about the ringers top 25 players in the NBA list. A lot of people are like, can you watch your reactions? Can you wanna hear what you think? So I'm here to give y'all what y'all want. But first we gotta talk about this. We gotta talk about the idea of ranking players because when I first started doing this YouTube thing and I was trying to make a name for myself, I was one of those people that love ranking players. I need to rank all 30 point guards through centers and I need to do it efficiently and I need to argue about things. I got a player as the third best point guard. You got him in number four? Oh, we gotta argue. We gotta fight to the death because I must be right, you must be wrong. Obviously that's not a great way of thinking and I've grown since then. That was like 2016, 2017 Kenny Beachham and things have changed. After 2016, 2017 Kenny Beachham, there's a version of Kenny Beachham that was completely against ranking players. Like I had the mindset that there was nothing positive that could come out of ranking players. And now I like somewhere in the middle, man. I can enjoy a nice little ranking as long as everybody associated can agree that you shouldn't take it too seriously, right? We should never be taking these little opinion-based things too seriously. And as long as you have that response or that belief, we can rate players all day, baby. You know what I'm saying? I can admit when I'm wrong, you can admit when you're wrong respect each other's opinions. As long as you have that mindset, ranking is no wrong, there's nothing wrong with it. But in NBA fan culture, there's still that sub-genre that was like me back in 2016. It was like I need to rank this player as the best at his position. And if you don't got him at number one and you got my number two as your number one, I need to bash your number two and I need to hate your number two because my number one has to be number one. I have never been a guy that has been completely married to his opinions. I am always evolving. My ideas are always evolving. And as long as you live in that little portion of life, we can be homies, man, for real. We can talk basketball all day every day. Anyway, this is something I've thought about recently and I've been wanting to talk about this on the channel for a while, so shout out to the ringer for giving me a reason to talk about this. And I don't think this is a necessarily unique idea. There's probably a million of sports fans that do this. But I'm done ranking players as saying, this person's one and this person's two and this person's three, I'm doing it at range. So for example, if you were talking about all time, if you ask somebody who is the greatest basketball player of all time, you're gonna get some people to say LeBron, you're gonna get some people to say Jordan, but those are like the two people. Those two people are getting like 98% of the votes, right? So in my mind, Jordan is either one or two, so his range is one and two. LeBron is either one or two, so his range is one and two. Karim Abdul-Zabar might be number three or he might be number four, number five. So his range is three through five. This is not my official list, but you get what I'm saying. Because there are so many different factors that can go into ranking players, it is impossible for us to really get down to a consensus. So how about we start doing it in ranges? Situation, teammates, coaching, role, all of these things are so very important to ranking players. I'm sure there are so many players in the league that if he got more opportunity or this person was given the keys, they would put up some really good stats to make them look like one of the top 25 players in league, but that's just not the case. That's just not the way it goes. So I'm gonna read the Ringer article, I'm gonna give my opinions, you might disagree, that's okay as long as we can agree that at the end of the day, it is just basketball and everybody here isn't enjoy your basketball. Hey shout out to Kevin Arant by the way, he in his post game interview, he was talking about how like some people and fans that be heckling, heckling, heckling is a word. Heckling NBA players don't really enjoy the game of basketball and he's 100% right. I legitimately know people that call themselves basketball fans or NBA fans that don't actually enjoy the game of basketball, but they just like to talk about it, which is weird to me. We all enjoy the game, let's get to the list. Here we go, the top 25 players in the NBA in 2021, 2022, I'm guessing that this just means that we are not looking at resumes, we're looking at this season and ranking players as such. And if that's the case, I'm very curious to how they rank certain players because I feel like some players or legacy players was not necessarily a bad thing, but they get ranked higher on lists, not based off their current productivity but what they've done in recent years. So we'll see. And this is not just one person, this is the entire or not the entire, down here it says Dan Devine, Zach Cram, Rob Mahoney, J. Kyle Mann, Kevin O'Connor and Jonathan Charks. Well, I don't know everybody in there, I know a good chunk of these people, Kevin O'Connor's even the homie, I will say that. If you have my phone number, we taxing, you the homie. So, and I respect a lot of these people's opinions so that makes me more intrigued about the list. And they give you some notes to start off with and we have to go through these. So honorable mentions include Dejante Barry, Chris Middleton, Bama DeBio, Evan Mobley being in here is actually interesting, man, this is a rookie. No other rookies on here, right? Yeah, no other rookies on here, but Evan Mobley's here, that just lets you know how good of a rookie season he's having. And I like the way Kay Cunningham, oh, this might be a long video by the way because I'm gonna talk talking my ass off. I like the way Kay Cunningham said recently that the end of the day, rookie of the year is just a trophy and that's 100% the case and I've been telling people that for a very, very long time. But Evan Mobley being an honorable mention on top 25 players in the league at the age of 20 or something like that, is he leap. Paul George, Lamello Ball, Darius Garland to make the list. But I don't see Jared Allen, huh? Okay, Jared Allen might be on the list and no Dearest Garland, we'll talk about that. Kari Irving didn't make it, I would guess that it has a lot to do with him playing like about 20 games at this point. Backell Bridges, Pascal Siakum, Jiren Jackson Jr., Damian Lillard. Damian's missed so much time in the season, saying they were like Paul George. It makes sense why they probably won't be on this list. Pascal Siakum, I think has a conversation to beat top 25. This might be his best season of his career even though he's been an All-Star a couple times. This might be his legit best season. The players who fell out of the 25, Audubio, George Irving, man, this is kind of crazy. Lillard Julius Randall 100% deserves, doesn't deserve to be anywhere near top 25 list again. But what a crazy season that was last year. Hopefully eventually he gets back to that place. Bradley Beal, Zion who hasn't played the season, Kawhi who hasn't played the season, who he was six last year, Damian Lillard was number 11. He completely fall off, yada, yada, yada. The widest sprains of ranking amongst individual voters by far belong to James Harden, who was ranked as high as 10 and as low as 25. Listen, I understand. I don't know, maybe I'm becoming the person I didn't want to. I was gonna say I understand how this season hasn't been necessarily a great season for James Harden. But in the last two to three weeks of the trade online, we kind of see that he is still probably top 10 in the league. But again, if we're going on the whole season, you gotta take into consideration the Brooklyn thing. You have to. So I mean, still 25 even feels low if it was just a Brooklyn thing, 25 still feels low, but it's not my list. And then Draymond Green was ranked as high as 13 on some people's list and completely off the list for others. All right, what I'll further do here are the top 25 players this season. Keep that in mind as we go through this. Number 25, Jaylen Brown. Okay, I don't hate this. Like I said, if we're going by range, I would say 25 might be the floor of, and again, I'm not making my own list right now. So take it with a grain of salt, but 25 feels like around the floor, I would have Jaylen Brown. So if that's the case, I don't hate this ranking for him at all. He's got his counting stats. Last year he wasn't ranked and he was an All-Star last season, but with Kawhi Leonard being out, Damon Lillard being out, Paul George being out, Zion being out, Julius Randall falling out, Kyrie Irving falling out. Some people are going to come up and that's going to be Jaylen Brown, even though he, again, he wasn't an All-Star this year. He had a 50. I forgot he had a 50 this season. That was a really, really good game, wasn't it? Okay, number 24 is Fred Van Vleet. It's so cool to see Freddie Magic on this, and I know Freddie Magic is not really a nickname, it's actually a rapper that I'll just do, regardless, having Fred Van Vleet knows this is great, considering his upbringing being from the area that I'm from, area kind of in Rockford and I'm here in Chicago, and I was pushing to Fred Van Vleet bandwagon for some time. I guess they kind of figured that, hey, this Pascal's not going to be here, so we're going to have Freddie be here, right? It would feel weird for the rappers to have two top 25 players and be a playing team, right? So they pick Freddie, and I'm not mad at that. I don't know what all went into making their list, and I guess I could probably read this, and they give you the reason why Player X is here, and I probably will read it after video, but again, we're taking things at face value at the moment. Number 23 is Anthony Davis, and last year he was ranked as high as number nine. And so far, based on the list, this has been the player that I think has probably the highest range between where he is and where he could be, because I think a lot of people, a majority of people acknowledge how great of a player Anthony Davis can be. But it's like, how often can we get that version of Anthony Davis? A, he's always dealing with injuries, and B, he's just be having some nights where he just don't bring us all. I just remember earlier, like three, four seasons ago, it was like the conversation, who will end up being better, Anthony Davis and Giannis, and Giannis took that and he just excelled. While Anthony Davis, of course, hasn't been bad, he's still on the top 25 list, he should be in the same conversation with Giannis based on his talent level. He just hasn't been able to A, stay healthy and put it together night in and night out. I saw this conversation the other day, they were talking about Giannis and what makes Giannis different than other players around the league and league history is that it don't matter if it's game 40 of the season, game number one or game number 82, he's going out there and playing like it's his very last and you don't have that same kind of urge with Anthony Davis night in and night out. If Anthony Davis played with that same kind of urge, I mean, there won't be many players in the league better than him. You know, there won't be many people in the league better than him. And it doesn't help for his sake that this season, he started off where he cannot hit his jump shots. And of course, Anthony Davis being more of a finesse big than a power big because he can't stay healthy, him not being able to hit that long two or hit any of his threes, really hurt his efficiency of stuff. But I will say this season defensively, he feels like maybe not the best he's ever been, but up there in his some of his best seasons, he just hasn't been able to get on the court. 22 is Zach Levine. I'm happy to see Zach Levine here. I was curious whether or not he would make it. Now, this has been a difficult season for Zach. Of course, even though he's still averaging about 25 points per game, we're round up for you, Zach. 25 points per game, five and five, let's just say that. This as a guy that's been watching Zach Levine for the last couple of seasons, this season is not nearly as great as last season. But again, with the team success, you kind of narrow in on Zach Levine a little bit more. And it has to do with him dealing with a bunch and I mean a bunch of nagging injuries. If you're not in tune with the Chicago Bulls, you would think that Zach Levine's playing healthy every night, absolutely not. The man's thumb, or was it pinky? One of his fingers on his hand has been messed up since the very start of the season. He's dealt with knee stuff and he's trying to play through because he wants to be the team leader and team captain. But it definitely has hurt him a decent amount when it comes to get into the basket. He hasn't got to the basket nearly as much as his previous seasons. And you could tell us probably because, hey, he don't get the calls that he probably deserved to get as a really good player that draws a lot of contact. But B, it's just probably not good for his body at this point. He's banged up, but it's cool to see him here because I think this is what he can be. And I'm happy he's here. 21 is the fro, like I said. I think they had to pick between Jared Allen and Darius Garland. And listen, I guess there's a real conversation between both of them, right? Nobody protects the paint literally based on statistics better than Jared Allen in the entire league. He is as versed to as a get-is-that-center position on defensive side of the ball. So I understand why he's here. He's a crazy vertical threat, and he can legitimately be the defense, right? But I think on the opposite side of that, you can make an argument that Darius Garland can be the offense and has been the offense. You just saw him drop a career hidey the other day without Jared Allen being there because they needed him to do those things. I'm not saying I disagree, but I'm saying that if this was Darius Garland and not Jared Allen, fear was interchangeable, I don't think people will be upset. I don't think people will be upset. But shout out to Jared Allen. Love to see him here. Number 20, Drew Holiday. I was listening to Zach Lowe's podcast and he was mentioning how he thinks that Drew Holiday hasn't been the same defensive player this year as he's been in previous seasons. And maybe that's the truth. Maybe that's championship fatigue. I believe that the playoffs come around. This one dude, I don't want to go out of me. And he has been a guy that's consistently, consistently just been a fourth quarter guy. Just, I think it was three games in a row. Bro Canemount had double digit points in the fourth quarter. He did it against the Bulls. He did it against the Suns the other night. He's doing this very, very regularly. And he might not be the elite of the elite defensive like he was last year during the regular season. But again, his defense is still up there. I like Drew Holiday being here. Do I like him being higher than Zach Levine? Or do I like him being higher than AD? Or even Jaylen Brown? I don't know. I don't know. Especially if you subscribe to the idea that Drew Holiday hasn't been as great defensively as last year. But Drew Holiday being here, shout out to him. Shout out to him. Next, Draymond Green. Okay, so this is interesting. And Draymond Green did make the list at number 19. Again, they said that somebody had him at 13 and somebody had him off the list completely. I've mentioned this in the videos just a couple of days ago. His eight, eight and eight, whatever, does not jump off the page at all. But there's a reason why they're like 20-something and 15 with Draymond is there. Maybe I'm off a little bit. And 14 to 15 with Draymond is not there. I'm not hearing no more Draymond Green slander. But I will say this might be, like you know how we talked about the floor for Jaylon Brown. This seems around the ceiling for Draymond Green, which is not a bad thing. James Harden at 18. Again, they're taking the averages. Somebody had him at number 10. Somebody had him at number 25. So he ends up at number 18. And this is, I don't agree with this at all. The guy that had him at 25, again, I can understand if you're taking into consideration the Brooklyn Nets thing and that being the majority of his season for sure. But him dropping all the way down here just feels wrong. It just feels wrong. Because James Harden has looked like James Harden since he's got traded, since he's been in a healthy mindset. So yes, this is below the floor. This is the lowest I've seen James Harden be. Again, they don't tell, they won't go, they're not gonna get you to balance y'all. They're not gonna get you to balance and say, hey, it was O'Connor. They had him at 25. I don't think it would be Kevin to do that. But somebody had him at 25 and the average out to 18. He's better than that for sure. Yeah, I've been the king of Rudy Gobert fandom. That's for sure for us. As long as Rudy Gobert has been a star to send in the league, I've been behind Rudy Gobert. I cannot have him higher than James Harden. And even though he might be the greatest rim protecting center in the last 10 years, 15 years, I still can't have him higher than James Harden. It's simply for the fact that I know he's averaging like career numbers at around 16 points per game, but you can't give that boy the ball and say, get us a bucket in the paint. Don't matter who's guarding them. So I can't have him this high. I love Rudy, love Rudy for sure. Can I have him this high? Not, I mean, at least if I'm comparing it to the guy that's right below him, you know what I'm saying? Next, we have Carl Anthony Towns. He was number 25 last season and you know what's crazy? These stats are eerily similar to his previous year stats. The only thing that's been different is his net rating. He's got good teammates around. He's got, they've built a good team. They have good chemistry. They have good locker room leaders and like Patrick Bevely is getting people to get in on the defensive side of the ball. They got the, they got McDaniels. They got Vanderbilt who fit nicely along sack hat. So even though he might not be the greatest center league or even one of the worst defensive centers in the league, you have the piece around him where you could cover that up and now you win more games. And just like that, you can be number 25 to number 16 just by contributing to winning basketball. So after Carl Anthony Towns, I like that spot. Trey Young at 15. Last year he wasn't ranked at all. But I also believe last year he wasn't an all-star, right? I think he was an all-star in the second season, not the third season, but then it made it again in this fourth season. I fumbled over my words like six takes. I don't even know what to really say about Trey Young. I think he's just one of the more polarizing players in the NBA mostly because A, he's such a defensive liability. He's one of the worst defensive players in the league. And it's not all just based on his size, right? There's just clips of him just not giving efforts and getting beat back door. That's like something even if he was seven feet tall, if you're doing that stuff, you're going to look like a bad defender. But he's such, he's such a one-man show. Again, they're sub 500 right now when it's like inexcusable considering they were in the conference finals last year, but he's such a one-man show that like, I'm not saying that I can excuse his poor defense because again, one of the reasons why they're not winning at many games is because the defense is trash. And I'm not saying that Trey Young could be the side effector and the defense being good, but obviously it doesn't help when you have somebody that's out there basically not contributing. And it also doesn't help that a lot of his role players that were elite last year as far as that finals run have fallen off a little bit. Clint Capela's fallen off. Kevin Herter has been kind of, John Collins has been in and out in the lineup. I guess he's been chill, but he hasn't been bringing the same defensive minded stuff that he was doing in the playoffs last season. DeAndre Hunter was holding Julius Rand to like zero points, I'm exaggerating, but zero points and hitting the shots. He hasn't even been staying healthy or even been in a lot of the lineup. So a lot of the players around him kind of shrunk. And because of the team hasn't been successful, but Trey Young is still a dude that's gonna get his stats. Regardless if they are 15-1 team or 60-1 team, these statistics are something I can guarantee for Trey Young over his career. I can't wait to actually read this because they're getting some second spectrum stuff. I don't have second spectrum. I think you have to be like a real employee of somebody and believe it or not, nevermind. Number 14, Donovan Mitchell. Look at that wingspin, man. People don't know this, but Donovan Mitchell is one of the longest wingspins of somebody his size ever. He's got the crazy arms. But Donovan Mitchell here, he's got better from last season. I was just listening to Ben Taylor's thinking basketball podcast. They did an entire episode about Donovan Mitchell and Jamaran and I don't want to reiterate what they said. I really highly recommend listening to their show. But Donovan Mitchell just has been that dude. And though the Jazz might not be as good this season as last season, I am a dude that has said many times before, especially with a team like Jazz, that it is okay to sacrifice some overall wins if you're more prepared to come to play off time because that number one C hasn't done you anything. That number two C hasn't done you anything. Sure you want a little bit of an advantage, but if you can rest up a little bit, so you can go on a run that you desperately been needing, then do that in Donovan Mitchell company. I would say there's some pressure on this core for sure. Definitely some pressure and Donovan Mitchell has to do is stay, playoffs come around. There's not many people that perform at a higher level than Donovan Mitchell. Next we have Devon Booker. These two dudes have been compared to each other as long as they've been in the league. And then they are one spot a difference from each other. Devon Booker's been one of the clutch players in the entire league. And I love that he's been showing off his playmaking more and more every single season. And now with Chris Paul, we've got Point Booker in the very first game of Point Booker. He had double digit assists and then he went out with COVID. But he's coming back. He's coming back tonight, I guess the Miami Heat. And this is interesting. Man says, is Devon Booker the 13th best player in the world? Probably not. But Contributional winning is the bump here. And that seems like it's been a case for this entire article. You got Devon Booker, they're winning. And he got Bump Carthony Towns from 25 to 16 on pretty close stats because they're winning. Who else was it? Zach Levine wasn't on his list at all, but they're winning. So here he is. Draymond Green wasn't on his list at all, but they're winning. So here he is, you know? So yes, winning does matter when it comes to ranking players. 12. I would love to see the ballots. I want to see the ballots now. How low was Jason Tatum? And how high was Jason Tatum? And you know what? That ballot that I'm thinking of is exactly what like my ranking system, right? If player X says Jason Tatum at 15 and somebody has him at 10, then his range is probably 10 to 15 because we have people in between saying he's there. But here he is at number 12. I've mentioned this on our podcast that the post-All-Star Bumper Jason Tatum has been as real as ever and it has been real for the past couple of seasons. He is just a demon. And I guess it was happening before the All-Star Break II where the Celtics went on that night game winning streak and we're winning like 14 out of 15. And Jason Tatum has improved his efficiency. Basically the same shots that were not falling before are now falling and his playmaking has been so much better in just two to three months time. Him being at number 12, I'm not mad at it all. This might stir some pots, but I'm not mad at this at all. Jimmy Butler, another polarizing player, another polarizing player because you will have a game where Jimmy Butler scores 10 points. They'll win the game. But Jimmy Butler will score 10 points and people will be like, how will people consider Jimmy Butler the 11th best player in the entire league? Contributing to winning matters, being the leader of the best team in the league, one of the best teams in the league matters. But I think that the Jimmy Butler contribution is a lot deeper than like, he might've ended with 10 points on three of 12 shooting tonight. Chris Paul, love to see it. He's better this year than last year, according to their rankings. And again, with people falling down and stuff, it makes sense. I don't really have to talk about Chris Paul. I feel like I've been talking about Chris Paul's contributions to things for a lifetime as he is my favorite player. And I love to see him this high at number 10. Number nine, you got DeMar DeRosen. And this was something I actually knew because some people that sent it to me was like, Kenny, you got to talk about how they got DeMar DeRosen at number nine when he average at 28 and he's an MVP candidate. And you know what? I'm not mad at it whatsoever, man. I'm not mad at it whatsoever. I think number nine is probably a good slash right spot for DeMar DeRosen. Number eight is John Morant. Woo, young boy. And year number three, number eight, eighth best player in the entire NBA. Wow. What a good story this is, man. Mid-major dude comes in, drafts a second overall to a small market team. They got that small market team everywhere. Watch next season, they about to get all the national televised games. Similarly, you remember the Knicks didn't have a lot of national televised games last season and they were good and the people caught on, the NBA caught on like, oh, let's get the Knicks more games. They're one of the biggest markets and they're going to be good again. And now they're not good. I think they're going to do the same thing next season where they just give the Memphis Grizzlies all of the games that the Knicks got because they should be good again next season. John Morant being the eighth best player in the entire NBA. It's not something I can argue at all. He's a highlight reel. He's been one of the better leaders in the entire league. I know there's an argument that says that, hey, oh, there was actually an executive, an anonymous executive, because they're always anonymous. They said, if you switch John Morant and Shay Gills Alexander, the same things will be happening. Love Shay, for sure. He's one of my favorite players in the league and that anonymous GM might be right. Again, like I said, all of this is very situational based, but I do believe that John Morant is super special. I do believe that John Morant is super special. And this stuff that he's doing right now, I don't think this is anomaly. I think this is the type of player John Morant is going to be and he's going to get better with time. John Morant being the number eight dope. Number seven is Luca. All right. So I personally believe that Luca's range, and I'm being honest here, Luca's range as ranking the top players in the NBA right now, I think his high will be like four, maybe three and eight at his floor. And him being at seven makes sense. He's a guy, I mean, he came into the season out of shape and because of that, he didn't look great. The team didn't look great, but now he's in shape. Post All-Star Luca has been killing and even though the pieces around him might not be All-Star quality or even great, he's making that team look elite. Special then what he has been really, really good. And he looks like a good running mate for Luca. So him being the number seven, it falls into my range. So I'm okay with that. I mean, he's not even 25, which is the craziest thing. LeBron at number six. Okay, so this is what they said. This is the lowest that LeBron has been in his career since, I think they said 17, 18. He's after 29, eight and six, a block of game. He's in conversation for scoring title. I'm very curious. I'm actually going to read this one right now and see why they have been number six. They don't really say anything negative in here about his fall, but maybe LeBron's fall, in their opinion, LeBron's fall is not to do with himself, but to do with like Steph Curry, who I guess was number four last season. So even he fell a little bit. And just to let me know, again, with all this stuff, let me know what you think in the comment section. Number four is Wardale, Steph and Curry, or number five is Wardale, Steph and Curry. This is unambiguously Steph's worst offensive season since he first won MVP in the first title. Oh, okay. He's still fifth. With that being said. Steph Curry's still the fifth best player in the league according to the Ringo, with all that being said. And then they get into some advanced stats with Raptor. I don't even know what the hell that stands for, but I've seen it before. Oh, and then they move on to Kevin Arrant. We actually not getting big write-ups on the lower people, but the higher people, like Chris Paul got four paragraphs. They said, we don't need to tell you what LeBron doing. You watch a basketball, right? We don't need to tell you what Steph Curry's doing. We give you two paragraphs of Steph Curry. Everybody else getting a whole page, two paragraphs. You've been watching Steph Curry, right? And he's been in a, I don't wanna say slump, but he ain't been as great recently and the team hasn't either. Kevin Arrant at number four. Number three is Joellen Bean. Number two is gonna be Yannis. And they had him at number seven last season. Oh, that's kind of wild. All right. And number one is Nikoli Okich. For the second year in a row, Nikoli Okich is ranked the best player in the entire league. How great is that? I'm not mad at this at all. Do I agree with everything in this list? Hell no. Hell no. I don't think this is an absolutely terrible, everybody must be fire type list of fireball offense. I've seen those type of lists before. I've seen those type of lists before. I don't know. Again, as long as we take it with, it's just basketball. None of it even matters. But it's cool to see other people's opinions. And now what I'm about to go do is go to the very top of this article again and actually read the statistics and the write ups with all of these people set out to the ringer and everybody that contributed to it, though I don't agree with everything you said, I respect what you said, you know what I'm saying? And hopefully everybody else in the comment section will give us a chance to, if you enjoyed the video, leave it a like.