ESPN NBA rank: 5 youngsters who can improve their rankings this season
ESPN's preseason player rankings for the 2018-19 season were released, and as with most of their publications, they drew a lot of flak for making some poor selections. As with their rankings every year, there are obvious double standards which they failed to identify when their writers pose arguments for why specific players are at specific spots on their top players' lists.
One of the few consistent themes through their list is the fact that they've rated promising youngsters quite high. The likes of Jayson Tatum, Donovan Mitchell and Ben Simmons all find themselves within the top 24 - signifying that they're expected to be All Star-caliber or All-NBA caliber players this season.
Apart from the aforementioned players, there are a couple of others who have been rated pretty highly, but their ceiling looks even dizzier at the moment given their outstanding performances from the 2017-18 season. Let's take a look at the 5 players who look likely to prove their value and rankings right, potentially even playing better than where they're currently ranked:
#1 Jayson Tatum
Tatum evolved from a role-playing starter into playoff closer pretty quickly, slicing and dicing opposition defenses on his way to an 18.5 PPG average in 19 playoff games. With Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward back and both likely to occupy the premier scoring roles during the regular season, it will be difficult for Tatum to translate his playoff game into the regular season as, at best, the Celtics' tertiary scorer.
Brad Stevens has shown a willingness to field undersized lineups as long as the best talent he has is out there on the court. The competition for minutes within the Celtics' ranks will be immense, but given the fact that they brought back nearly every player from last season, Stevens wouldn't have to change his preseason rotations from last year this time around.
All of this implies that Tatum has the chance to star in a Klay Thompson-like capacity on the Celtics, who are essentially the Warriors' version of the Eastern Conference. And that should be good enough for the #24 spot that he's been pegged. If he succeeds in cracking 20 ppg as the 3rd option, that's when the bells will starting ringing for All-NBA candidacy.